Brahmacharya

Brahmacharya is the first of the five yamas — the foundational ethical disciplines in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The Sanskrit decomposes as Brahma (the divine creative principle) plus charya (conduct, way of moving). The literal sense is conduct that moves toward Brahma.

Modern translation often renders the word as "celibacy," which is approximately correct but loses the active component. Several classical and post-classical sources — Vivekananda's Raja Yoga most explicitly, and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika's mudra chapter implicitly — emphasise a finer point: brahmacharya is not retention alone but redirection. Energy that would have been expressed sexually is, through the breath, posture, and bandha practices, routed upward through the Sushumna — the central energetic channel — and accumulates — in Vivekananda's rendering — as ojas; the Charaka Samhita locates the primary seat of ojas in the heart (hridaya), not the brain.

Primary sources

• Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, II.30 (yamas) and II.38 (the fruit of brahmacharya is virya — vigour, vitality) — Vivekananda translation, Internet Archive
• Hatha Yoga Pradipika, chapters 2 and 3 — chapter 2 on shatkarma and pranayama, chapter 3 on the mudras and bandhas (vajroli, mula bandha) that are the technical practices for the upward redirection — Sinh translation, Sacred Texts
• Charaka Samhita, Sutrasthana — the physiological documentation — Wisdomlib English
• Swami Vivekananda, Raja Yoga (1896), chapter on prana — the clearest modern English statement — Internet Archive

In motion

• See men / brahmacharya for the full practice and source ranking.
• The female equivalent is rajas conservation, woven through the cycle rather than anchored on a discrete event.