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Roots-Of-Yoga.Pdf Translated and Edited with an Introduction by James Mallinson and Mark Singleton ROOTS OF YOGA Contents Note on the Reference System and Diacritics Timeline of Important Texts Introduction ROOTS OF YOGA 1. Yoga 2. Preliminaries 3. Posture 4. Breath-control 5. The Yogic Body 6. Yogic Seals 7. Mantra 8. Withdrawal, Fixation and Meditation 9. Samādhi 10. Yogic Powers 11. Liberation Notes Primary Sources Secondary Literature Glossary Acknowledgements Follow Penguin PENGUIN CLASSICS ROOTS OF YOGA JAMES MALLINSON is Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit and Classical Indian Civilization at SOAS, University of London. His research focuses on the yoga tradition, in particular the texts, techniques and practitioners of traditional haṭhayoga. He has edited and translated several texts on haṭhayoga from its formative period, the eleventh to fifteenth centuries CE, and published encyclopedia entries and journal articles on yoga’s history. His primary research methods in addition to philology are ethnography and art history. He has spent several years living with traditional Hindu ascetics and yogis in India and was honoured with the title of ‘mahant’ by the Ramanandi Sampradaya at the 2013 Kumbh Mela festival. He is currently leading a five-year, six-person research project at SOAS on the history of haṭhayoga, funded by the European Research Council, whose outputs will include ten critical editions of key texts on haṭhayoga. MARK SINGLETON is Senior Research Fellow in the department of Languages and Cultures of South Asia, SOAS, University of London, where he works with James Mallinson on the Indian and transnational history of haṭhayoga. He taught for six years at St John’s College (Santa Fe, New Mexico), and was a Senior Long-Term Research Scholar at the American Institute of Indian Studies, based in Jodhpur (Rajasthan, India). He was a consultant and catalogue author for the 2013 exhibition ‘Yoga: The Art of Transformation’ at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, and has served as co-chair of the Yoga in Theory and Practice Group at the American Academy of Religions. He is a manager of the Modern Yoga Research website. His research focuses on the tensions between tradition and modernity in yoga, and the transformations that yoga has undergone in recent centuries in response to globalization. He has published book chapters, journal articles and encyclopedia entries on yoga, several edited volumes of scholarship, and a monograph entitled Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice. His current work involves the critical editing and translation of three Sanskrit texts of haṭhayoga and new research on the history of physical practices that were incorporated into or associated with yoga in pre-colonial India. Note on the Reference System and Diacritics The translated passages are numbered sequentially from the beginning to the end of the book, and are referred to in the introductions by these numbers, which are given in bold type. In cases where the chapter arrangement is entirely chronological, the first number indicates the chapter and the second the translation itself. So, for example, 3.4 denotes Chapter 3, translation 4. In cases where the chapters are arranged thematically, the first number indicates the chapter, the second the thematic section, and the third the translation. So, for example, 6.2.1 denotes Chapter 6, section 2, translation 1. Historically, Sanskrit has been written using many different scripts. Since the advent of printing, the most common of these, especially in northern India, has been Devanāgarī ( ). It is important to understand, however, that these scripts are not Sanskrit itself but systems for representing its sounds. The Roman alphabet (used for writing English and other European languages) cannot represent the full range of sounds in Sanskrit, and so we must add diacritical marks to certain letters. In this book we follow the conventions of the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST), which allows for the lossless representation of the Sanskrit syllabary in Roman script. Timeline of Important Texts* 1500–1000 BCE Vedas (Ṛg, Sāma, Yajur and Atharva) (V) 1000–700 BCE Brāhmaṇas (V) 700–500 BCE Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Chāndogya Upaniṣads (V) 3rd century BCE Kaṭha Upaniṣad (V) Cūḷavedalla Sutta (BC), Saccavibhaṅga Sutta (BC), Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (BC), Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1st century BCE (V) 1st century CE Mahābhārata Śāntiparvan (E) completed 2nd century CE Rāmāyaṇa (E) completed, Pāśupatasūtra (ŚT) 3rd century CE Mahābhārata (E) completed, Manusmṛti (HL) 4th century CE Vaiśeṣikasūtra (HP), Sthānāṅgasūtra (J), Patañjali’s Yogaśāstra, Pañcārthabhāṣya (ŚT) 5th century CE Visuddhimagga (B) 6th century CE Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (V), Padārthadharmasaṃgraha (HP), Vaikhānasadharmasūtra (HL) Early Tantras: Niśvāsatattvasaṃhitā (ŚT), Vīṇāśikha (ŚT), Vairocanābhisaṃbodhisūtra (BT), Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa (BT), Brahmayāmala (ŚT), Hevajra (BT), Jayadrathayāmala (ŚT), Mṛgendra 6th–10th century CE (ŚT), Kiraṇa (ŚT), Parākhya (ŚT), Mataṅgapārameśvara (ŚT), Sarvajñānottara (ŚT), Siddhayogeśvarīmata (ŚT), Mālinīvijayottara (ŚT), Svacchanda (ŚT), Netra (ŚT), Kaulajñānanirṇaya (ŚT), Kubjikāmata (ŚT), Vimānārcanākalpa (VT), Pādmasaṃhitā (VT) 7th–10th century CE Early Purāṇas: Skanda, Vāyu, Kūrma (inc. Īśvaragītā), Liṅga, Bhāgavata, Mārkaṇḍeya 8th century CE Tantravārttika (HP), Brahmasūtrabhāṣya (HP), Pātañjalayogaśāstravivaraṇa (HP) 9th century CE Spandakārikā (ŚT) 10th century CE Vijñānabhairava (ŚT), Paramokṣanirāsakārikāvṛtti (ŚT) Hemacandra’s Yogaśāstra (J), Chos drug gi man ngag zhes bya ba (BT), Spandasaṃdoha (ŚT), 11th century CE Amṛtasiddhi (H), Kathāsaritsāgara (E), Vimalaprabhā (ŚT) 12th century CE Vajravārāhī Sādhana (BT), Viṣṇusaṃhitā (VT), Amanaska (H), Śāradātilaka (ŚT) Saṃgītaratnākara (ŚT), Vasiṣṭhasaṃhitā (H), Candrāvalokana (H), Matsyendrasaṃhitā (ŚT), 13th century CE Vivekamārtaṇḍa (H), Gorakṣaśataka (H), Dattātreyayogaśāstra (H), Jñāneśvarī (H) Tirumantiram (ŚT), Aparokṣānubhūti (HP), Yogatārāvalī (H), Śaṅkaradigvijaya (VA), 14th century CE Amaraughaprabodha (H), Yogabīja (H), Khecarīvidyā (H), Śivasaṃhitā (H), Gorakṣavijaya (E), Śārṅgadharapaddhati (HC), Jīvanmuktiviveka (VA), Lallāvākyāni (ŚT), Reḥla of Ibn (T) Śivayogapradīpikā (H), Rtsa rlung gsang ba’i lde mig (BT), Haṭhapradīpikā (H), Ḥawż al-ḥayāt (H), 15th century CE Mahākālasaṃhitā (ŚT) 16th century CE Baḥr al-ḥayāt (H), Miragāvatī (A) 17th century CE Haṭharatnāvalī (H), Nādabindūpaniṣad (H), Yogaśikhopaniṣad (H), Sarvāṅgayogapradīpikā (H) Rājayogāmṛta (H), Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati (H), Yogamārgaprakāśikā (H), Haṃsavilāsa (HP), 18th century CE Gheraṇḍasaṃhitā (H), Bṛhatkhecarīprakāśa (H), Haṭhapradīpikā (Long Recension) (H), Haṭhatattvakaumudī (H), Jogpradīpakā (H), Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati (H) 19th century CE Tashrīh al-Aqvāṃ (PE) Abbreviations of categories: A = Avadhi romance; B = Buddhist; BC = Buddhist Canonical; BT = Buddhist Tantra; E = ‘Hindu’* Epic/Narrative; H = Haṭhayoga; HC = ‘Hindu’ Compendium; HL = ‘Hindu’ Law; HP = ‘Hindu’ Philosophy; J = Jain; PE = Persian Ethnography; ŚT = Śaiva Tantra; T = Travel Report; V = Vedic; VA = Vedānta; VT = Vaiṣṇava Tantra Introduction1 Over the last three decades there has been an enormous increase in the popularity of yoga around the world. The United Nations’ recent declaration of an International Day of Yoga2 is symbolic of yoga’s truly globalized status today. Along with this globalization, however, has come metamorphosis: yoga has adapted to social and cultural conditions often far removed from those of its birthplace, and in many regions has taken on a life of its own, independent of its Indian roots. The global diffusion of yoga began at least a century and a half ago, since which time yoga has continued to be refracted through many new cultural prisms, such as New Age religion, psychology, sports science, biomedicine, and so on.3 In spite of yoga’s now global popularity (or perhaps, rather, because of it), a clear understanding of its historical contexts in South Asia, and the range of practices that it includes, is often lacking. This is at least partly due to limited access to textual material.4 A small canon of texts, which includes the Bhagavadgītā, Patañjali’s Yogasūtras, the Haṭhapradīpikā and some Upaniṣads, may be studied within yoga teacher-training programmes, but by and large the wider textual sources are little known outside specialized scholarship. Along with the virtual hegemony of a small number of posture- oriented systems in the recent global transmission of yoga, this has reinforced a relatively narrow and monochromatic vision of what yoga is and does, especially when viewed against the wide spectrum of practices presented in pre-modern texts. Of course, texts are not reflective of the totality of yoga’s development – they merely provide windows on to particular traditions at particular times – and an absence of evidence for certain practices within texts is not evidence of their absence within yoga as a whole.5 Conversely, the appearance of new practices in texts is itself often an indication of older innovations. Despite these limitations, however, texts remain a unique and dependable source of knowledge about yoga at particular moments in history, in contrast to often unverifiable retrospective self-accounts of particular lineages. In addition to texts, material sources, particularly sculpture and painting from the second millennium CE, provide invaluable data for the reconstruction of yoga’s history. While we have not addressed such sources directly here, they have informed
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