Mircea Eliade and Surendranath Dasgupta The History of their Encounter Dasgupta’s Life, his Philosophy and his Works on Yoga A Comparative Analysis of Eliade’s Chapter on Patañjali’s Yogasūtra and Dasgupta’s Yoga as Philosophy and Religion by Claudia Guggenbühl Zürich, 2008 This study is one of the products of a three-year-long scientific research project entitled “Yoga between Switzerland and India: the history and hermeneutics of an encounter”, sponsored by the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research and guided by Prof. Maya Burger (University of Lausanne) and Prof. Peter Schreiner (University of Zurich). A collective volume containing all the results of our research will be published in due course. 1. Eliade’s Yoga. Immortality and Freedom 1.1. Genesis and importance 1.2. Virtually unknown in Calcutta 2. Eliade in India 2.1. Eliade’s interest in Yoga 2.2. Calcutta 2.2.1. Yoga philosophy vs. Yoga practice 2.2.2. Interlude: Yogendra’s visit of Dasgupta 2.2.3. Dasgupta – a secret yogi? 2.2.4. Love and its consequences 2.3. Yoga in Rishikesh 2.4. Conclusions 3. Surendranath Dasgupta 3.1. A dazzling career 3.2. The fall 3.2.1. A scandal, silence, and three testimonies 3.2.1.1. Pareshnath Bhattacharya 3.2.1.2. Malati Guha Ray 3.2.1.3. Sukumar Mitra 3.2.2. Some official traces 3.3. Dasgupta in other people’s eyes 3.3.1. The scholar 3.3.2. The head of a large family 3.3.3. The professor 3.3.4. The saint 3.4. Dasgupta’s mystical experiences (samādhi) 3.5. Dasgupta’s own philosophy 3.5.1. Critique of Indian philosophy, particularly of Vedānta 3.5.2. Love of life 3.5.3. Philosophy starts with experience 3.5.4. Philosophy and science 3.5.5. No need for liberation 3.5.6. Mind, life and evolution 3.5.7. Fulfilment 3.5.8. Conclusions 4. Dasgupta’s texts on Yoga 4.1. Chronological outline 4.2. Yoga as Philosophy and Religion compared to The Study of Patanjali 4.2.1. Minor differences 4.2.2. Major differences 4.2.3. Conclusions 4.3. Dasgupta’s Sāṃkhya-Yoga 4.3.1. Reasons for treating Sāṃkhya-Yoga 4.3.2. The textual sources Mircea Eliade and Surendranath Dasgupta 2 4.3.3. The analysis of the system according to Yoga as Philosophy and Religion 4.3.3.1. Table of contents 4.3.3.2. Prakṛti (chapter I) 4.3.3.3. Puruṣa (chapter II) 4.3.3.4. The reality of the external world (chapter III) 4.3.3.5. The process of evolution (chapter IV) 4.3.3.6. The evolution of the categories (chapter V) 4.3.3.7. Evolution and change of qualities (chapter VI) 4.3.3.8. Evolution and God (chapter VII) 4.3.3.9. Conclusions 4.3.3.10. Mind and moral states (chapter VIII) 4.3.3.11. The ethical problem (chapter X) 4.3.3.12. Yoga practice (chapter XI) 4.3.3.13. The yogāṅgas (chapter XII) 4.3.3.14. God in Yoga (chapter XIV) 4.3.3.15. Matter and mind (chapter XV) 4.3.3.16. Conclusions 4.4. Karma (chapter IX) 4.4.1. Dasgupta’s personal opinion 4.4.2. Karma in Yoga 4.4.3. Conclusions 4.5. Samādhi (chapter XIII) 4.6. Conclusions 4.6.1. Table of the sūtras referred to 4.6.2. Some general results 5. Eliade’s presentation of Patañjali’s Yogasūtra in Yoga. Immortality and Freedom in comparison with Dasgupta’s Yoga as Philosophy and Religion 5.1. Why Yoga? (foreword) 5.2. Eliade’s acknowledgment of Dasgupta (foreword) 5.3. Structure 5.4. The Doctrines of Yoga (chapter I) 5.4.1. Point of Departure (subchapter I,1) 5.4.2. The Equation Pain-Existence (subchapter I,2) 5.4.3. The “Self” (subchapter I,3) 5.4.4. Substance (subchapter I,4) 5.4.5. The Relation Spirit-Nature (subchapter I,5) 5.4.6. How is Liberation possible? (subchapter I,6) 5.4.7. The Structure of Psychic Experience (subchapter I,7) 5.4.8. The Subconscious (subchapter I,8) 5.4.9. Dasgupta’s article “Yoga Psychology” 5.4.10. Conclusions 5.5. Techniques of Autonomy (chapter II) 5.5.1. Concentration “on a Single Point” (subchapter II,1) 5.5.2. Yogic Postures (āsana) and Respiratory Discipline (prāṇāyāma) (subchapter II,2) 5.5.3. Excursus: Prāṇāyāma in Extra-Indian Asceticism (subchapter II,3) 5.5.4. Yogic Concentration and Meditation (subchapter II,4) Mircea Eliade and Surendranath Dasgupta 3 5.5.5. The Role of Īśvara (subchapter II,5) 5.5.6. Enstasis and Hypnosis (subchapter II,6) 5.5.7. The Siddhis or “Miraculous Powers” (subchapter II,8) 5.5.8. Reintegration and Freedom (subchapter II,10) 5.6. Samādhi 5.6.1. Samādhi “with Support” (subchapter II,7) 5.6.2. Samādhi “without Support” and Final Liberation (subchapter II,9) 5.6.3. Conclusions 5.7. Karma 5.8. Conclusions 6. Appendix: Dasgupta in Switzerland 6.1. The 1939 visit 6.2. An exchange of letters between Dasgupta and C. G. Jung 6.3. Conclusions 7. Bibliography Mircea Eliade and