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    Yoga in Practice
    Yoga in Practice
    Yoga in Practice
    Ebook642 pages9 hours

    Yoga in Practice

    By David Gordon White

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    Primary texts in yoga, from ancient times to today

    Yoga is a body of practice that spans two millennia and transcends the boundaries of any single religion, geographic region, or teaching lineage. In fact, over the centuries there have been many "yogas"—yogas of battlefield warriors, of itinerant minstrels and beggars, of religious reformers, and of course, the yogas of mind and body so popular today. Yoga in Practice is an anthology of primary texts drawn from the diverse yoga traditions of India, greater Asia, and the West. This one-of-a-kind sourcebook features elegant translations of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and even Islamic yogic writings, many of them being made available in English for the very first time. Collected here are ancient, colonial, and modern texts reflecting a broad range of genres, from an early medical treatise in Sanskrit to Upanishadic verses on sacred sounds; from a Tibetan catechetical dialogue to funerary and devotional songs still sung in India today; and from a 1930s instructional guide by the grandfather of contemporary yoga to the private papers of a pioneer of tantric yoga in America.

    Emphasizing the lived experiences to be found in the many worlds of yoga, Yoga in Practice includes David Gordon White's informative general introduction as well as concise introductions to each reading by the book's contributors.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateOct 31, 2011
    ISBN9781400839933
    Yoga in Practice

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      Yoga in Practice - David Gordon White

      christian.

      Foundational Yoga texts

      — 1 —

      The Path to Liberation through Yogic

      yurveda

      Dominik Wujastyk

      It can come as a surprise to discover that buried in one of the earliest medical treatises in Sanskrit is a short tract on the yogic path to liberation. This tract— a mere thirty-nine verses—occurs in the chapter on the embodied Person ( r rasth na) in the Compendium of Caraka (Carakasa hit ). The Compendium is a medical encyclopedia and perhaps the earliest surviving complete treatise on classical Indian medicine. it is even more surprising to find that this yogic tract contains several references to Buddhist meditation and a previously unknown eightfold path leading to the recollection or mindfulness that is the key to liberation. Finally, Caraka’s yoga tract almost certainly predates the famous classical yoga system of Patañjali. Let us explore these points in turn.

      yurveda (the knowledge for long life), is based on the body of medical theory and practice that was first collected and synthesized in several great medical encyclopedias, including especially the The Compendium of Caraka and The Compendium of Su ruta (Su rutasa hit ). yurveda in Indian history is in the Mah bh rata becomes a synonym for medicine. These components include topics such as therapeutics, pediatrics, possession, surgery, and toxicology.

      yurveda. The Pali Buddhist canon as we have it today probably dates from about 250 BCE, and records a fairly trustworthy account of what the Buddha said. in the collection of Buddhist sermons called the connected Sayings (Samyutta Nik ya), li sannip ta) yurveda—is an important one.

      What is the date of the Compendium of Caraka? a was edited (pratisa sk ta) habala. Jan Meulenbeld has surveyed the key historical issues with great care in his History of Indian Medical Literature. ika, and Buddhist materials that appear in Caraka’s Compendium, Meulenbeld concludes that, Caraka cannot have lived later than about AD 150–200 and not much earlier than 100 Bc.

      How does this dating relate to the early history of classical yoga? is the yoga tract in Caraka’s Compendium dhi" chapter of Patañjali’s work on yoga, Philipp Maas (2006) has provided a compelling reassessment of the authorship, title, and date of the texts commonly known as the Yoga S tra and the Vy sabh ya, but which call themselves collectively the P tañjalayoga stra, or Patañjali’s Teaching on Yoga. Based on careful arguments and evidence, Maas makes three main assertions:

      1. The text of the P tañjalayoga stra, i.e., the undivided S tra and its commentary the Bh ya, is a single composition that can be traced back to a single author.

      2. That author can be called Patañjali.

      3. This unified text can be plausibly dated to about 400 CE.

      sa" as the author of a Bh ya ra (f. ca. 975-1000), in his Tattvavai rad ; ja (f. ca. 950-1050), in his Svacchandatantroddyota. dhava (fifteenth-century Sarvadar anasa graha) routinely refer to Patañjali’s Yoga stra, his S khya prava cana or his Yoga S tra, sa as the author of the Bh ya.

      caspati, also refers elsewhere to Patañjali as the author of a part of the Bh ya. caspati was apparently uncertain as to whether s tra and bh ya dhara in his ca. 991 ce Ny yakandal , abhinavagupta in his ca. 950 ce Abhinavabh rat , and many others. Maas also shows that the earliest form of the work’s title in manuscript chapter colophons was probably P tañjala-yoga stra-s khyapravacana, khya teaching that is the treatise on Yoga." Working from this as well as internal textual arguments, Maas concludes that Patañjali took materials about yoga from older sources, and added his own explanatory passages to create the unified work that, since about 1100 CE, has been considered the work of two people. The extracts were designated as s tras and ascribed to Patañjali, while the explanations and additional remarks were regarded as a bh ya sa (meaning the editor in Sanskrit).

