Description
Plan on writing 5-7 pages for this essay (writing more will not ever hurt your grade and can help, depending on the quality of what you write, though please do not write more than 9 pages, for the sake of your TAs), using 11 or 12 size font and making sure it’s double-spaced. Use your readings and lecture notes to make your arguments. Be sure to cite page numbers and use quotes. The essay will be worth 250 points. Remember that the final is 25% of your grade.
Again, the citation format should look like this: (Module Week 4-6, slide 14) or (Week 4, Patañjali, p.29) etc. Give a citation for every point you make. Citations are very important for your grade. To cite a lecture, identify the week, plus the slide from the powerpoint; to cite a movie we saw in class, simply give the title. To cite the reading give the week, author name and page number.
Plan to take at least 70% of your citations from class readings and 30% can come from lecture notes available on Canvas. The exam is to test your own capacity to integrate the materials the class brings together. Using Wikipedia or Google will automatically bring your grade down 3 letter grades and is counterproductive to a deeper understanding of the concepts of the course. Use instead class readings and the class lecture notes posted on Canvas.
Also include the honor code on your essay. You are under the honor code to work on this by yourself without any assistance from another person.
With the following prompts, you may print them out and use the open circles as check-boxes to make sure you’re answering all the questions. They are grouped under the reading they refer to, or are placed under a compare and contrast category, in which the readings referred to will be included in the question. You need to answer at least 12 prompts for the essay.
This essay should be about how yoga is defined throughout its history and the transformations it goes through over the centuries. Within this essay, make sure to answer 12 of the following questions:
In terms of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra:
What are the 8 Limbs of Yoga according to Patañjali?
Compare and contrast the following:
How do the practices enjoined by the Yoga Sūtra compare to practices espoused by other religious traditions such as Jainism?
How similar and how dissimilar are the practices of the Yoga Sūtra in relation to Tantric yoga practices, including the practices in the Vijñāna Bhairava?
How similar and how dissimilar are the practices of the Yoga Sūtra in relation to practices in Ling’s translation of “Concerning the application of mindfulness”?
How similar and how dissimilar are the practices of the Yoga Sūtra in relation to Haṭha yogic practices?
How similar and how dissimilar are the practices of the Yoga Sūtra in relation to modern practices of figures like Iyengar and Yogananda?
In terms of modern yogis:
How do modern yogis that we talked about in class and that you read understand yoga?
To what extent do modern yogis draw from Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra?
To what extent do they use Haṭha yoga techniques?
Another compare and contrast:
How does Yogananda compare to Ana Forrest?
In terms of tantra:
What role does Tantra play for modern and ancient yoga practices?
In what ways does Tantra add to earlier forms of yoga?
In what ways does Tantra change the direction of yoga?
In terms of Yoga and the Modern World (20thcentury):
What are the representations of the yogi for the modern world?
In terms of Yoga and the Contemporary World (21stcentury):
What are the representations of the yogi for our contemporary world?
What are some of the disputes regarding yoga for our contemporary world?
How does the marketing of yoga transform its teachings in comparison to Patañjali’s Yoga Sutra?
Rubric
Final Rubric
Final Rubric
Criteria Ratings Pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeArgumentThis criterion is investigating whether ask you have a thesis or argument. More points will be given for a more creative, focused and insightful thesis or argument. Be sure to include a thesis, to gain points on this criterion.
30 pts
Full Marks
0 pts
No Marks
30 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeContextualizing ArgumentThis criterion asks you to focus on the context, with its specific details relating to what you argue in your essay. This is where you demonstrate engagement with the readings, showing how well and how deeply you reference the various points and perspectives in each of the readings. This is also where you will be given points for accuracy, spelling, dates and other important contextualizing details. engagement with the readings, which entails how well and how deeply you reference the various points and perspectives in each of the readings.
70 pts
Full Marks
0 pts
No Marks
70 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeEvidenceThis criterion is about your use of sources from the reading to support your thesis. You should quote directly from each of the readings assigned for that week, for a minimum of two quotes for your reading responses. For the midterm exam essay, quote several times from the various class sources. Similarly for the final exam take-home essay, quote from the various class sources. You get credit from quoting from class sources, but points are detracted if you quote from online sources like Google or Wikipedia.
100 pts
Full Marks
0 pts
No Marks
100 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeWritingThis criterion addresses the quality of your prose and pays particular attention to grammatical errors and then as you learn to avoid making errors, addresses the style of your writing (avoiding passive voice, and varying sentence structure etc.).
50 pts
Full Marks
0 pts
No Marks
50 pts
Total Points: 250
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RLST 2612: Yoga: Ancient
and Modern
Yoga Wars
What we will cover this
lecture
Yoga wars
What is yoga really about? Postures for health?
Sinister yogis capable of magic feats? Taking over
other people’s minds?
A path to enlightened thinking?
Yoga Wars
The controversy around yoga has 4 positions:
1.
yoga practitioners and some scholars today who espouse yoga
as a great way to health and also the idea that it can bring
mental development- even enlightenment.
2.
some scholars, like David White, who are very critical of the idea
that yoga is an ancient practice that is good for health and a
wonderful way to get enlightened (Singleton also). White says
historically yoga has been a marginalized practice, historically
yogis were on the fringes of society, kind of like sorcerers, scarey
boogey men.
3.
Jim Mallinson critiques this position. He says David White is not
looking at the historical textual evidence and is looking
particularly at one group, Naths, who were known as magic
workers, but who took up Hatha yoga very late.
4.
Contemporary Hindus in the West, who say give credit to Yoga’s
roots in Indian religious traditions
BKS Iyengar was key in the practice of yoga in
setting the style of yoga practice in the US. The
yoga he taught is called Iyengar Yoga.
20th yoga lineage for Iyengar Yoga (Iyengar) and
Astanga yoga (Pattabhi Jois)
T.M. Krishnamacharya
was the teacher of 2 of
the most important yoga
teachers for the US and
Europe:
BKS Iyengar
Pattabhi Jois
Krishnamacharya in Mysore in the 1930s
Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois,
Krishnamacharya’s two
most well-known
students together
Sivananda with disciples and Bikram Choudhary
Niranjanananda Saraswati
-Current head of the Bihar
school of yoga
Lineage of Bihar School of Yoga: 1. Sivananda; 2.
Satyananda Saraswati; 3. Niranjanananda Saraswati and
also Satyasangananda Saraswati (junior to Niranjananda)
Nath yogis (left); Ramanandi (right)
Dhyan Yogi
Madhusudandas lived
the last part of his life in
Gujarat, in Ahmedabad.
He was a Bairagi, follower
of Ram and gave
kuṇḍalinī initiations.
Pop culture images of taking over other people’s minds
Śaṅkara debating
Mandana Misra and his
wife Ubhaya Bharati.
Phineas Gage with a
picture of the spike
through his skull. He lived
12 years after the
accident.
What we will cover this
lecture
How Yoga changes in the 19th and 20th centuries:
Hatha yoga as part of Indian responses to British
colonialism
Vivekananda’s popular teachings on yoga for the
west, especially his Raja yoga which draws from the
Patanjali Yoga Sūtra you read
Yogananda
Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois
RLST 2612
Bhakti
Bhakti
Bhakti is devotion. So
for bhakti, devotion as a
path, you fall in love
with God and then you
meditate on, visualize
God as the person
you’re in love with.
In the context of yoga
Yoga Sūtra 1.2 says
‘yogaś cittavṛtti
nirodhaḥ’= that means
yoga is about stopping
the mind.
Hariharānanda Āraṇya
Hariharananda
Aranya was a scholar of
the Yoga –Sāṃkhya
school.
A well-known great
accomplished yogi and a
deep scholar in the
tradition.
Hariharānanda Āraṇya
founded an ashram
called Kapila Matha.
Kapila is the legendary
founder of the Sāṃkhya
system
Spent last 20 years of
his life just doing
intense meditating in a
cave and also some
writing about yoga.
says that the second
sūtra of the Yoga Sūtra:
yogaś cittavṛtti nirodhaḥ
Means getting the
mind to stop it’s
fluctuations, not getting
the mind to stop thinking.
So you don’t really try to
stop the mind from thought,
instead you channel that
mental energy into a
continuous steady flow on a
single object.
Tulsidas
lived in the 16th century.
becomes a great bhakti
poet and rewrites the
story of Rama, who is
considered an avatar of
Vishnu.
Bhagavad Gītā is one of
the earliest articulations
of bhakti yoga, the yoga
of devotion.
Bhakti yoga is different because the object of
meditation, God, has form (saguṇa) as opposed to
the highest stage of yoga in the Yoga Sūtra which is
nirvikalpa- asamprajñātā samādhi, where there
is no content and no form.
4 types of yoga
Jñāna yoga- knowledge and insight
Karma yoga- action. This yoga was connected to
doing external ritual practices, like a fire sacrifice,
and also it refers to doing selfless deeds, like
feeding someone who is hungry.
Bhakti yoga – this is the yoga of devotion
Rāja yoga – Royal path- this is mostly connected to
Patañjali’s system of yoga, about paying attention
to the mind and body and meditating.
Take away points:
Bhakti yoga makes a shift in that it brings God back
in—in a big way.
The Yoga Sūtras doesn’t really need God at all. It’s
about you and your mind.
The Yoga sūtra starts closely from Sāṃkhya.
Sāṃkhya philosophy is mostly atheistic.
Yoga Sūtra does include Īśvara, the Lord.
Meditation on Īśvara helps with yoga.
Haṭhayoga’s Philosophy: A Fortuitous Union of Non-Dualities
James Mallinson
Oriental Institute
University of Oxford
[email protected]
0044 1672852294
0044 7973615591
Unpublished draft submitted to the Journal of Indian Philosophy
Please do not cite without the author’s permission
Abstract: In its classical formulation as found in Svātmārāma’s Haṭhapradīpikā, haṭhayoga is a Śaiva appropriation of
an older extra-Vedic soteriological method. But this appropriation was not accompanied by an imposition of Śaiva
philosophy. In general, the texts of haṭhayoga reveal, if not a disdain for, at least an insouciance towards metaphysics.
