Re: [INDOLOGY] Yama/niyama in PÄ Å›upata and Yoga

Thu Apr 28 11:13:02 UTC 2016

Dear Ganesan,

According to my research, the view that the Yogasutra and the Bhashya are a
unified text composed by a single person is much better supported by
multiple sources than the view of a separate authorship. However, I am not
married to this hypothesis and would be very willing to accept the opposite
view in the light of new evidence. Therefore I am very much interested in
any source that clearly states a different authorship of the Yogasutra and
the Bhashya before the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha.

So far I have only found self-contradictory references to the PYŚ by
Vācaspatimiśra I and the account of Vādirāja Sūri (in his commentary on
Akalaṅka’s Nyāyaviniścaya from around 1025 CE), stating that a *bhāṣya* on
Patañjali’s sūtra was composed by the Sāṅkhya teacher Vindhyavāsin (see *Nyāya
Viniścaya Vivaraṇam of Śrī Vādirāja Sūri the Commentary on
Bhaṭṭākalaṅkadeva’s Nyāya Viniścaya.* Vol 1. Pratyakṣa Prastāva. Ed. with
introd., appendices, variant readings, comparative notes etc. by Mahendra
Kumār Jain. Kashi: Bhāratīya Jñānapīṭha, 1940, p. 231, l. 6–10).

I would be therefore very thankful for any additional substantial reference
(preferably by mentioning the page and line of a printed book) that you (or
any of our colleagues) could provide and that may contribute to solving the
authorship question of the PYŚ.

Best,

Philipp

2016-04-28 12:05 GMT+02:00 Dr. T. Ganesan <ganesan at ifpindia.org>:

