Differentiating the concepts of "yoga" and "tantra" in Sanskrit literary history.

• Author: Larson, Gerald James
• Position: Report

Two of the most puzzling yet important terms in current research in South Asian studies are the terms yoga and tantra, and the two books under review are important and welcome contributions to gaining some clarity regarding the meaning and significance of both. Both volumes are revised versions of Ph.D. dissertations, the former for the University of Bonn and the latter for Oxford University. Philipp Andre Maas provides the first critical edition of the first Pada of the Pataajalayogasastra, including both the sutrapatha of the Samadhi Pada and the bhasya attributed to Vyasa, which he dates to the period of 325 to 425 C.E. James Mallinson provides the first critical edition of a well-known Hatha Yoga text, the Khecarividya, many of the verses of which text are also to be found in the Goraksasid-dhantasamgraha, the Yogakundali Upanisad, and the Matsyendrasamhita, and a text that he dates to perhaps the fourteenth century C.E. or somewhat earlier. Both texts use the term yoga and both are important for understanding the meaning of the term tantra. What is striking, however, is that the two terms yoga and tantra have two distinctly different meanings in the respective traditions to which they belong, and before discussing these two new critical editions it is essential to make some historical and textual distinctions regarding the relation (sambandha) between yoga and tantra in these two environments. There is a great deal of popular as well as scholarly confusion regarding these terms that needs to be clarified and sorted out.

P. V. Kane in his massive History of Dharmasastra makes the following observation:

... (t)here are really only two main systems of Yoga, viz., the one expounded in the Yogasutra and its Bhasya by Vyasa and the other dealt with in such works as the Goraksasataka, the Hathayogapradipika of Svatmaramayogin with the commentary called Jyotsna by Brahmananda. Briefly, the difference between the two is that the Yoga of Patanjali concentrates all effort on the discipline of the mind, while Hathayoga mainly concerns itself with the body, its health, its purity and freedom from diseases. (History of Dharmasastra, vol. V [Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1977], 1427 Patanjala Yoga appears in the first centuries of the Common Era in a sutra-compilation known simply as the Yogasutra. It is presented, at least in its principal bhasya (attributed to a certain Vyasa)--a bhasya that in nearly all manuscripts, printed or handwritten, appears with the sutrapatha--as a samana-tantra ('common tradition'), or, perhaps better, as a samkhya-pravacana (an 'explanation of Samkhya'), in other words, a classical system of Indian philosophy (darsana). Tradition links the compiler of the sutra-patha, Patanjali, with the famous grammarian, Patanjali, of the Mahabhasya. Tradition likewise links the study of the self (atman) or mind (citta) in Patanjala Yoga with the two other principal "sciences" (tantras or sastras) of the classical period (ca. third through the fifth century C.E.) in north Indian intellectual history. The two other sciences (or tantras) are, of course, the science of medicine (ayurveda) and the science of grammar (Vyakarana), both of which are also associated with the name Patanjali, and both of which were becoming mature sastras in the early centuries C.E.

In addition to the association with the name Patanjali, all three tantras or 'sciences' likewise share three important features, namely, (1) an empirical evidentiary database, (2) systematic pragmatic experimentation, and (3) independence from religious authority. Regarding the latter feature, I mean that the focus of the subject matter in each instance is not dependent upon any particular sectarian orientation (Saiva, Vaisnava, Sakta, Buddhist, or Jaina), although, of course, the practitioners in each of the three tantras are often associated with various sectarian orientations. Sectarian orientation, however, is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the work in these tantras.

My own view is that the traditional linkage of Patanjala Yoga, ayurveda, and Vyakarana is essentially correct both historically and intellectually, so long as one updates the historical data in the light of recent research. In this regard, the major issue has to do with the name Patanjali. The grammarian Patanjali, according to most researchers, worked in the second century B.C.E.; but the date of the Yogasutrapatha attributed to Patanjali is apparently a good deal later. The Yogasutrapatha is probably to be dated no earlier than the fourth century C.E. The principal reason for the later date of the sutrapatha is the extensive incorporation of Buddhist notions and terms in all four books of the Yogasutrapatha, notions and terms that can be traced plausibly only to the first centuries of the Common Era. In this regard, Louis de la Vallee Poussin's "Le Bouddhisme et le Yoga de Patanjali" (Melanges chinois et bouddhiques 5 [1936-37]: 223-42), in which he traces some fifty terms and notions in all four Padas of the Yogasutra to Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosa and Bhasya, is still very much to the point in attempting to date the Yogasutrapatha.