      As for the all-important issue of the date of the P tañjalayoga stra, i up lavadha), a’s S khyak rik s). Maas therefore argues that the P tañjalayoga stra was, by the beginning of the sixth century, regarded as an authoritative representation of yoga philosophy. Such a reputation would have taken at least some time to become established. The earliest possible date for the P tañjalayoga stra da teaching of Vasubandhu in the fourth century, as already proposed long ago by Woods (1914). Maas’s final opinion is that the composition of the P tañjalayoga stra can be placed in the period between 325 and 425 CE.

      Whatever the nuances of the arguments, it is beyond reasonable doubt that the Compendium of Caraka precedes the P tañjalayoga stra, that the yoga tract in the Compendium khya of Patañjali’s system.

      Caraka’s Yoga Tract

      r rasth na, Caraka first frames yoga as both spiritual liberation and the means of attaining it. Verses 138-39 are a direct citation from the Vai e ikas tra. Caraka continues with a description of the supernatural powers that accrue to the practitioner of yoga as a result of his self-discipline and the power of his concentration. This is very much in line with Patañjali’s teaching on siddhis, and indeed with common ideas of the result of yoga practice across Indian literature.

      Among the earliest sources of the idea that supernatural powers result from meditation are the descriptions in the Buddhist canonical text, the S maññaphalasutta of the D gha Nik ya, li jh na). The powers arise from being integrated (sam hita), and are as follows:

      1. body-power (k yavasa), or the power to self-multiply, vanish, fly through walls, even touch the sun or moon

      2. knowledge from divine hearing (dibbasotañ a)

      3. mind-reading (cetopariyañ a)

      4. the recollection of past lives (pubbeniv s nussatiñ a)

      5. divine seeing (dibbacakkhu)

      6. knowledge of the destruction of the bad influences ( savakkhaya)

      Many of the key terms used in this list of six powers are the same as those used in Caraka’s yoga tract when he describes the eight powers that yoga practice can produce.

      Most interesting of all, Caraka frames a new eightfold practice leading to recollection (Skt. sm ti), and places recollection at the very center of yogic practice. For Caraka, it is recollection that leads to yoga, and yoga that leads to the acquisition of supernatural powers and to ultimate liberation.

      li satipa h na), often practiced today under the name vipassan . li term sati (Sanskrit sm ti) can denote memory in two quite distinct senses. First, it denotes memory as the simple bringing-to-mind of events that happened at an earlier period in time, the mental act required to answer such questions as, what did i have for breakfast? in a second sense, it means the deepening of one’s consciousness, of one’s experiential awareness of the present moment. This is the alert self-recollection that people experience at special or shocking moments in life, or as a result of deliberate forms of meditation practice. Sometimes, such moments of recollection or mindfulness generate long-term memories of the first type, which are referred to as flashbulb memories.

      li compound word sat –pa h na the meditational practice leading to recollection or mindfulness, corresponds to the Sanskrit sm ti-upasth na. And in verse 146, Caraka’s text uses these very words to describe the one practice that leads to all the other moral and spiritual practices he has listed. They arise from abiding in the memory of reality, or in Sanskrit tattva-sm ter upasth n t. In the following verse, 147, Caraka inverts the cause-effect relation: it is the practice of the virtues listed in 143–44 that leads to recollection. Finally, verse 147 also identifies the final goal of recollection with freedom from suffering, Sanskrit duhkha, again the central doctrine of Buddhism. This theme of suffering and impermanence is picked up again in verses 152 and 153 in completely Buddhist terms. Caraka’s use of these keywords taken directly from the Buddhist meditational and doctrinal milieu shows unambiguously that his yoga tract is an adaptation of extremely old ascetic material known to us mainly from Buddhism.

      Given all this, it is all the more surprising that the comment at the end of verse 149 identifies recollection with the ordinary-language meaning of memory, i.e., calling to mind previous experience. it is tempting to see this comment as an addition by an author who was not familiar with the Buddhist understanding of recollection or mindfulness that underlies this tract.

