Part 6 - Yoga and Patañjali

The word yoga occurs in the Ṛg-Veda in various senses such as yoking or harnessing, achieving the unachieved, connection, and the like. The sense of yoking is not so frequent as the other senses; but it is nevertheless true that the word was used in this sense in Ṛg-Veda and in such later Vedic works as the Śatapatha Brāhmana and the Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad^[1]. The word has another derivative “yugya” in later Sanskrit literature^[2].

With the growth of religious and philosophical ideas in the Ṛg-Veda, we find that the religious austerities were generally very much valued. Tapas (asceticism) and brahmacarya (the holy vow of celibacy and life-long study) were regarded as greatest virtues and considered as being productive of the highest power^[3].

As these ideas of asceticism and self-control grew the force of the flying passions was felt to be as uncontrollable as that of a spirited steed, and thus the word yoga which was originally applied to the control of steeds began to be applied to the control of the senses^[4].

In Pāṇini’s time the word yoga had attained its technical meaning, and he distinguished this root “yuj samādhau” (yuj in the sense of concentration) from “yujir yoge” (root yujir in the sense of connecting). Yuj in the first sense is seldom used as a verb. It is more or less an imaginary root for the etymological derivation of the word yoga^[5].

In the Bhagavadgītā , we find that the word yoga has been used not only in conformity with the root “yuj-samādhau” but also with “yujir yoge." This has been the source of some confusion to the readers of the Bhagavadgītā. “Yogin” in the sense of a person who has lost himself in meditation is there regarded with extreme veneration. One of the main features of the use of this word lies in this that the Bhagavadgītā tried to mark out a middle path between the austere discipline of meditative abstraction on the one hand and the course of duties of sacrificial action of a Vedic worshipper in the life of a new type of Yogin (evidently from yujir yoge) on the other, who should combine in himself the best parts of the two paths, devote himself to his duties, and yet abstract himself from all selfish motives associated with desires.

Kautilya in his Arthaśāstra when enumerating the philosophic sciences of study names Sāṃkhya, Yoga, and Lokāyata. The oldest Buddhist sūtras (e.g. the Satipaṭṭhāna sutta) are fully familiar with the stages of Yoga concentration. We may thus infer that self-concentration and Yoga had developed as a technical method of mystic absorption some time before the Buddha.

As regards the connection of Yoga with Sāṃkhya, as we find it in the Yoga sūtras of Patañjali, it is indeed difficult to come to any definite conclusion. The science of breath had attracted notice in many of the earlier Upaniṣads, though there had not probably developed any systematic form of prānāyāma (a system of breath control) of the Yoga system. It is only when we come to MaitrāyanI that we find that the Yoga method had attained a systematic development. The other two Upaniṣads in which the Yoga ideas can be traced are the Śvetāśvatara and the Kaṭha. It is indeed curious to notice that these three Upaniṣads of Krṣṇa Yajurveda, where we find reference to Yoga methods, are the only ones where we find clear references also to the Sāṃkhya tenets, though the Sāṃkhya and Yoga ideas do not appear there as related to each other or associated as parts of the same system. But there is a remarkable passage in the Maitrāyaṇī in the conversation between Śākyāyana and Bṛhad ratha where we find that the Sāṃkhya metaphysics was offered in some quarters to explain the validity of the Yoga processes, and it seems therefore that the association and grafting of the Sāṃkhya metaphysics on the Yoga system as its basis, was the work of the followers of this school of ideas which was subsequently systematized by Patañjali.

Thus Śākyāyana says:

“Here some say it is the guṇa which through the differences of nature goes into bondage to the will, and that deliverance takes place when the fault of the will has been removed, because he sees by the mind; and all that we call desire, imagination, doubt, belief, unbelief, certainty, uncertainty, shame, thought, fear, all that is but mind. Carried along by the waves of the qualities darkened in his imagination, unstable, fickle, crippled, full of desires, vacillating he enters into belief, believing I am he, this is mine, and he binds his self by his self as a bird with a net.

