Yoga-sutras (with Bhoja’s Rajamartanda)
by Rajendralala Mitra | 1883 | 103,575 words
The Yoga-Sutra 2.11, English translation with Commentaries. The Yogasutra of Patanjali represents a collection of aphorisms dealing with spiritual topics such as meditation, absorption, Siddhis (yogic powers) and final liberation (Moksha). The Raja-Martanda is officialy classified as a Vritti (gloss) which means its explanatory in nature, as opposed to being a discursive commentary.
Sūtra 2.11
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of Sūtra 2.11:
ध्यानहेयास्तद्वृत्तयः ॥ २.११ ॥
dhyānaheyāstadvṛttayaḥ || 2.11 ||
11. Their functions should be avoided by meditation.
The Rajamartanda commentary by King Bhoja:
[English translation of the 11th century commentary by Bhoja called the Rājamārtaṇḍa]
[Sanskrit text for commentary available]
He next describes the means for the destruction of the gross (afflictions).
[Read Sūtra 2.11]
The functions of these afflictions in active operation, which manifest themselves in the form of pleasure, pain, and delusion, should be “avoided,” destroyed, by meditation characterised by the concentration of the thinking principle on a single point. These, being gross, are suppressed by the mere exercise for the purification of the thinking principle, even as dense thick dirt on cloth and the like is removed by mere washing, while that which is subtile in it requires heating and other (arduous) means.
Notes and Extracts
[Notes and comparative extracts from other commentaries on the Yogasūtra]
[The means of suppressing the gross afflictions, or those afflictions which are in active operation, is meditation, or confining the thinking principle to one action, and focussing it there to the exclusion of all other objects. The difference lies in this—that in the case of latent afflictions the thinking principle is directed inward, and no opportunity is given to the latent ones to become active; and in the case of gross ones or those which are in active action, the thinking principle is confined to one object, and thereby all others are excluded. In the one case a desire is repressed by turning away from it, and keeping the thinking principle occupied with another, and in the other no opportunity is given for external stimuli to excite the latent wishes.
The illustration given shows that the subtile ones are more difficult to repress than the gross ones.]
Having thus defined the true character of the afflictions he, with a view to explain the residua of works, says: