Kuurma/tortoise is famous in Hindu mythology mainly for two facts. One, kuurma happens to be the 3^rd of 5 sub – pranic forces. Second, lord Vishnu took incarnation in the form of a kuurma on which a mountain was established and ocean was churned. In yoga book, there is available some information on kuurma praana . For example, Swami Yogeshwaraanand in his book Praana Vijnaana says that in rajo guna state, kuurma prana is responsible for opening and closing of eyelids. In saatvic state, this praana leads to Traataka, the position of eye without opening and closing of eyelids. Then one is able to see various colors. Some texts have referred that on concentrating on kuurma nadi, one gets stabilization of chitta, freedom from hunger etc.. But puraanic and vedic texts indirectly provide much more information on kuurma, though efforts are still needed to decipher it. It appears that the stage earlier than kuurma is the burning of one’s sins. Only then the next stage of kuurma can be attained. There seem to be two parts of kuurma – front and back. The back part requires burning of sins by efforts. What is the nature of front part? It seems to be related with creation, a creation after complete annihilation, imbibing life force into gross matter, or raising different levels of consciousness. In rigvedic hymn, seer kuurma strives to become sun and it’s different forms( It can be said that sun without rays is kuurma, because the main characteristic of kuurma has been stated to be that it knows how to go inwards). This may represent the highest form of kuurma praana. But we have to remain careful, because in puraanic texts, soma/ moon/ Vishnu has been shown to take incarnation in the form of kuurma and therefore it can easily be guessed that moon, and not the sun, is the highest form of kuurma.

          In puraanic texts, kuurma has been named as Mantharak, the slow moving. What does it mean at spiritual level? There are two types of motions in modern sciences – ionic motion and electronic motion. All our body functions have been stated to be working on ionic motion whose speed is very slow, say few centimeters per second. On the other hand, electronic motion is very fast, say speed of light. Therefore, what is desirable is that somehow we may be able to reach that highest speed. It seems that this can be achieved by the other aspect of kuurma – kachchapa or Kashyapa.