Therefore, a man being possessed of will, imagination and belief is a slave, but he who is the opposite is free. For this reason let a man stand free from will, imagination and belief—this is the sign of liberty, this is the path that leads to Brahman, this is the opening of the door, and through it he will go to the other shore of darkness. All desires are there fulfilled.

And for this, they quote a verse:

‘When the five instruments of knowledge stand still together with the mind, and when the intellect does not move, that is called the highest state^[6]’”

An examination of such Yoga Upaniṣads as Śāndilya, Yoga-tattva, Dhyānabindu, Hamsa, Amṛtanāda, Varāha, Maṇḍala Brāhmaṇa, Nādabindu, and Yogakuṇḍalī, shows that the Yoga practices had undergone diverse changes in diverse schools, but none of these show any predilection for the Sāṃkhya. Thus the Yoga practices grew in accordance with the doctrines of the Śaivas and Śāktas and assumed a peculiar form as the Mantra-yoga; they grew in another direction as the Hathayoga which was supposed to produce mystic and magical feats through constant practices of elaborate nervous exercises, which were also associated with healing and other supernatural powers. The Yogatattva Upaniṣad says that there are four kinds of yoga, the Mantra Yoga, LayaY oga, Hathayogaand Rājayoga^[7]. Insomecases we find that there was a great attempt even to associate Vedāntism with these mystic practices. The influence of these practices in the development of Tantra and other modes of worship was also very great, but we have to leave out these from our present consideration as they have little philosophic importance and as they are not connected with our present endeavour.

Of the Pātañjala school of Sāṃkhya, which forms the subject of the Yoga with which we are now dealing, Patañjali was probably the most notable person for he not only collected the different forms of Yoga practices, and gleaned the diverse ideas which were or could be associated with the Yoga, but grafted them all on the Sāṃkhya metaphysics, and gave them the form in which they have been handed down to us. Vācaspati and Vijñāna Bhikṣu, the two great commentators on the Vyāsabhāṣya , agree with us in holding that Patañjali was not the founder of the Yoga, but an editor. Analytic study of the sūtras also brings the conviction that the sūtras do not show any original attempt, but a masterly and systematic compilation which was also supplemented by fitting contributions. The systematic manner also in which the first three chapters are written by way of definition and classification shows that the materials were already in existence and that Patañjali only systematized them. There was no missionizing zeal, no attempt to overthrow the doctrines of other systems, except as far as they might come in, by way of explaining the system.

Patañjali is not even anxious to establish the system, but he is only engaged in systematizing the facts as he had them. Most of the criticisms against the Buddhists occur in the last chapter. The doctrines of the Yoga are described in the first three chapters, and this part is separated from the last chapter where the views of the Buddhists are criticized; the putting of an “iti” (the word to denote the conclusion of any work) at the end of the third chapter is evidently to denote the conclusion of his Yoga compilation. There is of course another “iti” at the end of the fourth chapter to denote the conclusion of the whole work. The most legitimate hypothesis seems to be that the last chapter is a subsequent addition by a hand other than that of Patañjali who was anxious to supply some new links of argument which were felt to be necessary for the strengthening of the Yoga position from an internal point of view, as well as for securing the strength of the Yoga from the supposed attacks of Buddhist metaphysics. There is also a marked change (due either to its supplementary character or to the manipulation of a foreign hand) in the style of the last chapter as compared with the style of the other three.

The sūtras, 30-34, of the last chapter seem to repeat what has already been said in the second chapter and some of the topics introduced are such that they could well have been dealt with in a more relevant manner in connection with similar discussions in the preceding chapters. The extent of this chapter is also disproportionately small, as it contains only 34 sūtras, whereas the average number of sūtras in other chapters is between 51 to 55.

We have now to meet the vexed question of the probable date of this famous Yoga author Patañjali. Weber had tried to connect him with Kāpya Patamchala of Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa^[8]; in Kātyāyanas Vārttika we get the name Patañjali which is explained by later commentators as patantaḥ añjalayah yasmai (for whom the hands are folded as a mark of reverence), but it is indeed difficult to come to any conclusion merely from the similarity of names. There is however another theory which identifies the writer of the great commentary on Pāṇini called the Mahābhāṣya with the Patañjali of the Yoga sūtra.

