question on recaka-pUraka-kumbhaka

[Kengo Harimoto]

Hello Vidyasankar Sundaresan and the list members,

[Since I am receiving Indology in digest, I am going to comment on
multiple messages.]

> Meanwhile, just to satisfy my curiosity quickly - is there evidence
> to differentiate between a Brhadyogiyajnavalkyasmrti text and a
> plain Yajnavalkyasmrti?

Oh, they are totally different.  Or maybe a few shared verses?  Kane
and other references given by Ondracka, et al, should answer the
question regarding between the two, I think.  Or, if at all possible,
just a look at the two makes it clear that they are different :-) But
the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series is hard to come by.  The plain
Yaaj~navalkyasm.rti is a dharma"saastra and the
B.rhadyogiyaaj~navalkyasm.rti is a yoga"saastra.

Shingen Takagi also wrote a couple of articles on the
B.rhadyogiyaaj~navalkyasm.rti and the Yogayaaj~navalkyasm.rti.  (Sorry
I do not have the reference at the moment.  But they are in Japanese
anyway.)

> This was what prompted my original request for references. In a 1998
> paper in JIP, T. S. Rukmani interprets this "anye" (others) as a
> reference to Vaacaspati Mizra, and argues that the vivara.na is
> therefore a later text. I doubt whether the vivara.na on the
> Yogasuutrabhaa.sya is by the author of the Brahmasuutrabhaa.sya, but
> I nevertheless question the assertion that the reference in the
> vivara.na is a straightforward one to Vaacaspati Mizra.

Rukmani's articles are not very much reliable (to say the least).
Since it happens that the Vivara.na on the Yogabhaa.sya is what I
dealt with in my dissertation, I am a bit familiar with the issue :-)

> In the bhagavadgiitaabhaa.sya (4. 29), the terms puuraka, recaka and
> kumbhaka are used as a matter of course, in order to explain the
> sacrifice of praa.na in apaana and vice versa, controlling the
> movement of both. There is also a full description of baahya and
> aabhyantara v.rttis in this connection. Here, "apare" (others) comes
> from the Giitaa verse itself, but the Bhaas.ya clearly shows that
> Zankara himself was quite aware of all these details. Swami
> Tyagananda pointed to the Zvetaazvatarabhaa.sya reference, but the
> attribution of this commentary to Zankara is doubted. On the other
> hand, after the work of Raghavan, Ingalls and Mayeda, there is now
> no doubt whatsoever about the Giitaabaa.sya.

If you read the Vivara.na on YS 2.28--55, there are rather frequent
reference to others/aacaaryas/yoga"saastraantara.  The impression I
got from examining them is that the author was quite familiar with a
yoga"saastra that teaches 6-a"nga yoga.  The a"ngas lack yama and
niyama of 8-a"nga of the Paata~njalayoga"saastra, but at least aasanas
and praa.naayaama were among them.  There are further interesting
observations possible.

I once wrote a short article in Japanese on the issue, but that was
rather like suutras (due to space limitation) and not quite
intelligible even from my own perspective.  (Again, since it is in
Japanese, I do not want to ask anyone to bother.)  I have been trying
to rewrite the whole thing in English, but haven't finished editing
and yet to submit to any journal.

Some of the highlights from my observations would be:

1) that I thought the yoga"saastra could have been ascribed to
Hira.nyagarbha (see the Vivara.na on YS 3.39), the legendary original
teacher of yoga.

2) and that the yoga"saastra appears to be quite similar (if not the
same) yoga"saastra "Sa"nkara knew.  As you are aware, "Sa"nkara was
familiar with more than one yoga"saastras, including the
Paata~njalayoga"saastra.

Compare the BSBh 2.1.3: yoga"saastre .api ``atha tattvadar"sanopaayo
yoga.h'' iti samyagdar"sanaabhyupaayatvenaiva yogo.a"ngiikriyate|
(BSBh NSP ed. p. 438, ll. 8--9)

Vivara.na 2.28:  tathaa caacaaryair uktam, ``yogas
tattvaj~naanaartha.h'' i iti|| (Vivara.na, p. 208, ll. 9--13)

BSBh 4.2.10: ata eva padmakaadiinaam aasanavi"se.saa.naam upade"so
yoga"saastre (BSBh NSP ed. p. 949, l. 15)

Vivara.na 2.46: "saastraantaraprasiddhaani naamaani padmaasanaadiini
pradar"syante|| (p. 225, l. 18)

etc.

Interestingly, Jacobi somehow thought that the reference in the BSBh
2.1.3 was to Hira.nyagarbha's yoga"saastra. (See his ``Ueber das
urspruengliche Yogasystem,'' in Kleine Schiriften, p. 701, n. 2.)

> Any Atharvavedic references available?

AV 15.15--7 was what Hauer dealt with.  But Eliade did not think the
excercise in the AV was already praa.naayaama (Yoga, p. 104).

--
kengo