[INDOLOGY] Patanjali in the Puranas?

Mon May 22 15:53:22 UTC 2017

Thank you much for the copy of Meulenbeld's pages providing us with probably all the references available at the time of their writing. I would add Harimoto's brief comment in "God, Reason and Yoga" (2014)  p. 215, about the famous ("widely known among the grammarians" - and in this respect quoted  for instance in the introductory colophons of several Mahābhāṣya mss., and by various commentators, not only on the YS like Vijñānabhikṣu) stanza which is also found in the final (post-)colophons of the YVi mss.:
yogena cittasya padena vācāṃ  malaṃ śarīrasya tu vaidyakena | 

yo 'pākarot taṃ pravaraṃ munīnāṃ  patañjaliṃ prāñjalir ānato 'smi || 

This "multi-shared/"floating" stanza could be older than the statement found in the introductory stanza (5, 6 or 7) of Bhoja's commentary on the YS (which allows Bhoja to declare that he too has composed in the three fields), or the introductory stanza (3) of Cakrapāṇi's commentary on the CarakaS (quoted by Woods 1977: xix). 
Going back to Aklujkar's point  'b', it should be noted that according to Meulenbeld himself (p. 143) "Bhartṛhari's Vākyapadīya contains a verse that obviously also refers to Patañjali as a threefold authority, though without mentioning his name".
See :

kāya-vāg-buddhi-viṣayā  ye malāḥ samavasthitāḥ /
cikitsālakṣaṇādhyātma-śāstrais teṣāṃ viśuddhayaḥ // VP 1.174 //

and Biardeau 1964 (pp. 186-7) for the text (and French translation) of the old vṛtti (ad 1.146 in her edition), which also does not refer namely to Patañjali (and does not ascertain that adhyātma-śāstra means here yoga-śāstra, as it has been understood by later commentators; the "vāk-ceto-vapuṣāṃ malaḥ phaṇibhṛtāṃ bhartrā_iva yena_uddhṛtaḥ..." of Bhojadeva sounds in its beginning like an echo of Bhartṛhari's stanza, with the use of the word bhartṛ [of the serpents = Patañjali] possibly evoking in a pun also the name of the author of the VP).
Dominik's statement that Bhoja's assertion is the first clearly attested one remains nevertheless not contradicted by Meulenbeld's mere opinion (not shared by Biardeau) on Bhartṛhari's stanza.
The parallelism traced by Meulenbeld between the "multifaceted" legendary figures of Nāgārjuna and Patañjali, both "Lords of serpents", is interesting.

Best wishes,

Christophe Vielle

Le 22 mai 2017 à 11:04, Hartmut Buescher via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> a écrit :

> Given the easily understandable relative – in India perhaps 
> even close to absolute – inaccessibility of Meulenbeld’s extremely valuable 
> (yet also megacostly) History of Indian Medical Literature, while the popular name 
> Patañjali creeps around somewhere in almost every Indologist’s mind, 
> it may presumably be useful to more generally share on this list 
> the few pertinent pages of discussion in this Mahāpaṇḍita’s magnum opus – cf. attachment.
>  
> Kind regards,
> Hartmut Buescher
> 
> On 22 May 2017, at 08:37, Edwin F. Bryant via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> 
> 
> I am away from my desk and do not have my Bhoja commentary at hand, but I
> am assuming Bhoja is quoting those two verses, yes, rather than composing
> them  (in other words they preexisted him)? Or is this not clear from the
> Sanskrit?  If Bhoja is quoting an older reference then this is the
> terminus ad quem of the notion of the 'three Patanjali's' howsoever
> ghostly the Ayurvedic one turns out to be.
> 
> While on the topic, zeSa in the Vaishnava literature is a derivative form
> of Vishnu. So the second of the two Patanjali verses can be seen as
> pointing to an association of Patanjali with Vishnu going back at least
> that far. A couple of questions here: given that while Vishnu bears a
> zaNkha and cakra, he does not hold a sword, asi, in  normative
> iconographical representations, does anyone know of any Vishnu forms
> bearing one (I assume only these three items (zaNkkacakrAsi dhArinam) are
> mentioned in the verse due to metrical considerations).  And, secondly,
> are there any  Saivite references at this time  associating zeSA WITH
> ziva?.
> 
> Thanks.  Edwin Bryant
> 
> On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 7:43 AM, Dominik Wujastyk via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> Further to the idea about the mythical "three patanjalis", please, please everyone note that there is no medical Patanjali.  There does not exist a major author of a medical treatise in Sanskrit who is called Patanjali.  
> 
> If you wish to pursue the details, the name has been investigated in detail by Meulenbeld in his History of Indian Medical Literature (especially IA: 141-44, 196).  As a person's name in medical literature, "Patanjali" lives a ghostly life as a name cited by others, as a legendary authority, as a person after whom recipes are named, etc. etc.   Most of these occurrences are from the second millennium of our era, and after the first "three Patanjalis" assertion by Bhoja Deva.  But even with these "Patanjali" whispers, it remains the fact that there does not exist an identifiable medical treatise by an author called Patanjali.
> 
> I'm sorry to shout.  But it baffles me to see the continuing repetition of the idea that there was a medical Patanjali when there simply wasn't one.  Never has been.  Fake News!
> 
> Best,
> Dominik
> 
> 
> --
> Professor Dominik Wujastyk,
> Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity,
> Department of History and Classics,
> University of Alberta, Canada.
> South Asia at the U of A: sas.ualberta.ca
> 
> 
> On 15 May 2017 at 23:00, Ashok Aklujkar via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> Not taking the subject specification above rigidly, I would like to make three points:
> (a) Even in studying stories one should try to ascertain if they pertain to Vyākaraṇa Patañjali, Yoga Patañjali or ̄ Āyurveda Patañjali.
> (b) The tradition of the identity of these three Patañjalis may be older than it is usually taken to be.
> (c) In three interlinked articles published in the book mentioned below, I have made a case for taking the Vyākaraṇa Patañjali as a person belonging to Kashmir. I have also pointed out that the epithet Gonardīya (<— Gonandīya) definitely applies to this Patañjali and that the epithet Goṇikā-putra may also contain historical information about him. Much history can be gleaned if the stories are cautiously handled.
> 
>         Aklujkar, Ashok. 2008. (a) “Pata~jali’s Mahābhāṣya as a key to happy Kashmir.” (b) “Gonardīya, Goṇikā-putra, Patañjali and Gonandīya.” (c) “Patañjali: a Kashmirian.” Pp. 41-87, 88-172 and 173-205, respectively in  Linguistic Traditions of Kashmir,  (eds) Kaul, Mrinal; Aklujkar, Ashok. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld.
> 
> a.a.
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing committee)
> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or unsubscribe)
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing committee)
> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or unsubscribe)
> 
> <Meulenbeld HistIndMedLit on Patanjali.pdf>_______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing committee)
> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or unsubscribe)

–––––––––––––––––––
Christophe Vielle
Louvain-la-Neuve

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20170522/724d2b23/attachment.htm>