Surendranath Dasgupta 4 1. Eliade’s Yoga: Immortality and Freedom 1.1. Genesis and importance In 1936 Mircea Eliade published his doctoral thesis Yoga, Essai sur les origines de la mystique indienne, simultaneously in French (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Guethner) and in Romanian (Bucharest: Fundatie pentru Literature si Arta Regele Carol II). The first draft of this book (begun in English in India in 1929) was translated into Romanian by Eliade himself and reached completion in 1932. For the French version Eliade not only added new material (“[it] is actually over twice the length of the Romanian version”1), but he also rearranged the content.2 This becomes clear when the tables of content of both the Romanian and the French book are viewed synoptically. “Eliade seems to have aimed at a roughly chronological ordering of topics in the version of 1932 […]. The version of 1936, however, begins […] with the classical darśanas of Sāmkhya and Yoga (Chapters II and III) and follows with chapters on yoga practice and theory in Vedic, Brahmanic, and Epic literature; then it discusses yoga in Buddhism, tantrism, and alchemy; and it continues with brief dicussions of yoga in popular cults, before concluding with hypotheses about origins, etc. This arrangement – which was followed in subsequent versions also – has the effect of making the classical system of Patañjali in the Yoga Sūtras the norm by which the reader judges other forms of yoga.”3 The 1936 Yoga book “suffered from unfortunate misunderstandings resulting from the double translation; in addition, the text was disfigured by a large number of linguistic and typographical errors.”4 Therefore, and encouraged by favourable reviews, Eliade decided to write a new edition. His corrections and added material finally led to a “text that differs considerably from that of the 1936 publication. Except for a few paragraphs, the book has been entirely rewritten in order to adapt it as much as possible to our present views.”5 This new work was published in 1954 as Le Yoga: Immortalité et Liberté (Paris, Payot).6 It very quickly became the authoritative standard work on Yoga, described (for example) as “the 1 Ricketts, Eliade I, 489. 2 For a detailed account of the genesis of the Essai, cf. Ricketts, Eliade I, 488 ff. 3 Ricketts, Eliade I, 491-492. His dissociation from a chronological presentation of the Yoga material was explained by Eliade as follows: “We do not believe that the establishment of dates plays an essential rule in the understanding of a religious phenomenon and above all in the establishment of its laws of evolution.” (Quoted by Ricketts, Eliade II, 1305, Note 20), and: “We think that the value accorded to the ‘most ancient texts’ of the Sanskrit literature is exaggerated. They do not represent, for the religious history of India, anything but the conceptions of the Indo-Aryans. For knowledge of the religious life of the aboriginal populations – the peoples who provided the majority of the anti-Vedic and anti-Brahmanic reforms – the later texts are much more valuable. As for the Yoga-Sāmkhya practices and concepts, they were transmitted for a long time orally, outside of Brahmanism, and appeared in Sanskrit literature rather late. Thus, the chronology of the texts is not decisive for the history of the practices.” (Quoted by Ricketts, Eliade I, 492). 4 Eliade, Yoga, xx. 5 Eliade, Yoga, xxi. 6 It was translated into English in 1958 (Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. London: Routledge, New York: Pantheon Books) and into German in 1960 (Yoga: Unsterblichkeit und Freiheit, Zürich, Stuttgart: Rascher). Translations into other languages followed (Spanish, Italian etc.). A second English edition in 1969 added corrections and more bibliographical notes (London: Routledge). Mircea Eliade and Surendranath Dasgupta 5 first really comprehensive description of yoga in a perfect synthesis”,7 “an indispensable reference book for the specialist”,8 “without question a standard work of religious science”9 or simply “groundbreaking”.10 The importance of Eliade’s book is also reflected in the following observation: In 2003, there were 143 books on Yoga in the Department of Indology at the University of Zurich, 46 of which contained a bibliography with secondary literature on the subject. 34 of these 46 bibliographies (or some 74%) listed Mircea Eliade’s Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, turning this book by far into the most quoted one. It must be noted however that the authors of 29 of those 34 bibliographies were Western – only 5 Indian writers mentioned Eliade.