Chakras between history, symbol, and experience

What do historians and anthropologists say about chakras?

Over the previous articles we traced the story of chakras across nearly three millennia — from the traditions of India, through Theosophy and psychology, to contemporary models with 9, 12 or 13 centres.

But what do the researchers who have studied these texts and historical transformations actually say? Do they see chakras as an energetic reality, a symbolic language, or a cultural construction?

It is worth stepping outside the world of practice for a moment and looking at these maps through the eyes of historians of religions, philologists and anthropologists. Their perspectives do not cancel the practical value of chakras — but they place it in a broader, more honest context.

Philology and diversity — there was never a single system

The first thing philological research makes clear is that there was never a single unified model of chakras in the Indian traditions.

Alexis Sanderson, widely regarded as the foremost specialist in Tantric Shaivism, demonstrates that the texts describe profoundly different models: 5, 6, 7, 9, 12 centres — sometimes even more. Each tradition and each era constructed its own map, adapted to its specific practical and ritual purposes. The idea of a unified chakra system is a modern construction, not a reality transmitted unchanged across the millennia.

This conclusion is reinforced by James Mallinson and Mark Singleton, through the Haṭha Yoga Project and their landmark book Roots of Yoga. Their research shows that many ancient texts do not mention chakras at all, that where they do appear their number and function vary considerably, and that the seven-chakra system only became dominant relatively late, within certain Tantric lineages. The colours, shapes and psychology associated with chakras in modern literature are, for the most part, recent additions — the result of Theosophical synthesis and twentieth-century Western reinterpretation.

Sanderson, Mallinson and Singleton invite us to let go of the idea of an "original system" and to understand chakras as multiple, parallel traditions rather than a single fixed truth.

The body as symbolic language and sacred space

The second thread running through these researchers is that Tantric texts do not describe anatomy — they reconfigure the way the practitioner inhabits the body.

Mircea Eliade proposes, in Yoga: Immortality and Freedom and his studies on Tantrism, a phenomenological reading of yoga: the language of subtle centres must be understood in the context of spiritual experience, not physical anatomy. The yogic body becomes a sacred geography, an inner space mapped through practice and symbol. Chakras are not organs but sites of inner metamorphosis — instruments for describing ecstasy, awakening and transmutation. Eliade's contribution is the phenomenological and comparative framework: he shows that yoga is not a system of techniques but a technology of consciousness transformation, and that the language of chakras must be read through this lens, not as an alternative anatomy.

André Padoux, one of the foremost specialists in Tantrism, goes further and shows that Tantric texts use a deeply symbolic language designed to transform perception, not to describe it. Lotuses, mantras, energetic channels, inner deities — all are devices that restructure the way the practitioner experiences reality. Chakras are part of an interior cosmology, not a fixed subtle anatomy.

Gavin Flood completes this picture, in works like The Tantric Body and An Introduction to Hinduism, by showing that Tantrism does not see the body as an obstacle to spirituality but as the very place where spirituality is lived. Tantric traditions transform the body into a sacred space of practice, and chakras provide a map of interiority — a way of transforming bodily perception through sensation, breath, visualisation and presence.

David Gordon White, in The Alchemical Body, demonstrates that the origins of the subtle body are even more diverse: Tantric alchemy, yogic rituals, meditative visualisations, Shaivite and Buddhist cosmologies. Chakras appear in texts as sites of alchemical distillation, centres of subtle breath, cosmological nodes — always multiple, always flexible, adapted to the purpose of the practice. What we call the "subtle body" is constructed through ritual and symbol, not described as objective anatomy.

Practice, culture and modernity

While historians and philologists follow the texts, anthropologists ask a different question: how are these ideas actually lived and transmitted by real people, in concrete cultural contexts?

Geoffrey Samuel, in The Origins of Yoga and Tantra, shows that subtle body systems always appear in specific ritual contexts: meditation, breathwork, visualisation, initiation, bodily practices. The question of whether chakras "really exist" is less relevant than asking how they are used and how they shape bodily and spiritual experience. From this perspective, chakras are cultural technologies of transformation, not anatomical objects.