Yoga is a soteriology that works regardless of the yogin’s philosophy. But the various texts that were used to compile
the Haṭhapradīpikā (a table identifying these borrowings is given at the end of the article) were not composed in
metaphysical vacua. Analysis of their allusions to doctrine shows that the texts from which Svātmārāma borrowed most
were products of a Vedantic milieu – bearing testament to Vedānta’s newfound interest in yoga as a complement to
jñāna – but that many others were Śaiva non-dual works. Because of the lack of importance given to the niceties of
philosophy in haṭhayogic works, these two non-dualities were able to combine happily and thus the Śaiva tenets
incorporated within haṭhayoga survived the demise of Śaivism as part of what was to become in the medieval period
the dominant soteriological method in scholarly religious discourse in India.
Keywords: yoga, haṭha, Haṭhapradīpikā, Śaivism, Vedānta
Rigorous philological study of haṭhayoga is in its infancy despite the global popularity of its practices and derivatives
thereof. One reason for this may be that the root texts of haṭhayoga and their exegesis make little room for discussions
of philosophy and so philologists of the usual bent have not been attracted to their study. Until recently Śaivism had
suffered the same fate. For a long time its notoriety deterred scholars from its study, but the richness of its root texts and
their philosophically underpinned exegesis has proved irresistible to a new generation of indologists, who have
discovered that the study of Śaivism can not only satisfy their desire to understand more of India’s pre-modern religious
culture through philology but also stimulate their philosophically enquiring minds.
In this paper I wish to draw on recent text-critical study of works on haṭhayoga in order to make preliminary
assessments of the place of philosophy therein. In doing so I hope to encourage scholars better qualified than I am to
examine the minutiae of philosophical pronouncements within the haṭhayogic corpus. While such study may not
unearth the treasures of the Kashmiri Śaiva exegesis, it will, I believe, contribute to our understanding of the
development of Indian religion in the medieval period by revealing more details of how haṭhayoga, elements of which
can be traced to all three of the first-millennium Brahmanic religions of India, i.e. Vedism, Vaiṣṇavism and Śaivism,
enabled some of the tenets of the last to remain part of widely accepted soteriological methods even as Vedāntainfluenced manifestations of the first became the dominant paradigm of scholarly religious thought. 1
Śaivism’s Appropriation of Haṭhayoga
Before we turn to the philosophical teachings found in haṭhayogic texts, in order to delineate the relationship between
Śaivism and haṭhayoga, attention will be drawn to the way in which the latter was appropriated by the former.
Classical haṭhayoga as formulated in its locus classicus, the fifteenth-century Haṭhapradīpikā, combines elements from
a wide range of yogic teachings, but in essence comprises the gross physical techniques of an ancient extra-Vedic
ascetic tradition overlaid with subtle visualisation-based Śaiva yoga. The purpose of Svātmārāma, the Haṭhapradīpikā’s
compiler, was to lay claim to this new synthesis for a broad tradition of Śaiva siddha schools. In this he was entirely
successful, although the parameters of the tradition he invoked were subsequently narrowed, with haṭhayoga’s
originators coming to be identified with the first gurus of the then fledgling Nāth saṃpradāya.2
The distinguishing characteristic of haṭhayoga in its pre-Haṭhapradīpikā formulations is the practice of physical
techniques known collectively in the Haṭhapradīpikā as mudrās, which are used to make the breath enter the central
channel and to raise bindu, semen, up to its source in the head and keep it there. We find forerunners of two of these
techniques, the relatively simple constrictions known as mūlabandha and jālandharabandha,in Śaiva works, but the
quintessentially haṭhayogic techniques of khecarīmudrā and vajrolimudrā are first taught in a Vaiṣṇava text, the
Dattātreyayogaśāstra, in which they are used for the preservation of bindu, unlike in subsequent formulations in which
they are overlaid with Śaiva features such as the raising of Kuṇḍalinī, the flooding of the body with amṛta, and the
absorption of commingled sexual fluids (Mallinson, “Śāktism and Haṭhayoga”, forthcoming).
It is in the Haṭhapradīpikā that the practice of non-seated āsanas, with which haṭhayoga has come to be identified, is
first taught as one of its key components.3 Of the fifteen āsanas taught therein, eight are relatively simple seated
1 Doubtless some elements of haṭhayogic practice originated outside of Brahmanic religion, in particular within the
śramaṇa ascetic traditions (see Mallinson forthcoming), but when taught in the Sanskrit texts on haṭhayoga under
consideration here they are of course couched in the language of Brahmanic religion.
2 The mahāsiddhas listed by Svātmārāma at Haṭhapradīpikā 1.5-8 include the Vīraśaiva Allāma Prabhu, who in
contemporaneous hagiography is portrayed as a rival of Gorakṣa, the supposed founder of the Nāth saṃpradāya
(Śūnyasaṃpādane upadeśa 21).