This theory has been accepted by many western scholars probably on the strength of some Indian commentators who identified the two Patañjalis. Of these one is the writer of the Patañjalicarita (Rāmabhadra Dīkṣita) who could not have flourished earlier than the eighteenth century. The other is that cited in Śivarāma’s commentary on Vāsavadattā which Aufrccht assigns to the eighteenth century. The other two are king Bhoja of Dhār and Cakrapāṇidatta, the commentator of Caraka , who belonged to the eleventh century A.D. Thus Cakrapāṇi says that he adores the Ahipati (mythical serpent chief) who removed the defects of mind, speech and body by his Pātañjala mahābhāṣya and the revision of Caraka.

Bhoja says :

“Victory be to the luminous words of that illustrious sovereign Raṇaraṅgamalla who by composing his grammar, by writing his commentary on the Pātañjala and by producing a treatise on medicine called Rājamrgāñka has like the lord of the holder of serpents removed defilement from speech, mind and body.”

The adoration hymn of Vyāsa (which is considered to be an interpolation even by orthodox scholars) is also based upon the same tradition. It is not impossible therefore that the later Indian commentators might have made some confusion between the three Patañjalis, the grammarian, the Yoga editor, and the medical writer to whom is ascribed the book known as Pātañjalatantra, and who has been quoted by Śivadāsa in his commentary on Cakradatta in connection with the heating of metals.

Professor J. H. Woods of Harvard University is therefore in a way justified in his unwillingness to identify the grammarian and the Yoga editor on the slender evidence of these commentators. It is indeed curious to notice that the great commentators of the grammar school such as Bhartrhari, Kaiy-yata, Vāmana, Jayāditya, Nāgeśa, etc. are silent on this point. This is indeed a point against the identification of the two Patañjalis by some Yoga and medical commentators of a later age. And if other proofs are available which go against such an identification, we could not think the grammarian and the Yoga writer to be the same person.

Let us now see if Patañjali’s grammatical work contains anything which may lead us to think that he was not the same person as the writer on Yoga. Professor Woods supposes that the philosophic concept of substance (dravya) of the two Patañjalis differs and therefore they cannot be identified. He holds that dravya is described in Vyāsabhāṣya in one place as being the unity of species and qualities (sāmānyaviśeṣātmaka), whereas the Mahābhāṣya holds that a dravya denotes a genus and also specific qualities according as the emphasis or stress is laid on either side. I fail to see how these ideas are totally antagonistic. Moreover, we know that these two views were held by Vyāḍi and Vājapyāyana (Vyāḍi holding that words denoted qualities or dravya and Vājapyāyana holding that words denoted species^[9]).

Even Pāṇini had these two different ideas in

• “jātyākhyāyāmekasmin bahuvacanamanyatarasyām,”
• and “sarūpānamekaśeṣamekavibhaktau,”

and Patañjali the writer of the Mahābhāṣya only combined these two views. This does not show that he opposes the view of Vyāsabhāṣya, though we must remember that even if he did, that would not prove anything with regard to the writer of the sūtras. Moreover, when we read that dravya is spoken of in the Mahābhāṣya as that object which is the specific kind of the conglomeration of its parts, just as a cow is of its tail, hoofs, horns, etc.— “yat sāsnālāṅgulakakudakhuraviṣāṇyartharūpam,” we are reminded of its similarity with “ayutasiddhāvayavabhedānugataḥ samūhaḥ dravyam” (a conglomeration of interrelated parts is called dravya) in the Vyāsabhāṣya. So far as I have examined the Mahābhāṣya I have not been able to discover anything there which can warrant us in holding that the two Patañjalis cannot be identified. There are no doubt many apparent divergences of view, but even in these it is only the traditional views of the old grammarians that are exposed and reconciled, and it would be very unwarrantable for us to judge anything about the personal views of the grammarian from them.

