Panchabhuta
( The Five Cosmic Elements )
Panchabhuta is based on Sankaracharya’s Soudaryalahari and Taittariya Upanishad.
The choreography begins with the concept of the union of Shakti and Shiva that yields the five elements, the Panchabhuta – Ether, Wind, Fire, Water and Earth. From this great amalgamation comes the life force to create the world. The most evolved of the natural world, human beings are the prototype of the macrocosmic universe.
Every human has seven Chakras (energy centres in the shape of a wheel) located along a central vertical axis of the spine. The human energy, or Kundalini, resides in the Mooladhara Chakra at the base of the spinal cord as three and a half coils, like a serpent.
Adi Sankaracharya speaks in Soudaryalahari of the five cosmic elements corresponding to the five charkas. The Earth is connected to the Mooladhara Chakra, Water to the Manipura Chakra, Fire to the Swadhistana Chakra, Air to the Anahata Charka, and Eather to the Vishuddhi Chakra. In between the eyelids is the Ajna Chakra, which is connected to the mind and in the bottom of the brain is the Sahasrara Chakra, in the shape of a thousand petal lotus where Goddess Parvathi and her consort Shiva reside in solitude.
Esoteric practices enable the uncoiling of the Kundalini, which rises in twisted swirls invoking all the Chakras one by one and finally reaches the Sahasrara Chakra, and the human being experiences the ultimate truth, the very cause of existence & the eternal continuum in the universe.