Wind, Fire, and Water: The Elemental Logic of Expiatory Prāṇāyāma

The idea that prāṇāyāma purifies moral faults appears both in several haṭhayoga texts and in earlier accounts of breath control in Dharmaśāstra literature. While prāṇāyāma has been extensively studied as both a physiological and contemplative technique within yoga’s ancillary disciplines, its role as a form of penance has received comparatively little interest. This paper investigates the rationale behind the expiatory role of prāṇāyāma. On what grounds do yoga texts claim that prāṇāyāma purifies sins? What is the mechanism through which prāṇāyāma purifies moral faults? I trace the rationale for the expiatory nature of breath control back to the description of the sacrifice to the fires in the prāyaścitta section of the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa. The “elemental” logic grounded in the ritual relations among air, fire, and water present in the Vedic agnihotra offers a useful explanation for the expiatory mechanism of prāṇāyāma in later traditions.