Yoga Body, a book by Mark Singleton

[George Thompson]

Hello Dominic,

Right.  This kind of traditional exegesis is probably  the inspiration
behind Singleton's use of the word "homonym." Poor choice of words, in my
view.

Best, George

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 11:23 PM, Dominic Goodall
<dominic.goodall at gmail.com>wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> Is this not just a reflection of the old idea that the form yoga can be
> derived from what have long been judged to be different verbal roots ?
> Commentators tend to defend their view of what yoga really is by quoting
> (from the Dhātupāṭha) either
>
> yujir yoge
> or
> yuja samādhau.
>
> Theistic commentators tend to favour the former (e.g. the tenth-century
> Kashmirian Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha commenting on Mṛgendratantra, yogapāda 2) .
>  Historical linguists may not believe these to be properly separate roots,
> but the view that yoga and yoga can be homophones appears to be quite an old
> one.
>
> Dominic Goodall
> École française d'Extrême-Orient,
> 19, rue Dumas,
> Pondicherry 605001
>
> On 08-Mar-2011, at 9:00 AM, George Thompson wrote:
>
> > Dear List,
> >
> > On another list there is a discussion of an interesting book with this
> title
> > written recently  by Mark Singleton.  In this book Singleton argues,
> > provocatively,  that modern hatha yoga practices are bearly a 100 years
> old,
> > and that they have been heavily influenced by early 20th century European
> > gymnastic regimens.   As far as I am concerned there is nothing
> > controversial about Singleton's interesting new claims.
> >
> > But early on in his book, Singleton tries to suggest that the term yoga
> in
> > classical Sanskrit is not just one term.  He claims that it is a series
> of
> > homonyms  \that mean different things in the Upanisads, the Gita, the
> Yoga
> > Sutras, the Shaiva Tantras, etc.
> >
> > But, in my view this is a very embarrassing error for any Sankrit scholar
> to
> > make.  In English "to," and "two," and "too," are homonyms.  Also,
> "threw"
> > and "through" are homonyms.  Aso, in some dialects of English, "marry,"
> > "merry," and "Mary," are all also homonyms.
> >
> > But in Sanskrit, there is is only one word, "yoga," which has only one
> form
> > but any meanings.  There are no homonyms of "yoga" in Sanskrit.  There is
> > just that single  word.  Singleton obviously has no idea what he is
> talking
> > about here when it comes to the notion of homony,m.  That's bad enough.
>  But
> > he is young, and maybe he can be excused for this slight error.  But in
> her
> > review of his otherwise good book Doniger repeats the same linguistic
> error:
> > the Sanskit terrn "yoga" consists, in her view, of several so-called
> > homonyms.
> >
> > This of course is very bad linguistics.
> >
> > I don't know what to think.  Should we just be silent about such small
> > errors?  Or should we call them out?
> >
> > George Thompson
>