3 haṭhasya prathamāṅgatvād āsanaṃ pūrvam ucyate |
kuryāt tad āsanaṃ sthairyam ārogyaṃ cāṅgalāghavam || 1.17 ||
…
āsanaṃ kumbhakaṃ citraṃ mudrākhyaṃ karaṇaṃ tathā |
postures for meditation, such as those found in a wide variety of earlier texts including Vyāsa’s Bhāṣya on the
Yogasūtras (ad 2.46), several Śaiva Tantras (from the earliest we have, the Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā, onwards),4 and
various Purāṇas.5 Of the seven non-seated āsanas taught in the Haṭhapradīpikā, one is śavāsana, the corpse pose, which
is a reworking of a posture taught not as an āsana but as a technique of layayoga in the Dattātreyayogaśāstra.6 Another,
paścimottānāsana, is taught in the Śivasaṃhitā, which was probably composed not long before the Haṭhapradīpikā.7 I
have failed to identify source passages for three of the non-seated āsanas taught in the Haṭhapradīpikā, namely
uttānakūrmaka, dhanur and matsyendra āsanas. The verses describing the remaining two, kukkuṭa and mayūra āsana,
are taken from the Vasiṣṭhasaṃhitā, a c.13th-14th-century Vaiṣṇava work. 8 The Vasiṣṭhasaṃhitā’s teachings on
mayūrāsana can be traced back through a variety of earlier Vaiṣṇava works to the c.9th-century Vimānārcanākalpa,9 a
Vaikhānasa Saṃhitā, which teaches mayūrāsana as one of the lowest of three grades of āsana. Its prose description is
found reworked into ślokas in the Pādmasaṃhitā,10 a Pāñcarātrika Saṃhitā. Those ślokas are found with some changes
in another Pāñcarātrika Saṃhitā, the Ahirbudhnyāsaṃhitā,11 and again in the Vasiṣṭhasaṃhitā.12 The Vasiṣṭhasaṃhitā’s
verses are then found in the Haṭhapradīpikā13 with the metre changed to upajāti. Kukkuṭāsana is not taught in the
Vimānārcanākalpa, Pādmasaṃhitā or Yogayājñavalkya, but the verses describing it in the Haṭhapradīpikā are found in
the Ahirbudhnyāsaṃhitā and Vasiṣṭhasaṃhitā in very similar forms.14
On its own this evidence would not point to much; all we could say is that the oldest known textual evidence for nonseated āsanas is found in the Vaiṣṇava tradition. What makes it of particular interest is that the Matsyendrasaṃhitā, a
atha nādānusandhānam abhyāsānukramo haṭhe ||1.56.
4 Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā Nayasūtra 4.14c-15d. See Goodall 2004:348-351 nn. 728-732 and Vasudeva 2004:397-402 for
references to āsana in other Śaiva sources.
5 E.g. Skandapurāṇa 179.27, Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa 36.28.
6 Compare Dattātreyayogaśāstra 24c-25b with Haṭhapradīpikā 1.32.
7 Compare Śivasaṃhitā 3.108-109 with Haṭhapradīpikā 1.28-29. The Śivasaṃhitā borrows and paraphrases several
verses from both the Amṛtasiddhi and Dattātreyayogaśāstra: Śivasaṃhitā 2.1b, 2.1cd, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4ab = Amṛtasiddhi
1.15b, 1.16ab, 1.17ab+1.16cd, 1.17c-1.18b, 1.19ab; Śivasaṃhitā 2.6c-9d, 2.11-12, 3.31, 4.27ab, 4.27dc, 4.28ab,
4.34cb, 5.13, 5.17c-20b = Amṛtasiddhi 3.1-4, 4.3-4, 19.2, 11.3cd, 11.4bc, 11.5ab, 11.7cd, 15.1, 16.1-3; Śivasaṃhitā
4.31, 4.38, 5.14-15 ≈ Amṛtasiddhi 11.6, 12.6, 15.3. Several other verses in the Śivasaṃhitā’s descriptions of
mahāmudrā, mahābandha and mahāvedha are derivative of verses in the Amṛtasiddhi. Śivasaṃhitā 3.44a-3.45e,
3.48ab, 3.62ab, 3.63ab, 3.102-105, 4.88ab, 5.71 = Dattātreyayogaśāstra 143-146a, 155, 177, 178, 68-75, 313, 4344. Dattātreyayogaśāstra 143-162, 195-198, 221-241 are paraphrased at Śivasaṃhitā 3.42-48, 3.60-61, 3.72-75. 8.5
of the 13.5 verses that the Śivasaṃhitā shares with the Haṭhapradīpikā are not to be found in other texts so it is
likely that the Śivasaṃhitā was composed at some time between the Dattātreyayogaśāstra and Haṭhapradīpikā.
8 The Vaiṣṇavism of the Vasiṣṭhasaṃhitā is not stated explicitly but Vasiṣṭha bows to Jagannātha before beginning his
exposition of Brahmā’s yoga (1.12) and the saguṇa dhyāna that he teaches is of Viṣṇu Nārāyaṇa (4.26-31, 49-53).
9 Vimānārcanākalpa paṭala 96: karatale bhūmau saṃsthāpya kūrparau nābhipārśvayor nyasya na(unnata)taśirāḥpādau
daṇḍavad vyomni saṃsthito mayūrāsanam iti |
Colas (1988:279) remarks that the yogas of the Vimānārcanākalpa, Ahirbudhnyāsaṃhitā and Vasiṣṭhasaṃhitā are
similar but does not note the textual parallels in their descriptions of mayūrāsana. He dates the Vaikhānasa Saṃhitās
to the 9th to 13th/14th centuries and tentatively identifies the Vimānārcanākalpa as the earliest (2010:158).
