Śivasaṃhitā 3.38

Three prohibitions pointing to energy dissipation through the most common vectors: desire (strīsaṅgama), ritual (agnisevā), and speech (bahvālāpa). The Śivasaṃhitā’s yogin does not deny fire, language, or relationship — they manage them with precise energetic economy. Excessive talking disperses udāna vāyu at the throat; sexual excitation dissipates ojas; ritual without interiorization is pure surface, an empty act.

Strīsaṅgama (company of women, union with women) appears in multiple haṭhayogic texts as an obstacle to brahmacarya. Agnisevā (fire service, fire worship) is striking in a Śaiva text, since Śiva himself is associated with cosmic fire. The prohibition points to external ritual (bāhya pūjā) without inner transformation as distraction. Priyāpriya indicates that even the quality of speech content is irrelevant: it is the quantity that exhausts.

The restriction of speech as yogic practice — mauna — has roots in the Upaniṣads and Vedic Brahmanism, where the brahmin kept silence at moments of special ritual potency. The Śivasaṃhitā secularizes this practice: it is not ceremonial silence but conservation of pure prānic energy. The same economy that governs breathing governs speech. Breath spent on words is irrecoverable prāṇa.