Yoga and Patanjali
The word yoga occurs in the rig-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 rig-Veda and in such later Vedic works as the Shatapatha Brahmana and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1). The word has another derivative “yugya” in later Sanskrit literature (2).
With the growth of religious and philosophical ideas in the rig-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 Panini’s time the word yoga had attained its technical meaning, and he distinguished this root “yuj samadhau” (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 Bhagavadgita, we find that the word yoga has been used not only in conformity with the root “yuj-samadhau” but also with “yujir yoge” This has been the source of some confusion to the readers of the Bhagavadgita. “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 Bhagavadgita 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 Arthashastra when enumerating the philosophic sciences of study names Samkhya, Yoga, and Lokayata. The oldest Buddhist sutras (e.g. the Satipatthana 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 Samkhya, as we find it in the Yoga sutras of Patanjali, it is indeed difficult to come to any definite conclusion. The science of breath had attracted notice in many of the earlier Upanishads, though there had not probably developed any systematic form of pranayama (a system of breath control) of the Yoga system. It is only when we come to Maitrayani that we find that the Yoga method had attained a systematic development. The other two Upanishads in which the Yoga ideas can be traced are the Shvetashvatara and the Katha. It is indeed curious to notice that these three Upanishads of Krishna Yajurveda, where we find reference to Yoga methods, are the only ones where we find clear references also to the Samkhya tenets, though the Samkhya 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 Maitrayani in the conversation between Shakyayana and Brihad ratha where we find that the Samkhya 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 Samkhya metaphysics on the Yoga system as its basis, was the work of the followers of this school of ideas which was subsequently systematized by Patanjali.
Thus Shakyayana says: “Here some say it is the guna 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 Upanishads as Shandilya, Yogatattva, Dhyanabindu, Hamsa, Amritanada, Varaha, Mandala Brahmana, Nadabindu, and Yogakundalu, shows that the Yoga practices had undergone diverse changes in diverse schools, but none of these show any predilection for the Samkhya. Thus the Yoga practices grew in accordance with the doctrines of the Shaivas and Shaktas and assumed a peculiar form as the Mantrayoga; 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 Upanishad says that there are four kinds of yoga, the Mantra Yoga, Laya Yoga, Hathayoga and Rajayoga (7).
In some cases we find that there was a great attempt even to associate Vedantism 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 Patanjala school of Samkhya, which forms the subject of the Yoga with which we are now dealing, Patanjali 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 Samkhya metaphysics, and gave them the form in which they have been handed down to us. Vacaspati and Vijnana Bhikshu, the two great commentators on the Vyasabhashya, agree with us in holding that Patanjali was not the founder of Yoga, but an editor. Analytic study of the sutras brings the conviction that the sutras 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 Patanjali 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. Patanjal is not even anxious to establish the system, but he is only engaged in systematizing the facts as he had them. Most of the criticism 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 Buddhist 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 Patanjali 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 sutras, 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 sutras, whereas the average number of sutras in other chapters is between 51 to 55.
1: Compare R.V.I. 34. 9/VII. 67. 8/III. 27. II/X. 30. II/X. 114. 9/IV. 24. 4/I. 5. 3/I. 30. 7; Shatapatha Brahmana 14. 7. I. II.
2: It is probably an old word of the Aryan stock; compare German
Joch, A.S. geoc. l atm jugum.
3: See Chandogya III. 17. 4; Brih. I. 2. 6; Brih. III. 8. 10; Taitt. I. 9. I/III. 2. I/III. 3. I; Taitt, Brah, II. 2. 3. 3; R.V.x. 129; Shatap. Brah. XI. 5. 8. 1.
4: Katha III. 4, indriyani hayanahuh vishayateshugocaran. The senses are the horses and whatever they grasp are their objects. Maitr. 2. 6. Karmendriyanyasya hayah the conative senses are its horses.
5: Yugyah is used from the root of yujir yoge and not from yuja samadhau. A consideration of Panini’s rule “Tadasya brahmacaryam,” 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 (Panini as Goldstucker 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: Vatsyayana, however, in his bhashya on Nyaya sutra, I. i 29, distinguishes Samkhya from Yoga in the following way: The Samkhya holds that nothing can come into being nor be destroyed, there cannot be any change in the pure intelligence (niratishayah cetanah). 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 purusha. Doshas (passions) and the pravritti (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 Vyasabhashya, It is closer to Nyaya in its doctrines. If Vatsyayana’s statement is correct, it would appear that the doctrine of there being a moral purpose in creation was borrowed by Samkhya from Yoga. Udyotakara’s remarks on the same sutra do not indicate a difference but an agreement between Samkhya and Yoga on the doctrine of the indriyas being “abhautika.” Curiously enough Vatsyayana quotes a passage from Vyasabhashya, III. 13, in his bhashya, I. ii. 6, and criticizes it as self-contradictory (viruddha).
7: The Yoga writer Jaigishavya wrote “Dharanashastra” which dealt with Yoga more in the fashion of Tantra then that given by Patanjali. 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 Vacaspati’s Tatparyatika or Vatsyayana’s bhashya on Nyaya sutra, III. ii. 43.
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