10 Pādmasaṃhitā yogapāda 1.21-22:
avaṣṭabhya dharāṃ samyak talābhyāṃ hastayor dvayoḥ ||
kūrparau nābhipārśve ca sthāpayitvā mayūravat |
samunnamya śiraḥpādau mayūrāsanam iṣyate ||
11 Ahirbudhnyāsaṃhitā 31.36-37:
niveśya kūrparau samyaṅ nābhimaṇḍalapārśvayoḥ |
avaṣṭabhya bhuvaṃ pāṇitalābhyāṃ vyomni daṇḍavat ||
samonnataśiraḥpādo māyūrāsanam iṣyate |
etat sarvaviṣaghnaṃ ca sarvavyādhinivāraṇam ||
12 Vasiṣṭhasaṃhitā Yogakāṇḍa 1.76-77 (which is also found at, and is likely to be the source of, Yogayājñavalkya
3.15a-17b):
avaṣṭabhya dharāṃ samyak talābhyāṃ ca karadvayam |
hastayoḥ kūrparau cāpi sthāpayan nābhipārśvayoḥ ||
samunnataśiraḥpādo daṇḍavad vyomni saṃsthitaḥ |
mayūrāsanam etad dhi sarvapāpavināśanam ||
76c kūrparau] em.; kharpare ed.
13 Haṭhapradīpikā 1.30:
dharām avaṣṭabhya karadvayena
tatkūrparasthāpitanābhipārśvaḥ |
uccāsano daṇḍavad utthitaḥ khe
māyūram etat pravadanti pīṭham ||
14 Ahirbudhnyāsaṃhitā 31.38, Vasiṣṭhasaṃhitā Yogakāṇḍa 1.78, Haṭhapradīpikā 1.23.
13th-century Śaiva work attributed to Matsyendra, one of the gurus of the Nātha saṃpradāya, also includes mayūra and
kukkuṭa āsanas among the fourteen āsanas it teaches.15 The descriptions are rather obscure (and the text a little corrupt),
but it is clear that they are different āsanas from those taught in the Vaiṣṇava works mentioned above and that like all
the other āsanas taught in the Matsyendrasaṃhitā they are seated postures. 16 We cannot be sure that the
Matsyendrasaṃhitā was known to Svātmārāma, but there were certainly overlaps in their milieux: the
Matsyendrasaṃhitā incorporates most of the Khecarīvidyā, from which four verses were borrowed to compile the
Haṭhapradīpikā, and one other half-verse in the Matsyendrasaṃhitā is also found in the Haṭhapradīpikā.17 We can thus
say with some confidence that the practice of non-seated āsanas originated in a Vaiṣṇava rather than Śaiva milieu.
Haṭhayoga’s Universalism
In the light of this Śaiva appropriation of the techniques of haṭhayoga one might expect Svātmārāma also to declare
haṭhayoga to be grounded in one or other formulation of Śaiva metaphysics. Yet, as much as any other work that
teaches haṭhayoga, the Haṭhapradīpikā is devoid of detailed philosophical teachings of any kind. Furthermore, its Śaiva
orientation, which is to be inferred by its maṅgala verses (1.1 and 4.1) and invocations of Śaiva siddhas (1.5-8), is not
corroborated by descriptions of sect-markers such as mantras or maṇḍalas, nor even of the cakras that came to be
synonymous with the practice of haṭhayoga. What we see here is the apotheosis of a process identified by Csaba Kiss in
his analysis of the Matsyendrasaṃhitā, a text which he suggests is indicative of
“a phase in the history of yoga when yogic teachings tried to become detached, perhaps not for the first time,
from the mainstream religion, in this case tantric Śaivism, by eliminating sectarian boundaries through the concealment
of sectarian marks such as easily decodable deity names, mantras, and iconography and to prepare for a formative
period of pan-Indian yoga, which can again become an alternative for the official/conservative religion.” (Kiss
2011:162).
Yet Svātmārāma, despite going further down the line towards universalism than the compiler of the Matsyendrasaṃhitā,
did not go as far as he might have done. The Haṭhapradīpikā, hamstrung by its purpose of claiming haṭhayoga for the
Śaiva siddha tradition, makes only a half-hearted claim to universality when it states that through the practice of
haṭhayoga success can be attained by “the young, old, very old, ill or weak”. 18 This verse is taken from one of the
fifteen or so texts that Svātmārāma used to compile the Haṭhapradīpikā, namely the Dattātreyayogaśāstra, which, as
noted above, is a product of a Vaiṣṇava school in the tradition of extra-Vedic asceticism in which some of the physical
practices of haṭhayoga first developed. The Dattātreyayogaśāstra, perhaps because its compiler, unlike Svātmārāma,
had no sectarian axe to grind, is more generous in its universalism than the Haṭhapradīpikā, following the verse
borrowed by Svātmārāma with the following two:
brāhmaṇaḥ śramaṇo vāpi bauddho vāpy ārhato ’thavā|
15 Matsyendrasaṃhitā 3.8a-13b:
vāmagulpham adhaḥ kṛtvā kṛtvopari ca dakṣiṇam |
gudenāpīḍya vai jānuyugalaṃ paripālya ca ||8||
vāmahastāṅgulīmūle-m-avaṣṭabhya yathābalam |
dakṣahastāṅgulīmūlaiḥ parivartya ca tat talau ||9||
ūrumūladvaye pīḍya nāsāgre sthāpayed dṛśau |
kukkuṭāsanam etad vai manasaḥ sthirakāraṇam ||10||
ūrumūladvayādhastāt pādayugmaṃ nidhāyā ca |
tayor madhye +sthira guda pṛchan+ udyamya niścalaḥ ||11||
tathā karataladvandvaṃ samāśliṣya parasparam |
ūrvor upari vinyasya nāsikām avalokayet ||12||
mayūrāsanam etad vai sarvavyādhivināśanam |
Cf. Kubjikāmata 23.115-117 which also teaches a seated kukkuṭāsana.
