A landmark new translation and edition
Written almost two millennia ago, Patañjali's work focuses on how to attain the direct experience and realization of the purusa: the innermost individual self, or soul. As the classical treatise on the Hindu understanding of mind and consciousness and on the technique of meditation, it has exerted immense influence over the religious practices of Hinduism in India and, more recently, in the West.
Edwin F. Bryant's translation is clear, direct, and exact. Each sutra is presented as Sanskrit text, transliteration, and precise English translation, and is followed by Bryant's authoritative commentary, which is grounded in the classical understanding of yoga and conveys the meaning and depth of the sutras in a user-friendly manner for a Western readership without compromising scholarly rigor or traditional authenticity. In addition, Bryant presents insights drawn from the primary traditional commentaries on the sutras written over the last millennium and a half.
A landmark new translation and edition
Written almost two millennia ago, Patañjali's work focuses on how to attain the direct experience and realization of the purusa: the innermost individual self, or soul. As the classical treatise on the Hindu understanding of mind and consciousness and on the technique of meditation, it has exerted immense influence over the religious practices of Hinduism in India and, more recently, in the West.
Edwin F. Bryant's translation is clear, direct, and exact. Each sutra is presented as Sanskrit text, transliteration, and precise English translation, and is followed by Bryant's authoritative commentary, which is grounded in the classical understanding of yoga and conveys the meaning and depth of the sutras in a user-friendly manner for a Western readership without compromising scholarly rigor or traditional authenticity. In addition, Bryant presents insights drawn from the primary traditional commentaries on the sutras written over the last millennium and a half.
The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary
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Overview
A landmark new translation and edition
Written almost two millennia ago, Patañjali's work focuses on how to attain the direct experience and realization of the purusa: the innermost individual self, or soul. As the classical treatise on the Hindu understanding of mind and consciousness and on the technique of meditation, it has exerted immense influence over the religious practices of Hinduism in India and, more recently, in the West.
Edwin F. Bryant's translation is clear, direct, and exact. Each sutra is presented as Sanskrit text, transliteration, and precise English translation, and is followed by Bryant's authoritative commentary, which is grounded in the classical understanding of yoga and conveys the meaning and depth of the sutras in a user-friendly manner for a Western readership without compromising scholarly rigor or traditional authenticity. In addition, Bryant presents insights drawn from the primary traditional commentaries on the sutras written over the last millennium and a half.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429995986 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Publication date: | 01/27/2015 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 672 |
| File size: | 6 MB |
About the Author
Edwin F. Bryant received his PhD in Indology from Columbia University. He is a professor of Hindu religion and philosophy at Rutgers University, and also teaches workshops on the yoga sutras and other Hindu texts in yoga communities around the world. He is the author of The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali from North Point Press.
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The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali
A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary
By Edwin F. Bryant
North Point Press
Copyright © 2009 Edwin F. BryantAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-9598-6
CHAPTER 1
MEDITATIVE ABSORPTION
The chapter begins by introducing the subject of the work and providing a definition of yoga—the cessation of citta-vrtti, the fluctuating states of the mind [1–2]. This is followed by a discussion of the two possible functions of awareness [3–4]; a description of the vrttis [5–11]; and how to control them by practice [13–14] and dispassion [15–16]. Then comes the division of samadhi into samprajnata [17] and asamprajnata [18] samadhis and how to attain it [20–22], after pointing to other states that might resemble it [19]. Isvara is then introduced as the easy method of attaining samadhi [23], along with his nature [24–26], name [27], worship [28], and the fruits accruing therefrom [29]. The chapter describes the distractions of the mind [30] and their accompanying effects such as grief, etc. [31]; outlines the means to combat these by dwelling on one truth [32], practicing benevolence, etc., [33], breath control [34], and other means [35–39] that are conducive to samadhi. Additionally, the variety of samapatti meditative states [42] with definitions [42–44] and their fruits [46–48] and object [49] are presented. The chapter concludes with a discussion of samprajnatasamadhi preceding the final stage of asamprajnata [50–51].
Om namo bhagavate Vasudevaya; I offer obeisances to Lord Vasudeva (Krsna).
Commentators and authors of traditional texts typically begin their commentaries with an invocation, nandi-sloka, to their personal deity, the particular form of Isvara, God, that they revere, soliciting blessings and inspiration for the enterprise they are about to undertake. This, notes Vijnanabhiksu, is in order to remove any obstacles that might arise either in the completion of the work by the author, or in the students' ability to grasp its meaning. By so doing, one also strives to remove personal ego so that one can become a conduit, accurately transmitting the essence of the text. Most commentators on the Yoga Sutras, in addition to an invocation to God, offer homage to Patanjali himself, the author of the text, usually invoking him in his traditional form as an incarnation of Sesa, the bearer of Visnu.
