Śivasaṃhitā 4.39

This verse describes the internal alchemy that occurs when prāṇa and apāna — the ascending and descending currents of vital energy — are forced to meet. This encounter generates an internal heat (amplified jāṭharāgni) that, according to the subtle physiology of the text, liquefies the amṛta stored in the sahasrāracakra and causes it to descend. The bandha functions as the key that unlocks this distillation.

Ūrdhvagatyartha — ‘with the purpose of upward movement’ — expresses the teleology of the Mahābandha: it is not merely a muscular contraction but an intentional act oriented toward awakening. Sudhī (the one of good intelligence, the wise one) suggests that the ideal practitioner combines technical knowledge with philosophical understanding. Amṛta — literally ‘without death’, from the privative a- and mṛta, dead — is the nectar of immortality that drips from the thousand-petalled lotus.

The notion that the three worlds (triloka: earth, atmosphere, and heaven) are available to the immortal yogi reflects the purāṇic cosmology integrated into tantric practice. Immortality here is not necessarily the negation of physical death but liberation from identification with the mortal body, the state that the Śivasaṃhitā calls jīvanmukti: liberated while alive.