16 Kiss (2009:52) qualifies his statement that the āsanas in the Matsyendrasaṃhitā are all seated positions with
“probably”, noting that the text is corrupt.
17 On the inclusion of the Khecarīvidyā in the Matsyendrasaṃhitā, see Mallinson 2007:5-9. Matsyendrasaṃhitā
4.44ab = Haṭhapradīpikā 4.17cd. Matsyendrasaṃhitā 4.23cd is the same as Haṭhapradīpikā 2.17ab, but it is also
shared with Vivekamārtaṇḍa 100ab, which, since Haṭhapradīpikā 2.16-17 corresponds to Vivekamārtaṇḍa 99-100, is
almost certainly the Haṭhapradīpikā’s source. At Haṭhapradīpikā 1.18 Svātmārāma says that he will teach āsanas
that were accepted by “munis such as Vasiṣṭha and yogis such as Matsyendra”. None of the Haṭhapradīpikā’s āsana
teachings has parallels in the Matsyendrasaṃhitā. Variants of siddhāsana and padmāsana are said at 1.35 and 1.48
to be matsyendramata, but the verses teaching them are from the Vivekamārtaṇḍa (7, 35B), which is attributed to
Gorakṣa in its earliest manuscript and subsequent citations. Matsyendrāsana is taught (as śrīmatysanāthodita āsana
and matsyendrapīṭha) at Haṭhapradīpikā 1.26-27 in verses which I have not found in earlier works.
18 Haṭhapradīpikā 1.64: yuvā vṛddho ‘tivṛddho vā vyādhito durbalo ‘pi vā |
abhyāsāt siddhim āpnoti sarvayogeṣv atandritaḥ ||
kāpāliko vā cārvākaḥ śraddhayā sahitaḥ sudhīḥ ||41||
yogābhyāsarato nityaṃ sarvasiddhim avāpnuyāt |
kriyāyuktasya siddhiḥ syād akriyasya kathaṃ bhavet ||42||
“Whether a Brahmin, an ascetic, a Buddhist, a Jain, a Skull-Bearer or a materialist, the wise man who is endowed with
faith and constantly devoted to the practice of [haṭha] yoga will attain complete success.”
Such universalism is at least implicit in most works on haṭhayoga. Teachings on yoga in earlier Śaiva works, in
contrast, are for initiates into the traditions of which their texts are products, 19 and often involve a progression of
meditative conquests of the elements particular to their tradition’s ontology. A tattvajaya of this kind is found in the
Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā’s Nayasūtra (paṭala 3) and similar techniques feature in a wide range of subsequent Śaiva works.
Haṭhayogic texts, on the other hand, restrict such practices to dhāraṇās on the five elements accepted by all Indic
metaphysical systems or laya, dissolution, into those five elements, often in the course of Kuṇḍalinī’s rise up the central
channel.
A relatively late Śaiva work, the Śāradātilaka,20 shares verses and practices with some haṭhayogic texts and also echoes
their universalist understanding of yoga. At the beginning of its 25th and final paṭala we read:
atha yogaṃ pravakṣyāmi sāṅgaṃ saṃvitpradāyakam|
aikyaṃ jīvātmanor āhur yogaṃ yogaviśāradāḥ||1||
śivātmanor abhedena pratipattiḥ pare viduḥ|
śivaśaktyātmakaṃ jñānaṃ jagur āgamavedinaḥ||2||
purāṇapuruṣasyānye jñānam āhur vīśāradāḥ|
“Now I shall teach yoga, with its ancillaries, which bestows understanding [or “mokṣa in the form of the experience of
eternal bliss” – Rāghavabhaṭṭa]. The experts in yoga say that yoga is union of the jīva and the ātman. Others say that it is
knowledge of Śiva and the ātman as not being different. Those who know the āgamas say that it is knowledge of the
nature of Śiva and Śakti. Other wise ones say that it is knowledge of the ancient puruṣa.”
Rāghavabhaṭṭa, the fifteenth-century commentator on the Śāradātilaka, understands these four different opinions to be
those of Vedāntins, Śaivas, Śāktas and Bhedavādins (whom he identifies as Sāṃkhyas, Vaiṣṇavas and Naiyāyikas, the
latter two identifying puruṣa with Nārāyaṇa and Īśvara respectively).
Then, with no further ado, the text goes on to teach an eight-fold system of yoga, the implication being that the practice
of yoga will get the yogi the reward he or she wants, regardless of the yogi’s philosophical standpoint.
