Yoga-sutras (with Bhoja’s Rajamartanda)
by Rajendralala Mitra | 1883 | 103,575 words
The Yoga-Sutra 3.54, 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 3.54
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of Sūtra 3.54:
तारकं सर्वविषयं सर्वथाविषयमक्रमं चेति विवेकजं ज्ञानम् ॥ ३.५४ ॥
tārakaṃ sarvaviṣayaṃ sarvathāviṣayamakramaṃ ceti vivekajaṃ jñānam || 3.54 ||
54. The knowledge resulting from discrimination is emancipating, omni-objective, semper-objective, instantaneous.
The Rajamartanda commentary by King Bhoja:
[English translation of the 11th century commentary by Bhoja called the Rājamārtaṇḍa]
[Sanskrit text for commentary available]
To explain the name, object, and nature of the aforesaid knowledge resulting from discrimination, he says.
[Read Sūtra 3.54]
The knowledge which results from the power of the aforesaid Saṃyama at the last stage is “emancipating” (Tāraka). That whereby Yogīs are ferried over the unfathomable ocean of the world has the significant name of Tāraka, (the emancipating). He describes its object; it is a “omni objective” (sarva-vīsaya); all categories from the Mahat downward are its objects, and therefore it is omni-objective. Its characteristic is its semper-objectivity (sarvathāviṣayatva). That which has for its objects the categories in all conditions, whether gross or subtile, in all their modifications, and existing in all forms, is always semper-objective. Another characteristic of it is “instantaneousness” (akrama). Being finally modified it has to make no progress in accepting two, three or one form, hence “instantaneous,” i.e., (a Yogī in this stage) perceives everything at once, like an emblic fruit in the palm of one’s band.
Notes and Extracts
[Notes and comparative extracts from other commentaries on the Yogasūtra]
[The discriminative knowledge aforesaid is here more fully explained. It grasps all the categories and therefore the whole universe. It makes them its object at all times, and its knowledge is never absent. It acts instantaneously, because it has the whole thing before it, and needs no process of observation and retiociation to come to an understanding. And everything being known by it, it effects emancipation, for emancipation means true knowledge.]
He now says what results from this emancipating knowledge proceeding from discrimination.