June McDaniel, studying mystical experiences in Bengal (Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls), brings an essential perspective: she follows not texts but the lived experiences of practitioners. Chakras are part of an interior landscape accessed through ecstasy, devotion, ritual trance and intense emotion. For many practitioners, they are not diagrams but direct experiences: sensations, visions, emotional and spiritual transformations. The anthropology of experience completes the historical perspective — chakras are not only symbols but ways of sensing and inhabiting the body.

Joseph Alter, in Yoga in Modern Indiastudies how chakras were reshaped in the modern period through contact with Western medicine, psychology and global culture. The model we use today is not a faithful copy of an ancient tradition — it is the result of a complex dialogue between India and the West, a synthesis of Tantric symbolism, modern anatomy and popular spirituality.

Hugh Urban, in Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power, analyses how chakras were reinterpreted in the twentieth century: coloured by Theosophy, psychologised by the New Age movement, popularised through Western yoga. The modern colours of the chakras, their association with endocrine glands, the psychological reading inaugurated by Jung — all are relatively recent cultural filters. Urban does not deny the value of chakras, but makes it clear that what we use today is a modern synthesis, not a pure tradition.

How the 7-Chakra model emerged — a brief historical synthesis

Looking at all this research, the story of the seven-chakra model becomes clearer.

In pre-modern India there were multiple models — 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12 centres — each tied to a distinct tradition or era. When nineteenth-century European scholars began translating Tantric texts, they selected primarily manuscripts using a seven-centre system, creating the impression that this was the original model.

The decisive moment came in the twentieth century, when Theosophy — through Blavatsky, Leadbeater and Besant — combined fragments from Indian traditions with Western occultism, nascent psychology and European symbolism. They stabilised the seven-chakra model, introduced the modern chakra colours and linked chakras to the endocrine glands. This is the moment the model became standardised and exportable.

In the following decades, transpersonal psychology and the New Age movement psychologised the Theosophical model: chakras became symbols of personal development, stages of emotional maturation, therapeutic tools. This psychological reading is a Western invention, not a direct continuation of Indian traditions.

What most books and courses use today is a Theosophical synthesis, reinterpreted psychologically and perceived as traditional. It is not false — it is simply younger and more Western than we tend to believe.

Conclusion — between perspectives, practice, and evolution

Looking across all these perspectives, it becomes clear that chakras are not a fixed system but a living language — one that has evolved across centuries, reinterpreted by each tradition and each era.

Historians and philologists show there was never a single unified model. Anthropologists show that these maps appear in specific cultural and ritual contexts, shaped by and shaping living communities. Modern researchers show that what we consider "traditional" is often a recent synthesis.

None of this undermines the practical value of chakras. It means we are not obliged to choose between "true" and "false", between "seven" and "twelve", between "traditional" and "modern". Chakras are maps of interiority — ways of giving form to subtle experiences that resist ordinary language.

The question is not which model is correct, but which model helps us understand more clearly what we are living.

And the fact that there are so many models is not a problem — it is a sign that human beings continue to search, to feel and to translate into symbols what they experience within. No map can contain the entire territory. But sometimes the right map helps us see more clearly the path we are walking.

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If you would like to continue this exploration, the series traces the history and evolution of chakras from their roots in India to contemporary models. These article are not an academic resource, but a narrative synthesis.

Art 1 : Chakras — the story before the West

Art 2 : Chakras in the West: reinvention, psychology, and New Age

Art 3: From 7 to 13 chakras — how modern energetic systems evolved

Art 5 : Modern Indian voices on chakras and Kundalini

And if you’re interested in how these models can be used in practice — in multidimensional constellations and in exploring human experience— you can also read the article „Chakras – a map of the light that moves through us”.

In the guides the Architecture of Being series, my interest is different: not where these maps come from, but what happens when we use them in practice. There, the chakras and subtle bodies become representatives in the constellation field — meeting points between body, emotions, family memory, and human experience.

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Perhaps no map can contain the entire territory. But sometimes the right map can help us see more clearly the path we are walking.