Concomitant with this understanding of yoga is the widespread notion of yogipratyakṣa,“yogic perception”, with which
the founders of a variety of traditions are said to have discovered the ultimate truth, whether that truth is conceived of
as, for example, the Vedas for Naiyāyikas or śūnyatā for Mādhyamika Buddhists. The founder of the tradition did not
need to know these truths to succeed in yoga; they were revealed as a result of his success in yoga. Later followers of
such yogis have no need to rediscover these truths; they use meditation to deepen their understanding of them (Franco
2009a:9-10).21
Of course the yogic universalism espoused in varying degrees by the Śāradātilaka, Dattātreyayogaśāstra and
Haṭhapradīpikā does not mean that those texts were created in a doctrinal vacuum, nor is that same universalism found
in all of the texts used by Svātmārāma to compile the Haṭhapradīpikā. In what follows I shall examine those texts in
order to make a preliminary assessment of their philosophical standpoints. More detailed analysis by specialists of the
various traditions will no doubt cast a brighter light on the texts’ relationship with specific philosophical schools.
The Philosophical Orientation of the Haṭhapradīpikā’s Source Texts22
The Vivekamārtaṇḍa, Gorakṣaśataka and Dattātreyayogaśāstra are three of the four texts which contribute twenty or
more verses to the Haṭhapradīpikā. These three texts are all products of schools influenced by Vedanta. The opening
19 E.g. Mālinīvijayottaratantra Yogapāda 4.6cd: na cādhikāritā dīkṣāṃ vinā yogo ’sti śāṅkare ||
20 Sanderson (2007:230-233) gives the 13th century as the terminus ante quem of the Śāradātilaka, adding that it is
likely to have been composed in Orissa.
21 Franco (2009:6 n.22) distinguishes between yoga as “a technique of gaining control over the body, senses and mind
in order to attain a liberating insight” and Yoga, the philosophical school. He adds that yoga “is a technique or a
method and as such is not connected to any philosophy or religion in particular”; this is the understanding of yoga
found in haṭhayogic texts.
22At the end of this paper is an appendix in which all the texts from which Svātmārāma borrowed verses are listed,
together with the locations of the shared verses in the Haṭhapradīpikā and the source texts.
verse of the Dattātreyayogaśāstra23 nails its Vaiṣṇava and vedantic colours to the mast:
nṛsiṃharūpiṇe cidātmane sukhasvarūpiṇe|
padais tribhis tadādibhir nirūpitāya vai namaḥ||1|
“To him who has the form of Narsiṃha, whose self is consciousness, whose true form is bliss, and who is defined by the
three words beginning with tat, homage!”
Elsewhere in the Dattātreyayogaśāstra, samādhi is said to be the union of ātman and paramātman (126ab), and when
the yogin wants to cast off his body he is to dissolve it into parabrahman (127ab). Yet jñāna, the key to vedantic
liberation, has almost no place in the Dattātreyayogaśāstra. It is mentioned only once – and then somewhat
disparagingly – in the context of mantrayoga, the lowest of the three yogas taught in the text (the others being laya and
haṭha). Through twelve years of mantra-repetition, the sādhaka will, usually (prāyeṇa), attain jñāna and the siddhis of
aṇimā and so forth. This yoga is for the lowest type of sādhaka, he of little wisdom (alpabuddhiḥ).24
Both the Vivekamārtaṇḍa and Gorakṣaśataka combine Śaiva yoga25 with vedantic metaphysics.26 There is no internal
evidence to identify the place of composition of either text, but parallels with the more or less contemporaneous 27
Bhāvārthadīpikā, Jñāndev’s Marathi commentary on the Bhagavadgītā (popularly known as the Jñāneśvarī), together
with other external evidence, suggest origins in the Deccan. Like the Vivekamārtaṇḍa and Gorakṣaśataka, the
Jñāneśvarī teaches physical Śaiva yoga and the vedantic identification of ātman and brahman. The yoga of the
Gorakṣaśataka in particular is very close to that of the Jñāneśvarī.28 The teachings in both the Vivekamārtaṇḍa and
Gorakṣaśataka are attributed to Gorakṣa, and Jñāndev names Gorakṣa among his teachers at Jñāneśvarī 18.1756.
Gorakṣa is said to have come from several different parts of India, but the majority of the early references to him are
from the south or the Deccan. 29 The title of the Vivekamārtaṇḍa, as well as being suggestive of a vedantic, or at least
23 nṛsiṃharūpiṇe cidātmane sukhasvarūpiṇe|
padais tribhis tadādibhir nirūpitāya vai namaḥ||
24 Dattātreyayogaśāstra 12-14:
aṅgeṣu mātṛkānyāsapūrvaṃ mantraṃ japet sudhīḥ |
yena kenāpi sādhyaḥ syān mantrayogaḥ sa kathyate ||12||
mṛdus tasyādhikārī syād dvādaśābdais tu sādhanāt |
prāyeṇa labhate jñānaṃ siddhīś caivāṇimādikāḥ||13||
alpabuddhir imaṃ yogaṃ sevate sādhakādhamaḥ |
mantrayogo hy ayaṃ prokto yogānām adhamas smṛtaḥ ||14||
12c yena kenāpi sādhyaḥ syān ] em; yena kenāpi siddhaḥ syāt Haṭharatnāvalī 1.9c, yaṃ kañcanābhisiddhyai B, yaṃ kaṃ
canābhisiddhyai W1, ekena cāpi siddhiḥ M, ekaṃcanābhisidhyai J1, ekaṃ ca tābhiḥ sidhyai W2
25 The earliest Śaiva works to teach the central practices of what came to be known as haṭhayoga, i.e. the Amṛtasiddhi,
Vivekamārtaṇḍa and Gorakṣaśataka, do not call their yoga haṭha.