> Svetasvataropanishad is definitely one of the early Upanishads. May be the
> BhagavadgItA was inspired by this Upanishad. Comparison of the textual
> style of the Svetasvataropanishad and the BhagavadgItA will make it clearer.
>
> Is it possible to show the popularity and textual references of the
> BhagavadgItA in other literatures and commentaries before Samkara ?
> Is it possible to hold that it was Samkara who had popularised and
> propagated the Bhagavadgita by stating that it is the essence of all the
> Vedanta as he mentions quite a number of times in his commentary ? For, one
> rarely knows of any textual reference to the Bhagavadgita in the period
> earlier to Samkara......
>
>
> Of course, Kalidaqsa is later than the Svetasvataropanishad. As I have
> been saying in the earlier posts, KAlidAsa and Patanjali definitely belong
> to a very early period.
>
>
> Unless one accepts the view that both the Yogasutra and the Bhashya are a
> unified text composed by a single person (which does not appear to be
> strongly supported by the tradition), one cannot admit " *Patañjali
> quoted Viṣṇupurāṇa 6.6.2 in order to support his exposition of
> Mantrameditation leading to an awareness of **īśvara** in PYŚ 1.28. **"*
>
> It is also to be noted that Saivasiddhanta authors such as Sadyojyoti
> (700-800 CE), and great commentators such as Narayanakantha, Ramakantha,
> Aghorasiva (spanning from 9-12 centuries CE) do refer only to the
> Yogasutra-s as the work of Patanjali and not the Bhashya
> while referring to and refuting some of the doctrines the Patanjala Yoga
> system.
>
>
> Ganesan
>
> On 28-04-2016 13:22, Philipp Maas wrote:
>
> Vācaspatimiśra I lived later than the eighth century. He can be dated to
> around 950 CE (see Diwakar Acharya, *Vācaspatimiśra*’*s Tattvasamīkṣā**,
> the Earliest Commentary on Maṇḍanamiśra’s Brahmasiddhi, *Critically
> Edited with an Introduction and Critical Notes, Stuttgart: Steiner, 2006
> (Nepal Research Centre Publications 25), p. xxviii
> <https://books.google.at/books?id=IlswAAAAYAAJ&dq=V%C4%81caspatimi%C5%9Bra%E2%80%99s+Tattvasam%C4%ABk%E1%B9%A3%C4%81%2C+the+Earliest+Commentary+on+Ma%E1%B9%87%E1%B8%8Danami%C5%9Bra%E2%80%99s+Brahmasiddhi&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=950>
> ).
>
>
>
> The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad is by no means one of the earliest Upaniṣads.
> Thomas Oberlies dated it to a period between the beginning of the common
> era and 200 CE, and, in any case, after the Bhagavadgītā. (Oberlies,
> Thomas. “Die Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad: Einleitung – Edition und Übersetzung
> von Adhyāya I.” *Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens *39 (1995):
> 61‒102, p. 66‒67. See also Cohen, Signe. *Text and authority in the older
> Upaniṣads*. Leiden,
> <https://books.google.at/books?id=dUKwCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA293&dq=Text+and+authority&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false>
> Boston: Brill, 2008 (Brill’s Indological Library 30
> <https://books.google.at/books?id=dUKwCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA293&dq=Text+and+authority&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false>,
> p. 213–246.)
>
>
>
> Kālidāsa, who can be approximately dated to 400-450 CE according to
> Ingalls (see Ingalls,Daniel H. H. “Kālidāsa and the Attitudes of the
> Golden Age”. Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society 96.1 (1976): 15–26
> <http://www.jstor.org/stable/599886?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents>, p. 15,
> n. 1), is clearly later than the Bhagavadgītā and the Śvetāśvatara
> Upaniṣad. He is also slightly later than the Pātañjalayogaśāstra, i.e. the
> Yoga Sutra together with the so-called Yogabhāṣya which can be dated to the
> end of the fifth c. (see Maas, Philipp André. *Samādhipāda. Das erste
> Kapitel des Pātañjalayogaśāstra zum ersten Mal kritisch ediert, = The First
> Chapter of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra for the First Time Critically Edited.*
> Aachen: Shaker, 2006. (Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis
> Geisteskultur Indiens. Texte und Studien 9), p. xix. For a general survey
> of scholarship on yoga philosophy and for arguments concerning the unitary
> nature of the *Pātañjalayogaśāstra*, you may find also my article “A
> Concise Historiographyof Classical Yoga Philosophy”. Periodization and
> Historiography of IndianPhilosophy. Eli Franco (ed.). Vienna: Institut für
> Südasien-, Tibet- undBuddhismuskunde, 2013. (Publications of the de Nobili
> Research Library 37) 53–90
> <https://www.academia.edu/3520571/A_Concise_Historiography_of_Classical_Yoga_Philosophy>
> relavant.
>
>
>
> The question of the religious orientation of Patañjali is difficult to
> answer. It appears to me that Patañjali consciously created a work on
> spiritual liberation in a Brahmanical religious setting that avoided any
> obvious sectarian commitment in order to make his work widely acceptable.
> However, the reference to Kapila as the first teacher of yoga in PYŚ 1.25
> (to which Eliot Stern referred in his mail to the present discussion) may
> actually indicate that Patañjali had a Vaiṣṇava background. An additional
> indication for the same may be the fact that Patañjali quoted Viṣṇupurāṇa
> 6.6.2 in order to support his exposition of Mantrameditation leading to an
> awareness of *īśvara* in PYŚ 1.28.
>
>
> Best,
>
>
> Philipp
>
>
>
>
> 2016-04-28 7:45 GMT+02:00 Dr. T. Ganesan <ganesan at ifpindia.org>:
>
>>
>> Samkara, Vachaspatimisra, etc. all belong to 8th century; whereas my
>> point is Patanjali, Kalidasa are all much earlier to them. As mentioned in
>> the earlier post, beginning from Svetasvataropanishad (which is
>> indisputably one of the earliest Upanishad-s), Kaivalyopanishad,
>> Atharvasikhaa, Atharvasiras, (where the words ISAna, ISa are also used) and
>> in the Amarakosa, also one of the earliest Kosa-s, Ishvara denotes only
>> Siva.
>>
>> Note the Amarakosa passage:
>>
>>
>>                 śambhur*īśaḥ* paśupatiḥ śivaḥ śūlī mahēśvaraḥ .
>>
>>                * īśvaraḥ *śarva *īśānaḥ* śaṃkaraścandraśēkharaḥ.
>>
>>
>> The period of BhagavadgItA as we have it now, cannot be so earlier or
>> contemporaneous with Patanjali or Kalidasa. And, definitely BG has been
>> inspired by the Svetasvataropanishad for its stress on Bhakti.
>>
>> Samkara appears to be mostly leaning towards VishNubhakti; it is is very
>> much evident in many of his interpretations and comments in the
>> BhagavadgiitA: at BG II.51, VI.31, Samkara states the liberated state as
>> “ the supreme state of Vishnu” (padam paramam vishnoH); in BG XIII.18,
>> he clearly identifies paramAtmA with VAsudeva.
>>
>>
>> Ganesan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 28-04-2016 05:40, Elliot Stern wrote:
>>
>> Vācaspatimiśra, generally understood to favor Śiva, acknowledges that
>> adherents of the Pātañjalayogaśāstram consider Viṣṇu to be their īśvara. He
>> says, in concluding his comment on ādividvānnirmāṇacittamadhiṣṭhāya
>> kāruṇyādbhagavānparamarṣirāsurāya jijñāsamānāya tantraṃ provāca
>> (yogabhāṣyam to yogasūtram 1.25):
>>
>>  sa eveśvara ādividvānkapilo viṣṇurna<:> svayambhūriti bhāvaḥ~|
>> svāyambhuvānāṃ tvīśvara iti bhāvaḥ~|
>>
>> James Haughton Woods translates this as: [The reply would be that] this
>> same Īśvara, the First Knower, the Self-existent Vishnu [is] Kapila. "But
>> [He is] the Īśvara of those descended from the Self-existent." This is the
>> point.
>>
>> Note that Vācaspati frequently refers to adherents of the
>> Pātañjalayogaśāstram as svāyambhuvaḥ (for example, in nyāyakaṇikā).
>>
>> Elliot M. Stern
>> 552 South 48th Street
>> Philadelphia, PA 19143-2029
>> United States of America
>> telephone: 215-747-6204
>> mobile: 267-240-8418
>> emstern at verizon.net
>>
>>
>
>

-- 
Dr. Philipp A. Maas
Universitätsassistent
Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde
Universität Wien
Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 2, Eingang 2.1
A-1090 Wien
Österreich
univie.academia.edu/PhilippMaas

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