I.1 atha yoganusasanam
atha, now; yoga, yoga; anusasanam, teachings Now, the teachings of yoga [are presented].
It is common for authors of philosophical works to commence their treatises by announcing the specific nature of their subject matter, thereby indicating how their undertakings are to be distinguished from other strains of philosophical thought or knowledge systems. Thus, while from the six classical schools of Hindu philosophy the followers of the Vedanta school see their tradition as explaining the nature of the absolute Truth (Brahman), and the followers of the Vaisesika and Mimamsa schools as explaining the nature of dharma, duty, and these respective points of focus are announced in the first sutras of the primary texts associated with those schools, the Yoga school is interested in the subject of yoga. Patanjali accordingly uses the first sutra of his text to announce the topic of his teachings: The primary subject matter of his text differs from that of other systems insofar as his work will be about yoga.
It is also standard in the commentarial literature, as will become apparent throughout this work, for the later commentators to analyze each word in every sutra (as discussed in the introduction, sutra means aphorism or extremely succinct verse), and words are analyzed in various ways—etymologically, semantically, contextually, philosophically, etc. Commentaries thus unpack the meaning of words, both individually and collectively, in the sutras of primary texts. Vyasa, Vacaspati Misra, Vijnanabhiksu, Sankara, Bhoja Raja, Ramananda Sarasvati, and Hariharananda Aranya are, in chronological order, the main commentators recognized as the most important of the premodern period and their interpretations form the basis of the present commentary.
Accordingly, the first word in this sutra, and thus of the entire Yoga Sutras, is atha, now, that is, in the present work Patanjali is about to deliver, demarking these teachings from those in other texts (the word also initiates the opening sutras of other philosophical works). As will be seen below with Vijnanabhiksu's comments, the word atha is also sometimes read as differentiating the text in question from other texts in a hierarchical or sectarian fashion, as indicating that when one has exhausted dabbling with other philosophical or religious systems as represented in other texts, one has now finally come to the summum bonum of Truth, namely, that represented by the text in question. The commentators add, as an aside, that the word atha is deemed somewhat sacred and thus also functions as an auspicious opening to the text.
Vyasa, the primary and most important commentator (whose commentary is almost as canonical as Patanjali's primary text), then proceeds to discuss yoga, the second word in this sutra. In accordance with the famous Sanskrit grammarian Panini, he glosses yoga with samadhi, the ultimate subject matter of the Yoga Sutras. Samadhi consists of various contemplative stages of mental concentration that will be described in detail throughout the text. Indeed, the commentator Vacaspati Misra traces the etymology of yoga to one of the meanings of the root yuj, to contemplate, which, he points out, is the correct etymology here. The more established etymology from the perspective of modern historical linguistics is, of course, derived from the same Indo-European root as the English word "yoke." Yoga can thus mean that which joins, that is, unites one with the Absolute Truth, and while this translation of the term is popularly found (and may be apt in other contexts, such as the Gita, IX.34), it is best avoided in the context of the Yoga Sutras, since, as was pointed out over a hundred years ago by the famous Indologist Max Müller (1899, 309ff) (and long before that, by the sixteenth-century Indian doxographer Madhava) the goal of yoga is not to join, but the opposite: to unjoin, that is, to disconnect purusa from prakrti. If the term is to mean "yoke," it entails yoking the mind on an object of concentration without deviation.
Elaborating on this, Vyasa notes that when the mind is directed toward an object, it can manifest five different degrees of focus (bhumis): wondering, confused, distracted, concentrated, and restrained. It is the last two that are of interest to Yoga: when the mind, citta, is restrained and concentrated, or fixed on one point, a type of samadhi known as samprajnata can be attained. Samprajnata-samadhi entails concentrating the mind in various degrees upon an object of concentration (all of which will be discussed at length below). Vyasa also introduces the notion of asamprajnata-samadhi in these opening comments. This is the seventh and ultimate level of samadhi, when all activities of the mind have been fully restrained—including those involved in samprajnata-samadhi of one-pointed concentration on an object. Since asamprajnata-samadhi will also be discussed at length in the text, we will simply note here that in this state, pure objectless consciousness alone remains, that is, self-contained consciousness conscious only of its own internal nature of pure consciousness rather than of any external object. Vyasa thus provides a minipreview of the subject matter of the Yoga Sutras in his opening comments.
