Śivasaṃhitā 4.46

The image of gods trembling before the impact of vāyu in the chakras is a poetic expression of the mechanism of Mahāvedha: the physical vibration of the tapping produces a wave that traverses the energy centers and dislodges the stagnant energies residing there. The ‘gods’ (devāḥ) in this context are the presiding deities in each chakra — Gaṇeśa in mūlādhāra, Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Rudra in the upper chakras.

Vāyutāḍana — ‘the blow of the vāyu’ — employs tāḍana (blow, impact, from the root taḍ-, to strike), describing the mechanical action of the practice: the percussion of the sitting bones against the floor transmits a vibration to the prāṇamayakośa, the energetic body. Pralaya (cosmic dissolution, the end of the universal cycle) is the most extreme possible temporal reference: to state that even in universal dissolution the yogi is not destroyed is equivalent to affirming the realization of the indestructible nature of Ātman.

The prescription of three daily hours places this practice in the category of high-commitment formal sādhanas. In medieval Nātha monasteries, this implied a total life discipline: specific diet, celibacy, seclusion, and practice before dawn. Survival through pralaya is not personal immortality but recognition that the consciousness that practices is the same consciousness underlying the cosmos.