A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s6.15

c33.s6.15

Closely allied as a philosophy with the Sāṁkhya is the Yoga. In itself Yoga is merely the application of the will on the concentration of the mind, whence it denotes concentration, and, if the concentration aims at union with a deity as it may often have done, the sense may have come to be that of unity, the result being put for the effort. But primitively the object of Yoga was doubtless often to secure by practices of repression of the breath, sitting in certain postures and deep concentration, magic powers such as are believed throughout Indian thought to be the fruit of such exercises, for we find the same doctrine in Buddhism and Jainism. Yoga, therefore, in a sense can figure in all philosophies, but as a system it has been developed under Sāṁkhya influence, the only real difference being that the Yoga, as a result of the early connexion with the desire of finding union with a god, insists on finding a place for the deity as the twenty-sixth principle in addition to the twenty-five of the Sāṁkhya. This spirit is in constant connexion with subtle matter and possesses power, wisdom, and goodness. The Yoga thus figures as the theistic Sāṁkhya, while the Sāṁkhya appears as atheistic. Both systems in fusion with Vedānta ideas appear largely in the epic philosophy and again in the Purāṇas and the law-book of Manu.¹