Vyasa makes a point of noting that a distracted mind, the third on his list of states, is not to be confounded with yoga. Vacaspati Misra elaborates that while it is obvious that the other two states of mind, wondering and forgetfulness, are not yoga, a distracted state of mind may appear to be so because it is periodically fixed. However, since such steadiness soon relapses into wondering and forgetfulness, it cannot be considered realyoga. Only the fully concentrated or one-pointed state of mind is yoga.
Vacaspati Misra notes that the third and final term from this sutra, anu-sasanam, strictly speaking means further teaching. He points out that the Yajnavalkya Smrti states that a sage known as Hiranyagarbha was the original teacher of yoga. Hence Patanjali is using the prefix anu-, which indicates the continuation of the activity denoted by the noun to which it is prefixed, in this case, sasanam, teachings. TheMahabharata also identifies Hiranyagarbha as the founder of Yoga (XII.326.65; 337.60). In the Puranic tradition (e.g., Bhagavata Purana, X.71.8), Hiranyagarbha is considered to be an epithet of Brahma, the celestial being responsible for engineering the forms in the universe. In Puranic lore—for example, Bhagavata Purana, which is quoted frequently herein (III.8)—Hiranyagarbha is born on a lotus emanating from the navel of Visnu, the supreme Godhead, who is reclining on the divine serpent Sesa on the cosmic waters pervading the entire universe prior to creation. (As an aside, Patanjali himself is considered an incarnation of Sesa; see commentary in II.47.) Awakening to consciousness atop the lotus, Hiranyagarbha has no means of knowing who he is, or what is the source of the lotus or the all-expansive waters, indeed, no means of discerning or knowing anything at all. Confused and disoriented, he stills his mind (in accordance with the next verse), and enters into the ultimate state of yoga (samadhi), as a result of which he is granted a divine vision of Lord Visnu. Hiranyagarbha is thus the first yogi in primordial times, and deemed to have written the original treatise on the subject.
Although mentioned in various texts, the Hiranyagarbha treatise is no longer extant, but information about its twelvefold content, all overlapping with the material found in Patanjali's sutras, is preserved in the Vaisnava text the Ahirbudhnya Samhita. Indeed, the information provided in this text suggests that Patanjali has, indeed, preserved the ancient formulation of the original philosophy ascribed to Hiranyagarbha, rather than patching together some innovative Yogic collage. Elsewhere, Vyasa also refers to the teachings of one Jaigisavya as a forerunner of Yoga (II.55). Madhava in his sixteenth-century doxography (compendium of philosophical schools) states that Patanjali, out of kindness, seeing how difficult it was to make sense of all the different types of yoga scattered throughout the Puranas, collected their "essences" (111). Patanjali is not the founder of the practice of yoga, which, Vacaspati Misra stresses, is an ancient practice that preceded even Patanjali. Thus, by using the prefix anu, Patanjali himself implies that he has articulated and systematized a method from preexisting sets of teachings. His opening sutra, atha yoganusasanam, thus informs the reader about the subject matter of the text.
Although Yoga becomes one of six schools of orthodox Hindu thought, its adherents naturally consider it to supersede the other schools. Vijnanabhiksu, the most philosophical of the commentators, quotes a number of scriptural passages that point to the supremacy of yoga. For example, Krsna, in the Bhagavad Gita (which Vijnanabhiksu quotes frequently) states, "The yogi is higher than the ascetic, and also considered higher than the jnani, one who pursues knowledge. The yogi is higher still than the karmi, one who performs action; therefore, Arjuna, become a yogi" (VI.46). Just as all rivers such as the Ganga are present as parts of the ocean, says Vijnanabhiksu, so all other schools of thought are fully represented as parts of Yoga. While he allows that one can certainly obtain genuine knowledge from these other schools, all knowledge is, by its very nature, a faculty of the intellect, buddhi; it is not a faculty of the soul proper. Sectarianism apart, it is perhaps useful to consider the argument so as to establish a preliminary understanding of the mind and intellect from Yoga perspectives. All aspects of mind, intellect, and cognition in Yoga psychology are external to or distinct from the true self, or soul. As will become clearer, the soul, which is pure consciousness, is autonomous and separable from the mind, and lies behind and beyond all forms of thought.