I am also convinced that the writer of the Mahābhāṣya knew most of the important points of the Sāṃkhya-Yoga metaphysics; as a few examples I may refer to the guṇa theory (1. 2. 64, 4. 1. 3), the Sāṃkhya dictum of ex nihilo nihil fit (1. 1. 56), the ideas of time (2. 2. 5, 3. 2. 123), the idea of the return of similars into similars (1. 1. 50), the idea of change vikāra as production of new qualities gunāntarādhāna (5. 1. 2, 5. 1. 3) and the distinction of indriyaand Buddhi (3. 3. 133). We may add to it that the Mahābhāṣya agrees with the Yoga view as regards the Sphotavāda, which is not held in common by any other school of Indian philosophy. There is also this external similarity, that unlike any other work they both begin their works in a similar manner (athayogānuśāsanam and atha śābdāmiśāsauam) —“now begins the compilation of the instructions on Yoga” (Yoga sūtra) —and “now begins the compilation of the instructions of words” (Mahābhāṣya).

It mayfurther be noticed in this connection that the arguments which Professor Woods has adduced to assign the date of the Yoga sūtra between 300 and 500 A.D. are not at all conclusive, as they stand on a weak basis; for firstly if the two Patañjalis cannot be identified, it does not follow that the editor of the Yoga should necessarily be made later; secondly, the supposed Buddhist^[10] reference is found in the fourth chapter which, as I have shown above, is a later interpolation; thirdly, even if they were written by Patañjali it cannot be inferred that because Vācaspati describes the opposite school as being of the Vijñāna-vādi type, we are to infer that the sūtras refer to Vasubandhu or even to Nāgārjuna, for such ideas as have been refuted in the sūtras had been developing long before the time of Nāgārjuna.

Thus we see that though the tradition of later commentators may not be accepted as a sufficient ground to identify the two Patañjalis, we cannot discover anything from a comparative critical study of the Yoga sūtras and the text of the Mahābhāṣya, which can lead us to say that the writer of the Yoga sūtras flourished at a later date than the other Patañjali.

Postponing our views about the time of Patañjali the Yoga editor, I regret I have to increase the confusion by introducing the other work Kitāb Pātanjal , of which Alberuni speaks, for our consideration. Alberuni considers this work as a very famous one and he translates it along with another book called Sānka (Sāṃkhya) ascribed to Kapila. This book was written in the form of dialogue between master and pupil, and it is certain that this book was not the present Yoga sūtra of Patañjali, though it had the same aim as the latter, namely the search for liberation and for the union of the soul with the object of its meditation. The book was called by Alberuni Kitāb Pātanjal, which is to be translated as the book of Pātañjala, because in another place, speaking of its author, he puts in a Persian phrase which when translated stands as “the author of the book of Pātanjal.” It had also an elaborate commentary from which Alberuni quotes many extracts, though he does not tell us the author’s name. It treats of God, soul, bondage, karma, salvation, etc., as we find in the Yoga sūtra , but the manner in which these are described (so far as can be judged from the copious extracts supplied by Alberuni) shows that these ideas had undergone some change from what we find in the Yoga sūtra.

Following the idea of God in Alberuni we find that he retains his character as a timeless emancipated being, but he speaks, hands over the Vedas and shows the way to Yoga and inspires men in such a way that they could obtain by cogitation what he bestowed on them. The name of God proves his existence, for there cannot exist anything of which the name existed, but not the thing. The soul perceives him and thought comprehends his qualities. Meditation is identical with worshipping him exclusively, and by practising it uninterruptedly the individual comes into supreme absorption with him and beatitude is obtained^[11].

The idea of soul is the same as we find in the Yoga sūtra. The idea of metempsychosis is also the same. He speaks of the eight siddhis (miraculous powers) at the first stage of meditation on the unity of God. Then follow the other four stages of meditation corresponding to the four stages we have as in the Yoga sūtra. He gives four kinds of ways for the achievement of salvation, of which the first is the abhyāsa (habit) of Patañjali, and the object of this abhyāsa is unity with God^[12]. The second stands for vairāgya; the third is the worship of God with a view to seek his favour in the attainment of salvation (cf. Yoga sūtra , I. 23 and I. 29). The fourth is a new introduction, namely that of rasā-yana or alchemy. As regards liberation the view is almost the same as in the Yoga sūtra, II. 25 and IV. 34, but the liberated state is spoken of in one place as absorption in God or being one with him. The Brahman is conceived as an ūrddhvamūla avākśākha aśvattha (a tree with roots upwards and branches below), after the Upaniṣad fashion, the upper root is pure Brahman, the trunk is Veda, the branches are the different doctrines and schools, its leaves are the different modes of interpretation. Its nouṛṣment comes from the three forces; the object of the worshipper is to leave the tree and go back to the roots.

