Yoga-sutras (with Bhoja’s Rajamartanda)
by Rajendralala Mitra | 1883 | 103,575 words
The Yoga-Sutra 2.9, 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 2.9
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of Sūtra 2.9:
स्वरसवाही विदुषोऽपि तथारूढोऽभिनिवेशः ॥ २.९ ॥
svarasavāhī viduṣo'pi tathārūḍho'bhiniveśaḥ || 2.9 ||
9. Tenacity of life is an attachment to the body which relates to the residua of one’s former life, even on the part of the wise.
The Rajamartanda commentary by King Bhoja:
[English translation of the 11th century commentary by Bhoja called the Rājamārtaṇḍa]
[Sanskrit text for commentary available]
The fear arising from the memory of pain from death endured in a former life prompts the constant wish, “May I not be separated from the body and its objects,” and the attachment to the body resulting therefrom, an attachment which exists without an inducing cause, in all beings from Brahmā to an earthworm, is the affliction called “Tenacity of life.” (Abhināveṣa.) Thus, it is afflicting in the waking or mundane state. These afflictions should at the outset be destroyed by the Yogī by the exercise of concentration of the mind to one point.
Notes and Extracts
[Notes and comparative extracts from other commentaries on the Yogasūtra]
[The only doubtful word in the aphorism is the first. It is formed of the three words, sva “one’s own,” rasa literally “wish,” and vāhī, “that which carries:”—“that which carries or keeps in current one’s wish.” The commentators have, however, not rendered it so. Without giving a synonym of rasa, the Pātañjala Bhāṣya uses the word vāsanā in its place (maraṇaduḥkhānubhavādiyam vāsaneti), and that word is the equivalent of saṃskāra, which I have rendered into residua. In this way the term svarasavāhī means “that which carries the residua of one’s former life.” It proceeds from the memory of former experience, and since no one has in this life experienced the pain of death, it must follow that the fear of death must be the result of the unconscious memory of the experience of a former state of life—and this fear is the cause of attachment to life.]
Since it is not practicable to remove these afflictions without first knowing what they are, the author, having described their names (II, III) fields, (I, IV) divisions, (II, IV) and characteristics, (II, V to IX,) now explains the division of the means of destroying them, according as they are gross or subtile.