Modern esotericism often refers to the physical, etheric, astral, mental, causal, buddhic, and atmic bodies. This classification is frequently presented as an ancient Indian teaching. However, the foundations of the system familiar today took shape in the literature of the Theosophical Society at the turn of the twentieth century through the combination of Indian concepts with Western esoteric terminology.

The Human Being in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (ca. Sixth–Fifth Centuries BCE)

The Taittirīya Upaniṣad begins its description of the human being with the annarasamaya puruṣa—the person consisting of the essence of food. The text then proceeds successively to vital breath, mind, cognition, and bliss. Each successive level is called “another Ātman situated within” the preceding one:

• prāṇamaya—consisting of vital breath;
• manomaya—consisting of mind;
• vijñānamaya—consisting of cognition;
• ānandamaya—consisting of bliss.

In the Brahmananda Valli, the word ātman is used successively with reference to all five levels, including annamaya. In the instructional treatises of Advaita Vedānta, this sequence was systematized as the doctrine of the five kośa, presented in the Tattvabodha, Pañcadaśī, and Vedāntasāra.

The word kośa is usually translated as “sheath,” but it also means a receptacle, case, or repository. The five kośa are not five independent bodies, but five constituents of conditioned human existence. In later Advaita Vedānta, they are correlated with the gross, subtle, and causal bodies:

• annamaya kośa—the physical body, which arises from and is sustained by food;
• prāṇamaya kośa—the vital breaths and organs of action;
• manomaya kośa—the mind and organs of perception;
• vijñānamaya kośa—the intellect and organs of perception;
• ānandamaya kośa—the sheath of bliss associated with the causal body.

The Doctrine of the Three Bodies

Alongside the five kośa, the doctrine of the three bodies—śarīra-traya—developed in later Advaita Vedānta:

• sthūla śarīra—the gross body;
• sūkṣma śarīra—the subtle body;
• kāraṇa śarīra—the causal body.

This classification is presented in the Tattvabodha, Pañcadaśī, and Vedāntasāra. The five sheaths are distributed among the three bodies as follows:

• annamaya kośa belongs to the gross body;
• prāṇamaya, manomaya, and vijñānamaya kośa belong to the subtle body;
• ānandamaya kośa belongs to the causal body.

From a historical perspective, the sequence of levels of the human being in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, their later systematization as the five sheaths in Advaita Vedānta manuals, and the classification of the three bodies represent related but non-identical stages in the development of Advaita Vedāntic anthropology.

In Sāṃkhya philosophy, the concept of liṅga śarīra (the subtle body) denoted a subtle psychophysical complex that comprised a person’s mental, sensory, and vital functions and persisted through the cycle of rebirth until liberation was attained.

Other Philosophical Concepts

In addition to Advaita Vedānta and Sāṃkhya, distinct conceptions of the human constitution also developed in other Indian philosophical and religious traditions. The following examples are not presented as stages in the development of a single system, but as evidence of the diversity of Indian models of the human being.

Tantric and related yogic traditions developed models of the internal organization of the human being that included teachings on nāḍī (channels), cakra (chakras), prāṇa (vital breath), and, in some traditions, kuṇḍalinī. Tibetan Buddhist tantra developed a system of channels (rtsa), winds (rlung), and drops (thig le), as well as a doctrine of the illusory body (sgyu lus), regarded as the result of tantric practice.

Jain philosophy (Tattvārthasūtra) distinguishes five types of bodies (śarīra): the physical (audārika), the transformable (vaikriyika), the special āhāraka body, as well as the fiery (taijasa) and karmic (kārmaṇa).

Early Buddhism contains the concept of manomaya-kāya (a “mind-made body”). In the Sāmaññaphala Sutta, it is described as “another body” arising as a result of profound meditative practice. Unlike the kośa and śarīra of Advaita Vedānta, manomaya-kāya is not regarded as a universal constituent of human nature, but as one of the extraordinary attainments of an experienced practitioner. In Mahāyāna literature, this concept was developed further with reference to arhats, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas.