The difference of this system from that of the Yoga sūtra is:

1. the conception of God has risen here to such an importance that he has become the only object of meditation, and absorption in him is the goal;
2. the importance of the yama^[13] and the niyama has been reduced to the minimum;
3. the value of the Yoga discipline as a separate means of salvation apart from any connection with God as we find in the Yoga sūtra has been lost sight of;
4. liberation and Yoga are defined as absorption in God ;
5. the introduction of Brahman ;
6. the very significance of Yoga as control of mental states (cittavṛttinirodha) is lost sight of,
7. and rasāyana (alchemy) is introduced as one of the means of salvation.

From this we can fairly assume that this was a new modification of the Yoga doctrine on the basis of Patañjali’s Yoga sūtra in the direction of Vedānta and Tantra, and as such it probably stands as the transition link through which the Yoga doctrine of the sūtras entered into a new channel in such a way that it could be easily assimilated from there by later developments of Vedānta, Tantra and Śaiva doctrines^[14]. As the author mentions rasāyana as a means of salvation, it is very probable that he flourished after Nāgārjuna and was probably the same person who wrote Pātañjala tantra , who has been quoted by Śivadāsa in connection with alchemical matters and spoken of by Nāgeśa as “Carake Patañjalih.” We can also assume with some degree of probability that it is with reference to this man that Cakrapāṇi and Bhoja made the confusion of identifying him with the writer of the Mahābhāṣya. It is also very probable that Cakrapāṇi by his line “pātañjalamahābhāṣyacarakapratisaṃskṛtaiḥ" refers to this work which was called “Pātañjala.”

The commentator of this work gives some description of the lokas, dvīpas and the sāgaras, which runs counter to the descriptions given in the Vyāsabhāṣya, ill. 26, and from this we can infer that it was probably written at a time when the Vyāsabhāṣya was not written or had not attained any great sanctity or authority. Alberuni also described the book as being very famous at the time, and Bhoja and Cakrapāṇi also probably confused him with Patañjali the grammarian ; from this we can fairly assume that this book of Patañjali was probably written by some other Patañjali within the first 300 or 400 years of the Christian era; and it may not be improbable that when Vyāsabhāṣya quotes in III. 44 as “iti Patañjalih,” he refers to this Patañjali.

The conception of Yoga as we meet it in the Maitrāyaṇa Upaniṣad consisted of six aṅgas or accessories, namely prāṇā-yāma, pratyāhāra, dhyāna, dhāraṇā, tarka and samādhi^[15]. Comparing this list with that of the list in the Yoga sūtras we find that two new elements have been added, and tarka has been replaced by āsana. Now from the account of the sixty-two heresies given in the Brahmajāla sutta we know that there were people who either from meditation of three degrees or through logic and reasoning had come to believe that both the external world as a whole and individual souls were eternal. From the association of this last mentioned logical school with the Samādhi or Dhyāna school as belonging to one class of thinkers called śāśvatavāda, and from the inclusion of tarka as an añga in samādhi, we can fairly assume that the last of the aṅgas given in MaitrāyanI Upaniṣad represents the oldest list of the Yoga doctrine, when the Sāṃkhya and the Yoga were in a process of being grafted on each other, and when the Sāṃkhya method of discussion did not stand as a method independent of the Yoga.

The substitution of āsana for tarka in the list of Patañjali shows that the Yoga had developed a method separate from the Sāṃkhya. The introduction of ahimsā (non-injury), satya (truthfulness), asteya (want of stealing), brahmacaryya (sex-control), aparigraha (want of greed) as yama and śauca (purity), santoṣa (contentment) as niyama, as a system of morality without which Yoga is deemed impossible (for the first time in the sūtras), probably marks the period when the disputes between the Hindus and the Buddhists had not become so keen. The introduction of maitrī, karuṇā, muditā, upekṣā is also equally significant, as we do not find them mentioned in such a prominent form in any other literature of the Hindus dealing with the subject of emancipation.

