Cakra - Etymology

Etymology

Bhattacharyya's review of Tantric history says that the word chakra is used to mean several different things in the Sanskrit sources:

  1. "Circle," used in a variety of senses, symbolizing endless rotation of shakti.
  2. A circle of people. In rituals there are different cakra-sādhanā in which adherents assemble and perform rites. According to the Niruttaratantra, chakras in the sense of assemblies are of 5 types.
  3. The term chakra also is used to denote yantras or mystic diagrams, variously known as trikoṇa-cakra, aṣṭakoṇa-cakra, etc.
  4. Different "nerve plexus within the body."

In Buddhist literature the Sanskrit term cakra (Pali cakka) is used in a different sense of "circle," referring to a Buddhist conception of the Cycle of Rebirth consisting of six states in which beings may be reborn.

The linguist Jorma Koivulehto wrote (2001) of the annual Finnish Kekri celebration having borrowed the word from early Indo-Aryan. Indo-European cognates include Greek kuklos, Lithuanian kaklas, Tocharian B kokale and English "wheel," as well as "circle."

Cognates of "chakra" still exist in modern Asian languages as well. In Malay, "cakera" means "disc," e.g. "cakerva padat" = "compact disc."

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