Yogavasistha

[B.Loturco at agora.stm.it]

I'd like to know the opinion of the members of the list about the

Yogavasistha.
When was it composed? What was its historical and philosophical milieu?
Personally, I had the following impressions (leaving out the last book,
6b):
The YV must have been written before Shamkara or at least before the spread
of Shamkara's thought.
The YV neither mentions Shamkara, nor it shows to assume a position
regarding his doctrine or other Vedanta doctrines.
Therefore the Vedanta doctrine implied by the YV must precede the great
systematic Vedanta.
The work doesn't seem to show any tantric influence: there is no cult of
the shakti, no speculation about language, no exaltation of supernatural
powers and rites, no cryptic language, no antinomism.
And, moreover, I don't see any influence from Kashmir Shaivism.
The likeness between the two doctrines was deduced from words which aren't
unusual at all in sanskrit.
For instance, the presence of the word 'spanda' in the YV cannot prove
anything.
This word recurs in Yoga, Vaisheshika, Vedanta (especially Gaudapada), with
meanings not too far from that of YV.
Furthermore, philosophically the YV is very far from Pancaratra too: no
doctrine of vyuhas is implied.
This doctrine would require a certain degree of reality of the world, but
this reality is denied by the YV.
The YV shows a great affinity with Gaudapada's doctrine, and maybe with all
that initial stage of vedantic thought (affected by Mahayana) which is
known to us only through allusions of Shantarakshita and few polemical
passages of late vedantins.
The YV has, from a literary standpoint, a puranic flavour, and seems to
accept the role of increasing importance which the maya has in the Purana.
The YV could maybe be considered a wide synthesis of the pre-sectarian
Hinduism and especially, from a philosophical standpoint, of that
idealistic mainstream which later took shape in Shamkara's works.

Bruno Lo Turco
graduate student, Rome
(B.Loturco at agora.stm.it)



 --- MMMR v3.60unr * Bruno Lo Turco