Beginning from the Ācārāñgasūtra, Uttarādhyayanasūtra, the Sūtrakṛtāṅgasūtra, etc., and passing through Umāsvāti’s Tat-tvārthādhigamasūtra to Hemacandra’s Yogaśāstra we find that the Jains had been founding their Yoga discipline mainly on the basis of a system of morality indicated by the yamas, and the opinion expressed in Alberuni’s Pātanjal that these cannot give salvation marks the divergence of the Hindus in later days from the Jains. Another important characteristic of Yoga is its thoroughly pessimistic tone. Its treatment of sorrow in connection with the statement of the scope and ideal of Yoga is the same as that of the four sacred truths of the Buddhists, namely suffering, origin of suffering, the removal of suffering, and of the path to the removal of suffering^[16]. Again, the metaphysics of the saṃsāra (rebirth) cycle in connection with sorrow, origination, decease, rebirth, etc. is described with a remarkable degree of similarity with the cycle of causes as described in early Buddhism. Avidyā is placed at the head of the group; yet this avidyā should not be confused with the Vedānta avidyā of Śaṅkara, as it is an avidyā of the Buddhist type; it is not a cosmic power of illusion nor anything like a mysterious original sin, but it is within the range of earthly tangible reality. Yoga avidyā is the ignorance of the four sacred truths, as we have in the sūtra “anityāśuciduḥkkānātmasu nityaśuciduhkhātmakhyātiravidyā ” (II. 5).

The ground of our existing is our will to live (abhiniveśa).

“This is our besetting sin that we will to be, that we will to be ourselves, that we fondly will our being to blend with other kinds of existence and extend. The negation of the will to be, cuts off being for us at least^[17].”

This is true as much of Buddhism as of the Yoga abhiniveśa, which is a term coined and used in the Yoga for the first time to suit the Buddhist idea, and which has never been accepted, so far as I know, in any other Hindu literature in this sense. My sole aim in pointing out these things in this section is to show that the Yoga sūtras proper (first three chapters) were composed at a time when the later forms of Buddhism had not developed, and when the quarrels between the Hindus and the Buddhists and Jains had not reached such a stage that they would not like to borrow from one another. As this can only be held true of earlier Buddhism I am disposed to think that the date of the first three chapters of the Yoga sūtras must be placed about the second century B.C. Since there is no evidence which can stand in the way of identifying the grammarian Patañjali with the Yoga writer, I believe we may take them as being identical^[18].

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Compare R.V. I. 34. 9/vii. 67. 8/1 II. 27. 11/x. 30. 11/x. 114. 9/lV. 24. 4/1. 5. 3/1. 30. 7; Satapatha Brāhmana 14. 7. 1. u.

[2]:

It is probably an old word of the Aryan stock; compare German Joch, A.S. geoc, I.atin jugum.    .

[3]:

See Chāndogya III. 17. 4; Bṛh. 1.2. 6; Bṛh. III. 8. 10; Taitt. I. 9. i/m. 2. i/m. 3. 1 ; Taitt. Brāh. 11. 2. 3. 3; R.V. x. 129; £atap. Brāh. xi. 5. 8. 1.

[4]:

Kaṭha 111. 4, indriyāṇi hayānāhuh viṣayāteṣugocarān. The senses are the horses and whatever they grasp are their objects. Maitr. 2. 6. Karmetidriyāṇyasya hayāḥ the conative senses are its horses.

[5]:

Yugyaḥ is used from the root of yujir yoge and not from yuja samādhau. A consideration of Pāṇini’s rale “ Tadasya bralnnacaryam V. i. 94 shows that not only different kinds of asceticism and rigour which passed by the name of brahmacarya were prevalent in the country at the time (Pānini as Goldstiicker has proved is pre-buddhistic), but associated with these had grown up a definite system of mental discipline which passed by the name of Yoga.

