Respiration as World Incineration

 The process of respiration is viewed as some sort of a burning or incineration of the world in which the entire (old) world is destroyed and a new world is created. 

This creation and destruction of the world is indicated through a sequence of anatomical movements along the structures.

 In all probability the route taken from the hilum of the lung towards the acini is representative of the stage of unfolding and creation. This is the route taken by the neural entities for the purpose of innervating the bronchial lotus. 

As we saw in the chapter on the motifs and metaphors, the deoxygenated blood (carried by the pulmonary arterial conduit) is viewed as the fire of destruction. It is this "fire" that is released  from the mouth of Ananta, the zoomorphic form of the (primary) pulmonary artery, at the level of the acinus.

Without doubt, the pulmonary arterial realm is the domain of kala with Ananta, the great serpent, standing for the pulmonary artery itself.

At the end of the kalpa comes the rain of dissolution (pralaya) – the  great showers of oxygen molecules emanating from the alveoli contained in the respiratory bronchioles. 

The flow of oxygenated blood takes the opposite route (distal to proximal). The journey of this flow – from the acini to the heart – [and the subsequent "flooding" of the respiratory lotus by the flow of the bronchial arteries ?] may stand for the entire creation getting submerged by the "waters." It is oxygenated blood that is referred to by "water" in the Puranic code. 

The end of this journey, which is at the point of the left atrium of the heart in the mediastinum, would signify, perhaps, that stage of nothingness in which the creation completely vanishes. Sankaradeva has described this stage in the following manner in his Anadi Patana:

[nahi jala nahi sthala nahike akasa]

At this point, there are no conduits and "gross elements." Correspondingly, in the big picture of reality (macrocosm), there would be no evolutes of matter. 

In this stage, the philosopher-anatomists of the Puranas have visualized the purusa and through him the Lord as reposing on the "waters" – on the "mattress" of the pulmonary trunk – and remaining simply as the lynchpin of the entire creation. He is now, as it were, in a state of meditative sleep!