The Seba library treats Vedantic Sheaths in 7 passages, across 6 authors (including Zimmer, Heinrich, Campbell, Joseph, Bryant, Edwin F.).
the Self is concealed within five sheaths, five superimposed psychosomatic layers. The first and most substantial is that known as anna-maya-kośa, ‘the sheath made of food,’ which is, of course, the gross body
Zimmer provides the most sustained primary exposition of the pañcakośa doctrine in the depth-psychology corpus, identifying each sheath by name and correlating the first with waking consciousness as described in the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad.
, Philosophies of India, 1951thesis
sheath of bliss (anandamaya-kosa), xxi, xxii sheath of breath (pranamaya-kosa), xx
Campbell’s index entries confirm his deliberate adoption of the Vedantic kośa terminology as operative categories within his framework for personal transformation and mythological interpretation.
, Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation, 2004thesis
The earliest reference to yoga is actually in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (II.5.4), after a discussion of the five kośas, or layers, that make up an individual
Bryant situates the pañcakośa doctrine as the Upaniṣadic matrix from which yoga first emerges textually, establishing the sheaths as structurally foundational to the entire Indic contemplative tradition.
, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary, 2009supporting
there is the necessity in the Inconscient of bringing out what is latent within it, and there is the pressure of the superior principles in the higher planes which not only aids this general necessity to realise itself
Aurobindo’s doctrine of ascending and descending planes of being functions as a dynamic evolutionary reinterpretation of the Vedantic stratified-sheath model, mapping the kośas onto cosmic ontological levels.
, The Life Divine, 1939supporting
the Vedantic Seers, even after they had arrived at the crowning idea, the convincing experience of Sachchidananda as the highest positive expression of the Reality, erected in their speculations or went on in their perceptions to an Asat, a Non-Being beyond
Aurobindo positions the Vedantic seers as pressing beyond even the highest sheath-level experience (ānandamayakośa as Sachchidananda) toward an ineffable Non-Being, radicalizing the kośa framework’s terminal term.
, The Life Divine, 1939supporting
the chakras are presumably equivalent to earlier localizations of consciousness (the anahata-chakra, for instance, corresponding to the φρένες of the Greeks)
Jung implicitly parallels the Vedantic-Tantric stratification of subtle bodies with cross-cultural localizations of consciousness, providing a depth-psychological analogical context for the sheath doctrine.
, Collected Works Volume 3: The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease, 1907aside
He, nearest of the near, my own self, the reality of my own life, my body and my soul.—I am Thee and Thou art Me.
James cites Vedantic Advaita language of self-identity to illustrate mystical experience, gesturing toward the dissolution of sheath-distinctions in the recognition of ātman as Brahman.
, The Varieties of Religious Experience Amazon, 1902aside