These examples show that Indian philosophical and religious traditions developed different models of human nature; however, these models arose independently of one another and did not form a single pan-Indian doctrine of multiple bodies. Contemporary scholarship often uses the analytical term subtle body for their comparative analysis, bringing together different conceptions of the subtle or nonphysical aspects of human existence without assuming that they originated from a single system.

Western Conceptions of the Composite Nature of the Human Being

Conceptions of the composite nature of the human being, comprising bodily, psychical, and spiritual elements, existed in various cultures long before the foundation of the Theosophical Society. Ancient Egyptian religion distinguished the body and several constituents of the person, among which the vital force ka, the individual principle ba, and the transfigured state of the deceased akh were considered central (alongside the heart ib, the name ren, and so forth). Classical philosophy developed the distinction between body and soul, while Neoplatonism developed the concept of the ochēma—the “vehicle” or “chariot of the soul” connecting it with embodied existence.

Similar ideas also developed in the Western esoteric tradition—in Kabbalistic teachings on the levels of the soul, Hermeticism, and Paracelsian concepts of spiritus and the sidereal body. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Mesmerism, which posited the existence of an invisible universal fluid, was added to them. These ideas did not constitute a single system or form a ready-made model of seven bodies, but they created an intellectual environment in which a multilevel human constitution was already perceived as a familiar conception.

By the time the Theosophical Society was founded in 1875, Western esoteric culture possessed a developed set of conceptions concerning the nonphysical constituents of the human being. Theosophical authors combined them with Indian philosophical categories and incorporated them into a general anthropological and cosmological classification. In doing so, they referred not only to earlier teachings but also to their own investigations, which they defined as occult and clairvoyant. The resulting model was therefore a new synthesis in which Sanskrit terms frequently acquired functions different from their meanings in Indian philosophical systems.

The term “astral” derives from the Late Latin astralis, “stellar,” formed from astrum, “star, celestial body.” The Latin astrum itself was borrowed from the Greek astron, “star.” Originally, the word denoted a relation to the stars or the celestial sphere; the meaning associated with supersensible reality developed later. In Western esoteric literature, the concept of the “astral” was used in different ways. Paracelsus distinguished the human physical body from the corpus sidereum—the sidereal, or stellar, body that connected the human being with celestial forces. In the nineteenth century, Éliphas Lévi developed the doctrine of the “astral light”—an invisible universal mediator and agent of magical effects. The conception of the astral world as a separate plane of being and of the astral body as its corresponding vehicle of consciousness received a more consistent formulation later, primarily in the literature of the Theosophical Society.

The word “ether” derives from the Greek aithēr, which denoted the purer and brighter upper air or sky. In Aristotle’s natural philosophy, celestial bodies consisted of a special first element distinct from earth, water, air, and fire. In early modern and nineteenth-century physics, the luminiferous ether was understood as a hypothetical medium filling space and enabling the propagation of light waves.

How the Sevenfold System Emerged

In Isis Unveiled (1877), Blavatsky predominantly describes the human being in terms of body, soul, and spirit. The conception of seven principles constituting the human being was presented publicly later—in the first installment of “Fragments of Occult Truth,” published in The Theosophist in October 1881. In August 1882, Blavatsky published her own list of seven principles with Sanskrit names. In 1883, Sinnett presented this model in detail in the chapter “The Constitution of Man” in Esoteric Buddhism, where the human being is regarded as a combination of seven principles: Rūpa, Prāṇa, Liṅga Śarīra, Kāma Rūpa, Manas, Buddhi, and Ātma. Blavatsky subsequently continued to develop this conception and presented it in an accessible, systematic form in The Key to Theosophy (1889).

The choice of seven elements was connected with the general Theosophical cosmology. In The Secret Doctrine, the sevenfold pattern extends to the constitution of the cosmos and the human being. The human being is regarded as a microcosm; therefore, the physical, vital, psychic, and spiritual constituents are likewise combined into seven principles.