The obvious anachronism can be explained in either of two ways. Either there were two Patanjalis, one the grammarian and the other the compiler of the Yogasutrapatha. Most scholars tend to accept this explanation, but not all. Or a portion or some of the sutras, for example, the Yoganga "section" (YS II.28-III.5, or, according to J. W. Hauer, YS II.28-III.55), the so-called "eight-limbed Yoga section," can be traced to the grammarian Patanjali. Other sutras were then collected by an unknown compiler (for example, someone such as Vindhyavasin, the Samkhya teacher) with the whole being attributed to Patanjali, both for the sake of legitimating the new learned Yogasastra and for the sake of highlighting the obvious intellectual affinity of the three tantras. The latter explanation, I suspect, will eventually be shown to be correct when sufficient evidence emerges, but currently either explanation is plausible. For a full discussion see Gerald James Larson and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya, eds., Yoga; India's Philosophy of Meditation, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, vol. 12 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2008), 54-70.

In any case, as mentioned earlier, there is a natural affinity among the three tantras in terms of an empirical evidentiary base, systematic pragmatic experimentation, and independence from religious authority. In the case of Yoga, the database includes the study of bodily postures, breathing mechanisms, sensing and motor functioning, the analysis of mental states, ego awareness, and general cognitive performance. The experimental component includes careful daily practice of physical exercises and cognitive meditations under the guidance of a recognized expert or experts. Yoga in this sense of Patanjala Yoga lends itself to any number of sectarian orientations, but most often its primary affiliation is with Samkhya philosophy, as clearly indicated in the colophons of all four sections of the Yogasutra. In this regard, as will be discussed below, the evidence is overwhelming in all printed texts and handwritten manuscripts, where the colophons read, "iti patanjale yogasastre samkhyapravacane ..."

In the case of ayurveda, the database includes detailed classifications of symptoms, detailed categorization of materia medica (herbal medications or "pharmaceuticals" of all sorts), and the use of yukti or pragmatic reasoning in the identification and treatment of disease. The experimental component includes the extensive and ongoing seminars or symposia having to do with the application of the materia medica to various diseases in a trial-and-error or pragmatic manner, as evidenced in the Carakasamhita and Susrutasamhita. Here again, as in Patanjala Yoga, ayurveda is employed widely in sectarian and "secular" contexts quite independently of religious or sectarian authority. I have discussed this in detail in my "ayurveda and the Hindu Philosophical Systems," Philosophy East and West 37 (1987): 245-59.

In the case of Vyakarana, the database and systematic experimental component include the systematic description of the phonetic system of Sanskrit, the elaborate analyses of word formation, detailed citations of standard usage, the extensive meta-rules devised to describe all aspects of Sanskrit in a comprehensive manner, and the detailed and painstaking lists of verbal roots and derivatives, all of which were derived from empirical observation and listening, together with the construction of a theoretical framework that would exhibit the structure of the language. Again, as with Patanjala Yoga and ayurveda, sectarian affiliations, while certainly pertinent in terms of analyzing the formation and meaning of words as these may appear in sectarian contexts, in no way shape or determine either the method or substance of what is being studied.

The terms yoga and tantra in these environments are clearly products of an elite intellectual milieu, made up of literate pandita communities, most likely in north and northwestern South Asia, that is, the Gangetic plain region (in and around present-day Varanasi) and the Gandhara, Kashmir, and Punjab regions, in the early centuries of the Common Era. Learned traditions were already taking shape, of course, a good deal earlier, in the time of the Vedas and Upanisads, and early Buddhist and Jaina traditions, and in the early epic period up through the Mauryan period and the reign of Asoka. The Moksadharma portion of the Mahabharata is symptomatic of the levels of intellectual sophistication achieved in these last centuries before the beginning of the Common Era, as is the grammatical theorizing found in such works as Patanjali's Mahabhasya.

With the consolidation established in the northwestern region of the subcontinent under Kaniska (ca. 100 C.E.), together with...