26 See Vivekamārtaṇḍa 88 and 151-152 for evidence of its Śaiva orientation. The Gorakṣaśataka is not so explicit, but
vv. 13, 80 indicate that Śiva is the highest god. For the texts’ vedantic teachings, see Vivekamārtaṇḍa 106-110, 15360, 164, 170-171 and Gorakṣaśataka 88-100.
27 Jñāneśvarī 18.1711 says that the text was written in 1290 CE and this date is widely accepted, but see Kiehnle
(1997:5) on the likelihood of this particular line having been interpolated at a later date. Our earliest definite
evidence for the existence of the Vivekamārtaṇḍa is its being named in the c. 1400 CE Khecarīvidyā (1.14),
although five of its verses are found in the 1363 CE Śārṅgadharapaddhati (Śārṅgadharapaddhati 4308a-4309b,
4374, 4407abc, 4418 = Vivekamārtaṇḍa 27a-28b, 7, 57abc, 59). The terminus ante quem of the Gorakṣaśataka is
also 1400 CE (Mallinson 2011b:263).
28 Their yogas use the three bandhas, jālandhara° (Jñāneśvarī 6.207-208; Gorakṣaśataka 61c-63b), uḍḍīyāna°
(Jñāneśvarī 6.209-210; Gorakṣaśataka 57c-61b) and mūla° (Jñāneśvarī 6.192-199; Gorakṣaśataka 52c-57b), to
raise Kuṇḍalinī.
29 Our earliest references to Gorakṣa are from the 13th century. Despite frequent claims in secondary literature that he
came from Punjab (e.g. Briggs 1989:229), none of these early references is from the northwest of the subcontinent.
In addition to that from the Jñāneśvarī, other 13th-century references to Gorakṣa from the Deccan or south India
include the c.1200-1220 CE Kannada Ragales of Harihara (Revaṇasiddheśvara Ragale, Sthala 3, ll.25-65; I thank
Professor Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi for confirming Harihara’s dates and assisting me with the text – email
communication June 2009); the Matsyendrasaṃhitā (paṭalas 1 and 55, the frame story; on the text’s date and
provenance, see Kiss 2009:26-28); the 1279 CE Kalleśvara temple inscription from the Chitaldroog district in
Karnataka (Saletore 1937); the Marathi Līḷācaritra (although its surviving recension may not be as old as the 13th
century (Tulpule 1979:319)). 13th-century references to Gorakṣa from places other than the Deccan or south India
include the 1287 CE Cintra Praśasti inscription from Somnath (verse 42 – Bühler 1892:284); the
Amṛtakaṇikodyotanibandha which is probably from the Bengal region (for bibliographic reference see
Āryamañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti; on the life of the text’s author, Vibhūticandra, see Stearns 1996); Abhayadattaśrī’s
c.13th-century Tibetan account of the lives of the 84 Siddhas (I thank Professor Harunaga Isaacson for alerting me
jñāna-oriented, worldview, is paralleled by two early Marathi works, the Vivekadarpaṇ and Vivekasindhu, of which the
latter is said to be the first Marathi vedantic work (Vaudeville 1987:218). This evidence suggests that the
Vivekamārtaṇḍa and Gorakṣaśataka represent the Sanskrit textual underpinnings of the integration of Śaiva physical
yoga and Vedanta in early medieval Maharashtra. 30
The Yogabīja, a dialogue between the goddess and Śiva, teaches a similar combination of Śaiva yoga and vedantic
philosophy and so may well be a product of the same milieu as the Vivekamārtaṇḍa and Gorakṣaśataka. Yoga is the
union of, among other pairs, ātman and paramātman (89cd). It brings about jīvanmukti (59ab, 170ab, 181cd), in which
the body becomes one with brahman (186ab). The Yogabīja is the source of 13 verses in the Haṭhapradīpikā, but of
these 8 are also found in the Gorakṣaśataka or Dattātreyayogaśāstra, indicating that the Yogabīja postdates those
works. Its yoga is identical to that of the Gorakṣaśataka: śakticālana is used, along with the three bandhas, to raise
Kuṇḍalinī, and it teaches the Gorakṣaśataka’s four sahita kumbhakas.
to the Amṛtakaṇikodyotanibandha reference and for sharing with me his opinion of the date and original language of
Abhayadattaśrī’s text (email communication April 2009)). Texts associated with Gorakṣa show direct or indirect
connections with the Kaula Paścimāmnāya tradition (the Gorakṣasaṃhitā is an inflation of the Kubjikāmatatantra
(Heilijgers-Seelen 1994); other w