Historians of esotericism associate the formation of this model with the interaction of Western and Indian intellectual traditions. Wouter Hanegraaff notes that after Blavatsky and Olcott moved to India, the teaching of the Theosophical Society began to change under the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism. Malin Fitger, however, shows that the transition from a tripartite conception of the human being to seven principles had been prepared even before this. Western arithmology, Pythagorean and Kabbalistic symbolism, and nineteenth-century Masonic and mythographic literature played an important role. She concludes that the sevenfold structure was already taking shape in Blavatsky’s early constructions and, after the move to India (Adyar), was associated with Indian concepts and received a new terminological formulation.

Initially, T. Subba Row—an Indian author, a scholar of Vedānta, and a prominent member of the Theosophical Society—supported the sevenfold classification and attempted to correlate it with Indian esoteric teachings. By 1886, however, he had revised his position and called the division of the human being into seven principles accepted in the Society’s literature “most unscientific and misleading.” In his view, the principles listed did not correspond to natural lines of division in the human constitution and did not possess independent existence in the form in which the classification presented them. Subba Row also noted that the sevenfold scheme was absent from many Hindu writings and was largely incomprehensible to the Indian reader. Instead, he used a fourfold classification in which ātman manifests through the causal, subtle, and physical bodies. The subsequent controversy with Blavatsky shows that the validity of the sevenfold classification was already disputed within the Theosophical Society itself.

Researchers therefore speak of an evident but selective borrowing and reinterpretation, rather than the transfer of a ready-made Indian teaching. Theosophical literature adopted a wide range of Sanskrit names and Indian categories connected with the human constitution, vital force, mind, consciousness, bodies, and kośa. In the new anthropological and cosmological system, these concepts were regrouped, correlated with Western conceptions, and assigned different functions.

Later, in the transition from principles to bodies, Annie Besant directly correlated Theosophical forms (bodies) with the Advaita Vedāntic kośa and distributed their content among etheric, astral, mental, causal, and buddhic vehicles. This correlation confirms the actual use of the Indian classification, while at the same time showing how substantially it was transformed.

Blavatsky’s Seven Principles

In the literature of the Theosophical Society in the 1880s, human nature was described through seven principles. Helena Blavatsky presented a systematic account of them in The Key to Theosophy:

• rūpa, or sthūla śarīra—the physical body;
• prāṇa—life, or the vital principle;
• liṅga śarīra—the astral double;
• Kāma Rūpa—the seat of desires and passions;
• Manas—mind and intellect;
• Buddhi—the spiritual soul through which the universal spirit, Ātma, manifests;
• Ātma—the universal spirit, one with the Absolute.

The first four principles constitute the lower group, while Manas, Buddhi, and Ātma constitute the higher triad. These are constituents of human nature, not seven independent bodies.

Ātma occupies a special position in this scheme. Blavatsky explains that it is included among the human principles conditionally, since it represents a universal rather than an individual principle.

From Principles to Bodies

The transition from seven principles to a system of separate bodies began in Theosophical literature in the 1890s and continued during the first decade of the twentieth century. This process can be traced primarily in the works of Annie Besant, while Charles Leadbeater developed in detail conceptions of the individual bodies, their corresponding planes of being, and the human aura.

For Blavatsky, liṅga śarīra denoted the astral double of the physical body. Besant established the designation “etheric double” for it, while the astral body came to denote the vehicle associated with kāma—desires and passions.

In Man and His Bodies (1896), Besant already considers the physical body, the etheric double, the astral body, and mental vehicles.

In The Ancient Wisdom (1897), she distinguishes the principles of human nature from the forms through which they manifest. The Advaita Vedāntic kośa are correlated specifically with the forms, rather than directly with the seven principles:

The Correlation of Theosophical Forms with the kośa in Annie Besant’s The Ancient Wisdom (1897)

Theosophical Form	Correspondence in Besant
Buddhic body	ānandamaya kośa
Causal body	vijñānamaya kośa
Mental body	manomaya kośa
Astral body	manomaya kośa
Etheric part of the physical body	prāṇamaya kośa
Dense part of the physical body	annamaya kośa

At this stage, the etheric component does not yet appear as a fully independent body: Besant considers it together with the dense component as part of the physical body. This scheme therefore cannot be regarded directly as a complete list of six or seven separate bodies. It represents an intermediate classification in which the later elements of the system are already present but are still organized differently.

