Rajayoga

[Jim Mallinson]

Dear Dermot and other members of the list,

As Prof. Slaje points out, my colleague Jason Birch's recent article is a fine survey of the use of the word haṭha in the context of yoga. Since haṭha is almost always found in conjunction with rāja yoga, Jason's article discusses rājayoga too.

The compound rājayoga suffers from the ambiguity inherent in the word yoga itself: it can mean both the practice of yoga and the goal. In the majority of its occurrences in haṭhayogic literature (which is, I think, the only type of Sanskrit literature in which it is found) it means simply samādhi. Occasionally it does refer to a specific type of yoga practice. In these instances it is meant to denote the best variety of yoga and so its use is comparable to that made popular by Vivekananda et al. - "my yoga is better than yours". (By the way, according to my notes - I don't have the books with me - Singleton 2008:84, referencing de Michelis 2004, writes that it was probably M.N.Dvivedi in a Yogasūtra translation of 1890 who first popularised the equation of rājayoga with Pātañjalayoga.) Thus in the Amanaska, which Jason is editing, it refers to a technique said to bring about the no-mind state. But in the Haṃsavilāsa, for example, rājayoga is a practice that involves ritual sex (and is said to be much better than haṭhayoga, which Haṃsamiṭṭhu, like many other medieval/early modern authors, sees as including Patañjali's yoga).

The Yogatattvopaniṣad (c.17th-century) passage you cite is taken directly from the Dattātreyayogaśāstra (c. 13th-century), as is most of the rest of the YTU.

Re the mahīpālavidhi: since the first attestation of the compound rājayoga (of which I am aware) is not for another thousand years or so, it seems unlikely that there is a connection between the two. The one nirukti of rājayoga of which I am aware (but Jason may know of others) does not understand it as meaning "the yoga of kings": rājatvāt sarvayogānāṃ rājayoga iti smṛtaḥ | rājānaṃ dīpyamānaṃ taṃ paramātmānam avyayaṃ | dehinaṃ prāpayed yas tu rājayogaḥ sa ucyate (Amanaskayoga 2.4).

Yours, with best wishes,

Jim

On 3 May 2012, at 10:55, Dermot Killingley wrote:

> Can anyone help me with the history of the term rAjayoga?
> 
> De Michelis (History of Modern Yoga p. 178), and D. G. White (Yoga in Practice p. 
> 20) say that in modern yoga movements it's identified with Patanjali, and that this 
> started with Blavatsky. Theosophical writers also oppose rAja-yoga (spiritual and 
> superior) to haTha-yoga (physical and inferior) (e.g. Sinnett Esoteric Buddhism p. 
> 27). This usage, especially the identification with Patanjali, is followed by 
> Vivekananda, who owed more to Theosophy than he liked to admit.
> 
> Going further back, the haTha-yoga-pradIpikA (HYP 2.76) says rAja-yoga and 
> HaTha-yoga should be practised together, but also lists rAja-yoga as one of the terms 
> for the highest state (HYP 4.3-4). 
> 
> White (Yoga in Practice p. 17) says that according to HYP haTha-yoga leads to jIvan-
> mukti and rAja-yoga leads to videha-mukti, but I don't find this in the text.
> 
> Further back again, the yoga-tattva-upanishad lists mantra-yoga, laya-yoga, haTha-
> yoga and rAja-yoga (Dasgupta Hist Ind Phil vol 1 p. 229; Eliade Yoga p. 129).
> 
> And has the term rAja-yoga anything to do with the mahIpAla-vidhi (MBh 12.308.25) 
> which Edgerton observes "agrees perfectly with the Gita's usual definition of yoga" 
> ("The meaning of sAMkhya and yoga" (American Journal of Philology vol. 45) p. 45)?
> 
> Can anyone fill any of the many gaps in this story? For instance, granted that 
> Blavatsky popularised the identification of rAja-yoga with Patanjali, she can't have just 
> invented it, so where did she get it from?
> 
> Dermot Killingley
>