      Since recollection is at the center of Caraka’s method of yoga, the eightfold path to recollection that he outlines in verses 148 and 149 is of special interest. This appears to be a very early eightfold path whose origins and detailed meaning are obscure and require further study. it bears no apparent relation to other early forms of yogic path, such as the sixfold path of the Maitr yan ya Upani ad, or the eightfold path of Patañjali’s P tañjalayoga stra. The first four of Caraka’s eight steps to mindfulness concern the deepening of perception and discrimination. The fifth step could mean an attachment to sattva in the sense of the S khya gu a of purity, although at the end of verse 141 the same word means, as it often does, mind. The sixth step, practice, could refer to practicing mindfulness, but it could also point to memorization in the ordinary sense. The seventh step, the yoga of knowledge, brings to mind the famous teachings of the Bhagavadg t on this subject, where liberation is attainable through true gnosis. But Caraka’s Compendium elsewhere shows no awareness of the G t . The last step, what is heard again, is syntactically a little odd, since it is not exactly a procedural step in a path. But it was clearly intended as the eighth step. it again suggests memorization, rather than mindfulness in the Buddhist sense.

      khya school have normally been presumed to be those who count or reckon (sa khy -) the twenty-five tattvas mkhyas counting not tattvas, but dharmas. This strongly suggests the use of the word dharma, li dhamma, khya continues with verse 153, which is a direct parallel of S khyak rik 64.

      khya treatises show its willingness to synthesize across philosophical divides. But it is the Buddhist technical vocabulary and the text’s focus on mindfulness as the most important yogic practice leading to liberation that strikes us most strongly. This suggests that Caraka integrated into his medical treatise an archaic yoga method that owed its origins to Buddhist traditions of cultivating sm ti.

      Caraka’s yoga tract did not go unnoticed within the Sanskrit literary tradition itself. in the fourth or fifth century it was copied by the author the Y jñavalkyasm ti, and from there again into yet another work, the Vi usmrti. in this way, its ideas gained a readership far beyond physicians.

      The passage below is translated from the Carakasa hit , na 1, verses 137-55. The Sanskrit edition used is the standard vulgate edition: Jadavji Trikamji Acarya, ed., Mahar i Punarvasunopadi , tacchi ye gnive ena pra t , Caraka D habal bhy pratisa sk t Carakasa hit , r Cakrap idatta vira-citay yurvedadpik vy khyay samvalit , 3rd ed. (Bombay: nirnaya Sagara Press, 1941). Earlier translations of this passage, none of which develop its wider significance, include Priya Vrat Sharma, Caraka-Samhit : Agnive a’s Treatise Refined and Annotated by Caraka and Redacted by Drdhabala (text with English translation), 4 vols. Varanasi: chaukhambha orientalia 1981-1994), vol. 1, pp. 409-11; and ram Karan Sharma and Vaidya Bhagwan Dash, Agnive a’s Caraka Samhit ( Text with English Translation and Critical Exposition Based on Cakrap i Datta’s yurveda Dpik ), 7 vols. (Varanasi: chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1976-2002), vol. 2, pp. 345-50.

      Suggestions for Further Reading

      The formation and early history of the ayurvedic medical system outlined above is discussed in more detail by Kenneth g. Zysk, Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery (new York and Bombay: oxford university Press, 1991; reprinted Delhi 1998, 2000); and by Dominik Wujastyk, Indian Medicine, in W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter (eds.), Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, 2 vols. (London: Routledge, 1993), vol. 1, pp. 755–78; Dominik Wujastyk, The Science of Medicine, in gavin Flood (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 393-409; and Dominik Wujastyk, The Roots of yurveda: Selections from Sanskrit Medical Writings, 3rd ed. (London and new York: Penguin, 2003). The most authoritative discussion of the dates of ayurvedic texts is gerrit Jan Meulenbeld, A History of Indian Medical Literature, 5 vols. (groningen: e. For-sten, 1999-2002), Meulenbeld’s discussion of the Carakasamhit ’s li text of the Samyuttanik ya discussed above appears in Leon Feer (ed.), Samyutta-Nik ya. Part IV: Sal yatana-Vagga, 3rd ed. (London: Pali text Society, 1973), pp. 230-31. it has been translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation from the P li (Somerville, Ma: Wisdom Publications, 2000), pp. 1278-79.

      The question of whether the Buddhist canon records the direct teaching of the Buddha or is a later construction by the monastic community is much debated. The topic is surveyed by alexander Wynn, The Historical authenticity of early Buddhist Literature: a critical evaluation, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 49 (2005): 35-70, who defends a conservative view of the authenticity of the canon as a record of the Buddha’s words. A discussion of how recent manuscript discoveries affect our view of the Samyuttanik ya ’s formation can be found in Andrew Glass and Mark Allon, Four G ndh r Sa yukt gama s tras: Senior Kharosth fragment 5 (Seattle: university of Washington Press,

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