Prāṇa is associated with the vital force in both systems, while the word manomaya is derived from manas, “mind.” In the later systematization of Advaita Vedānta, the prāṇamaya, manomaya, and vijñānamaya kośa are regarded as constituents of the subtle body—sūkṣma śarīra. In the comparative table presented by Annie Besant in The Ancient Wisdom, these three sheaths are already correlated with four vehicles: prāṇamaya kośa with the etheric part of the physical body, manomaya kośa with the astral and mental bodies, and vijñānamaya kośa with the causal body.

The transformation of manomaya kośa is especially evident. In later Advaita Vedānta manuals, manomaya kośa includes manas and the organs of perception. In Besant’s system, the functions associated with it are distributed between two vehicles: the astral body serves as the vehicle of kāma—desires and emotions—while the mental body is associated with Lower Manas. Thus, one manomaya kośa corresponds in Besant’s table to two Theosophical bodies—the mental and the astral.

The understanding of the causal body also differs. In the system represented by later Advaita Vedānta manuals, ānandamaya kośa is correlated with kāraṇa śarīra. Besant associates this sheath with the buddhic body, while her causal body is correlated with vijñānamaya kośa. Consequently, the Theosophical causal body and the Advaita Vedāntic kāraṇa śarīra occupy different positions in their respective classifications.

The meaning of buddhi also changed. In several Indian philosophical systems, particularly Sāṃkhya, this Sanskrit term denotes the intellect and the faculties of understanding, judgment, and discernment. The authors of the Theosophical Society acknowledged its Indian origin but assigned it a different function. Blavatsky called Buddhi the spiritual soul and the vehicle of the universal spirit—Ātma. At the same time, Buddhi becomes a conscious spiritual principle only in conjunction with Manas. In Besant’s system, it is associated with a distinct buddhic plane—a level of wisdom and spiritual unity. The concepts of the “buddhic plane” and the “buddhic body” represent a further Theosophical development of the Indian term.

In Besant’s comparative table, the principle Ātma does not yet correspond to a separate form. In Advaita Vedānta, ātman denotes the true Self beyond bodies and kośa. Blavatsky likewise emphasized the universal character of Ātma and explained that it was included among the human principles only conditionally. Nevertheless, in the Theosophical classification Ātma occupies the position of the highest, seventh principle. The Ancient Wisdom already refers to the atmic, or nirvanic, plane and to “atmic radiance,” but a separate atmic body is absent from the comparative table. Besant’s scheme therefore reflects an intermediate stage in the formation of the later classification of bodies.

The next stage can be traced in Besant’s A Study in Consciousness (1904). It already explicitly uses the expression atmic body. However, the book does not yet present the familiar modern series of seven bodies as a single classification. In the lectures An Introduction to Yoga, delivered in 1907 and published in 1908, Besant describes the successive transcendence of the mental, causal, buddhic, and atmic bodies.

In The Riddle of Life (1911), Besant presents a coherent hierarchy of three mortal bodies—the physical, astral, and mental—and three immortal bodies—the causal, buddhic, and atmic. The atmic body is defined here as the highest immortal vehicle, into which the purified result of human experience gradually passes and with which the causal and buddhic bodies ultimately merge. This six-body hierarchy still treats the dense and etheric components as parts of a single physical body. The familiar sevenfold scheme could subsequently be formed by treating the etheric component as an independent etheric body; however, the earliest source that explicitly lists all seven bodies together remains to be established.

The Principles and Their Corresponding Forms in The Ancient Wisdom (1897)

Principle	Vital Aspect	Corresponding Form
Ātmā	Spirit	—
Buddhi	Spiritual soul	Body of bliss, or buddhic body
Higher Manas	Human soul	Causal body
Lower Manas	Human soul	Mental body
Kāma	Animal soul	Astral body
Liṅga Śarīra	—	Etheric Double
Sthūla Śarīra	—	Dense Body

Note. The dash indicates that the principle Ātmā does not correspond to a separate form in this scheme. Besant’s table therefore does not yet contain an atmic body, although Ātmā occupies the position of the highest principle in it.