It is essential to fully grasp this fundamental point in order to understand the Yoga system. Just as in most religious systems the body is commonly accepted to be extraneous to and separable from some notion of a soul or life force, and discarded at death, so (in contrast to certain major strains of Western thought), according to the Yoga system (and Hindu thought in general), the mind is also held to be extraneous to and separable from the soul (although it is discarded not at death but only upon attaining liberation). The soul is enveloped in two external and separable bodies in Yoga metaphysics: the gross material body consisting of the senses, and the subtle body consisting of the mind, intellect, ego, and other subtle aspects of the persona. At death, the soul discards the gross body (which returns to the material elements, to "dust") but remains encapsulated in the subtle body, which is retained from life to life, and eventually attains a new gross body, in accordance with natural laws (karma, etc.). In order to be liberated from this cycle of repeated birth and death (termed samsara in ancient Indian thought), the soul has to be uncoupled from not just the gross body but the subtle body of the citta as well. The process of yoga is directed toward this end. For our present purposes, then, in contrast to the Cartesian model, knowledge, as a feature of the intellect, or the discriminatory aspect of the mind, is extraneous to the pure self and thus not the ultimate aspect of being.
The point here is that while knowledge is initially essential in leading the yogi practitioner through the various levels of samadhi, concentrative states, it is only through yoga, for Vijnanabhiksu, that one can transcend the very intellect itself and thus the base of knowledge, to arrive at purusa, the ultimate state of pure, unconditioned awareness. From this perspective, Yoga is therefore superior to other schools of thought that occupy themselves with knowledge and thus remain connected to the material intellect. Just as a person with a torch in hand gives up the torch upon finding treasure, says Vijnanabhiksu, so, eventually, the intellect, and the knowledge that it presents, also become redundant upon attaining the ultimate source of truth, purusa, the soul and innermost self. The self is pure subjectivity and transcends all knowledge, which is of the nature of objectivity: One knows, that is, one is aware or conscious of, something, hence some other object distinct from the knower or power of consciousness itself, whether this is an external object of the physical world, or an internal object of thought.
Thus, Vijnanabhiksu says (paraphrasing Sankhya Karika XXXV), knowledge and the intellect are the door and doorkeeper, and both lead the practitioner of yoga from the domain of material cognition to the highest goal of existence, realization of purusa, consciousness itself, but this ultimately lies beyond even the intellect. This state of pure consciousness, which is not conscious of anything other than consciousness itself, is termed asamprajnata-samadhi. The attainment of this state is the ultimate goal for the school of Yoga, not any type of knowledge however profound or mystical. Hence, from this perspective, Yoga is superior to knowledge-centered paths.
The origins of Yoga are rooted in direct perception of its subject matter, says the commentator Hariharananda Aranya. He too notes that Yoga is based not on the mere logical reasoning of the intellect but on direct experience, and in this regard differs from some of the other schools of orthodox thought, which are highly philosophical. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is more a psychosomatic technique than a treatise on metaphysics; the truths of Yoga cannot be experienced by inferential reasoning but only by direct perception. As will be seen in I.49, the Yoga school prioritizes experience over other forms of attaining knowledge. These personal realizations, says Hariharananda, are handed down from teacher to disciple, generation after generation. The teachings of Yoga are an attempt to encapsulate those truths as best as possible through the medium of words and concepts. Since the ultimate truth of the soul, attained in asamprajnata-samadhi, is by definition beyond the intellect, and thus beyond words and concepts, the primary purpose of this text is, as far as possible, to point the reader toward the actual practice of yoga. While the Yoga Sutras provides much interesting information on the nature of Hindu psychology and soteriology, it is useful to keep in mind that its intended function is as a manual for the practitioner (hence its cryptic nature from the perspective of the intellect).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali by Edwin F. Bryant. Copyright © 2009 Edwin F. Bryant. Excerpted by permission of North Point Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Foreword by B.K.S. Iyengar,
Sanskrit Pronunciation Guide,
The History of Yoga,
The Subject Matter of the Yoga Sutras,
The Present Translation and Commentary,
CHAPTER I: MEDITATIVE ABSORPTION,
CHAPTER II: PRACTICE,
CHAPTER III: MYSTIC POWERS,
CHAPTER IV: ABSOLUTE INDEPENDENCE,
Concluding Reflections,
Chapter Summaries,
Appendix: Devanagari, Transliteration, and Translation of Sutras,
Notes,
Bibliography,
Glossary of Sanskrit Terms and Names,
Word Index,
Acknowledgments,
Praise for The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali,
About the Author,
Also by Edwin F. Bryant,
Copyright,