[6]:

Vātsyāyana, however, in his bhāsya on Nyāya sūtra , i. i. 29, distinguishes Sāṃkhya from Yoga in the following way: The Sāṃkhya holds that nothing can come into being nor be destroyed, there cannot be any change in the pure intelligence (niratiśayāḥ cetanāk). All changes are due to changes in the body, the senses, the manas and the objects. Yoga holds that all creation is due to the karma of the purusa. Dosas (passions) and the pravṛtti (action) are the cause of karma. The intelligences or souls (cetana) are associated with qualities. Non-being can come into being and what is produced may be destroyed. The last view is indeed quite different from the Yoga of Vyāsabhāṣya. It is closer to Nyāya in its doctrines. If Vātsyāyana’s statement is correct, it would appear that the doctrine of there being a moral purpose in creation was borrowed by Sāṃkhya from Yoga. Udyotakara’s remarks on the same sūtra do not indicate a difference but an agreement between Sānikhya and Yoga on the doctrine of the indriyas being “ abkaitiiha." Curiously enough Vātsyāyana quotes a passage from Vyāsabhāṣya , ill. 13, in his bhāṣya, 1. ii. 6, and criticizes it as self-contradictory (virtiddha).

[7]:

The Yoga writer Jaigīsavya wrote ‘‘Dhāranāśāstra'' which dealt with Yogamore in the fashion of Tantra than that given by Patañjali. He mentions different places in the body (e.g. heart, throat, tip of the nose, palate, forehead, centre of the brain) which are centres of memory where concentration is to be made. See Vācaspati’s Tātparyaṭīkā or Vātsyāyana’s bhāsya on Nyāya sūtra, III. ii. 43.

[8]:

Weber’s History of Indian Literature , p. 223 11.

[9]:

Patañjali’s Alahābhāṣya, 1. 2. 64.

[10]:

It is important to notice that the most important Buddhist reference nacaikacittatantram vastu tadapramāṇakam tadā kirn syāt (iv. 16) was probably a line of the Vyāsabhāṣya, as Bhoja, who had consulted many commentaries as he says in the preface, does not count it as a sūtra.

[11]:

Cf. Yoga sūtra 1. 23-29 and 11. 1, 45. The Yoga sūtras speak of Iśvara (God) as an eternally emancipated puruṣa, omniscient, and the teacher of all past teachers. By meditating on him many of the obstacles such as illness, etc., which stand in the way of Yoga practice are removed, lie is regarded as one of the alternative objects of concentration. The commentator Vyāsa notes that he is the best object, for being drawn towards the Yogin by his concentration lie so wills that he can easily attain concentration and through it salvation. No argument is given in the Yoga sūtras of the existence of God.

[12]:

Cf. Yoga 11. 1.

[13]:

Alberuni, in his account of the book of Sāṃkhya, gives a list of commandments which practically is the same as yama and niyama, but it is said that through them one cannot attain salvation.

[14]:

Cf. the account of Pāśupatadarśana in Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha.

[15]:

prāṇāyāmaḥ pratyāhāraḥ dhyānam dhāraṇā tarkaḥ samādhiḥ ṣaḍaṅga ityucyate yogaḥ (Maitr. 6. 8).

[16]:

Yoga sūtra, 11. 15, 16, 17. Yathācikitsāśāstraṃ caturvyūhaṃ rogo rogahetuḥ ārogyaṃ bhaiṣajyamiti evamidamapi śāstram caturvyūhameva; tadyathā saṃsārah, saṃsārahetuḥ mokṣaḥ. mokṣopāyaḥ ; duhkḥabahulaḥ saṃsāro heyaḥ, pradhānapuruṣayoḥ saṃyogo keyahetuḥ, saṃyogasyātyantikī nivṛttirhānaṃ hanopāyaḥ satnyagdarśanam, Vyāsabhāṣya, 11. 5

[17]:

Oldenberg’s Buddhism.

[18]:

See S. N. Das Gupta, Yoga Philosophy in relation to other Indian systems of thought, ch. 11. The most important point in favour of this identification seems to be that both the Patañjalis as against the other Indian systems admitted the doctrine of sphota which was denied even by Sāṃkhya. On the doctrine of Sphota see my Study of Patañjali, Appendix 1.