Pingala

Pingala (Devanagari: पिङ्गल piṅgala) is the traditional name of the author of the Chandaḥśāstra (also Chandaḥsūtra), the earliest known Sanskrit treatise on prosody.

Little is known about Piṅgala himself. In later Indian literary tradition, he is variously identified either as the younger brother of Pāṇini (4th century BC), or as Patañjali, the author of the Mahabhashya (2nd century BC).

The Chandaḥśāstra is a work of eight chapters in the late Sūtra style, not fully comprehensible without a commentary. It has been dated to either the final centuries BC or the early centuries AD, at the transition between Vedic meter and the classical meter of the Sanskrit epics. This would place it close to the beginning of the Common Era, likely post-dating Mauryan times. The 10th century mathematician Halayudha wrote a commentary on the Chandaḥśāstra and expanded it.

Combinatorics

The Chandaḥśāstra presents the first known description of a binary numeral system in connection with the systematic enumeration of meters with fixed patterns of short and long syllables. The discussion of the combinatorics of meter corresponds to the binomial theorem. Halāyudha's commentary includes a presentation of the Pascal's triangle (called meruprastāra). Pingala's work also contains the Fibonacci numbers, called mātrāmeru.

Nadi (yoga)

Nāḍī (Sanskrit नाडी nāḍī = tube, pipe; Tamilⁱ/ˈ/naadi) நாடி = nerve, blood vessel, pulse) are a term for the channels through which, in traditional Indian medicine and spiritual science, the energies of the physical body, the subtle body and the causal body are said to flow. Within this philosophical framework, the nadis are said to connect at special points of intensity called nadichakras. The concepts of a subtle body and a causal body are not recognised terms used in conventional science or medicine.

The word "nadi" is pronounced as "nāḍī", with long vowel sounds and a retroflex 'd'. They are an important concept in Hindu philosophy and are mentioned and described in numerous texts going back about 3,000 years to the earliest scriptures. All texts explains that there are a large amount of nadis present in the human bodies, some claims hundred-of-thousands, some millions. In regard to Kundalini yoga, there are three important nadis: ida, pingala, and sushumna. Ida (इडा, iḍā) lies to the left of the spine, whereas pingala (पिङ्गल, piṅgala) is to the right side of the spine, mirroring the ida. Sushumna (सुषुम्णा, suṣumṇā) runs along the spinal cord in the center, through the seven chakras – Muladhara at the base, and Sahasrara at the top (or crown) of the head. Under the correct conditions the energy of kundalini is said to uncoil and enter sushumna through the brahma dwara or gate of Brahma at the base of the spine.