Alongside Besant, Charles Leadbeater developed in detail the conception of the planes of being and their corresponding states of consciousness. In The Astral Plane, he described the astral plane, its structure, and its inhabitants; in The Devachanic Plane, he described the mental, or devachanic, level. In Man Visible and Invisible, the physical, astral, and mental bodies are presented as different, interpenetrating vehicles of consciousness corresponding to particular planes of being and discernible within the human aura.

Conclusion

The foundations of the modern doctrine of seven bodies were formed in the literature of the Theosophical Society at the turn of the twentieth century. Blavatsky described seven principles of human nature, while Annie Besant transformed this classification into a system of forms, or vehicles of consciousness. Charles Leadbeater, in turn, developed in detail conceptions of the astral and mental bodies, the human aura, and the correspondence of bodies to particular planes of being.

The resulting model combined Indian concepts with Western conceptions of astral reality, etheric matter, and the multilevel structure of the world. As a result, the original terms acquired new functions and occupied a different place in the overall anthropological and cosmological system. The familiar doctrine of seven bodies should therefore be regarded as the result of a Theosophical-esoteric reworking, rather than as a ready-made classification borrowed from ancient Indian sources.

The immediate prototype of the later system of bodies was developed primarily by Annie Besant. Her works trace a progression from a classification in which the physical body still comprised dense and etheric components to a hierarchy that included causal, buddhic, and atmic bodies. The familiar sevenfold list can be derived from this hierarchy by treating the etheric component as an independent body, although the earliest explicit source listing all seven bodies together requires further documentation.

Andrei Y. Gulaikin, 2026

Russian version: Откуда взялось учение о семи телах человека?

Key Publications

• Besant, A. The Ancient Wisdom. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1897.
• Blavatsky, H. P. The Key to Theosophy. London: Theosophical Publishing Company, 1889.
• Blavatsky, H. P. The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy. 2 vols. London: The Theosophical Publishing Company, Limited, 1888.
• Leadbeater, C. W. Man Visible and Invisible. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1902.
• Sadānanda. Vedāntasāra: With Introduction, Text, English Translation and Comments. Translated by Swami Nikhilananda. Mayavati, Almora: Advaita Ashrama, 1931.
• Śaṅkarācārya. Tattvabodha. Mumbai: Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, 2013.
• Hanegraaff, W. J. “Western Esotericism and the Orient in the First Theosophical Society.” In Theosophy Across Boundaries: Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Modern Esoteric Movement, edited by H. M. Krämer and J. Strube, 29–64. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2020.
• Fitger, M. “The Tetractys and the Hebdomad: Blavatsky’s Sacred Geometry.” Correspondences 8, no. 1 (2020): 73–115.
• Upaniṣads. Translated by Patrick Olivelle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Besant, A. An Introduction to Yoga. Benares and London: Theosophical Publishing Society; Adyar: Theosophist Office, 1908. Lectures delivered December 27–30, 1907.
• Besant, A. Man and His Bodies. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1896.
• Sinnett, A. P. Esoteric Buddhism. London: Trübner & Co., 1883.
• Blavatsky, H. P. Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology. 2 vols. New York: J. W. Bouton, 1877.
• Leadbeater, C. W. The Astral Plane: Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1895.
• Leadbeater, C. W. The Devachanic Plane: Its Characteristics and Inhabitants. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1896.
• Vidyāraṇya. Pañcadaśī. Translated with notes by Swami Swahananda. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1967.
• Besant, A. A Study in Consciousness: A Contribution to the Science of Psychology. London and Benares: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1904.
• Besant, A. The Riddle of Life, and How Theosophy Answers It. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1911.
• Tsongkhapa. A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages: Teachings on Guhyasamāja Tantra. Translated by Gavin Kilty. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2013.