The Integrity of the Yoga Darsana: A Reconsideration of Classical Yoga.

• Author: Olivelle, Patrick

The Integrity of the Yoga Darsana: A Reconsideration of Classical Yoga. By IAN WHICHER. Albany: STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS, 1998. Pp. 426. $27.95.

This book is a revised version of the author's doctoral dissertation at Cambridge University. The six chapters in the book deal with the following topics: background material on the development of Yoga, including purported vedic precedents; introduction to Patanjali's Yoga-sutra and its metaphysics; the nature, structure, and functioning of the mind (citta); yogic praxis and transformation of the mind (nirodha); samadhi; "aloneness" of the knower (kaivalya).

The goal of the book is clearly stated at the very beginning: "I have attempted a careful textual, historical, and innovative reading of the 'intention' of the Yoga-Sutra, namely, that it does not advocate the abandonment of the world for the successful yogin, but supports a stance that enables the yogin to live more fully in the world without being enslaved by worldly identification" (p. 2). Coupled with this attempt to discover the "intention" of Patanjali is the author's quest for a meaning within Yoga that would be consonant with what he believes should be the authentic yogic quest. Rejecting Vivekananda's depiction of the perfected yogin. Whicher observes: "One must seriously question the logic behind this approach to human consciousness and the mind as it relates to Yoga philosophy. One will naturally ask how practitioners who attempt to obey any teachings resulting in the death to their minds would have the capacity to comprehend or carry out any further instructions. Perhaps, more importantly, how cou ld one function practically as a human being without the faculties of thinking, memory, discernment and reason, and an individual sense of self with which one can distinguish oneself from other people in the world? Surely such a person would have to be mad or unconscious" (p. 161). The problem with the book is simple: it is unclear whether Whicher is writing history or theology. I think he attempts to do both with unfortunate results.

Whicher is often unhistorical and anachronistic, as when he assumes that the vedic seers must have experienced samadhi, although they did not use that word to describe their experience (p. 12). It is unclear how one can know what, if anything, those seers experienced; and if they did experience something, whether they all experienced the same thing, and whether that is essentially the same as what...