History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c94.122

v7.c94.122

The Vedāntasūtra (II. 1. 3 'etena yogaḥ pratyuktaḥ) states that Yoga is refuted by the reasoning adopted for the refutation of the Sāṅkhya system. The position of Śaṅkarācārya as to both Sāṅkhya and Yoga has been stated above (pp. 1352 and 1361 n. 2208 and 2221). He points out in the pūrvapakṣa that Veda²²⁷⁵ prescribes Yoga as a means of achieving correct knowledge and refers to Bṛ. Up. II. 4. 5. He further points out that in the Śv. Up. Yoga is expounded in great detail after first mentioning the proper posture (for the practice of Yoga) in the words 'having held the body straight but raised high in three places viz. chest, neck and head' (Śv. Up. II. 8). From the words of Śaṅkarācārya that in Yogaśāstra also Yoga is held to be a means of the realisation of right knowledge, it follows that he had a yogaśāstra before him in which occurred the words 'atha...yogaḥ,' but as he does not employ the word Yogasūtra he probably does not refer to a sūtra work. If a conjecture may be hazarded, it is possible that the Yogaśāstra meant by Śaṅkara is a work like the Yogaśāstra ascribed to Yājñavalkya in Yāj. Smṛti III. 110 (Yogaśāstram ca mat-proktaṃ &c.). Śaṅkarācārya admits on V. S. II. 1. 3 that a part of the yoga is acceptable to him but other parts conflict with the Veda. Muṇḍaka Up. (II 2. 6) enjoins *samādhi* in the words 'om-iti dhyāyatha ātmānaṃ' as Śaṅkarācārya states on V. S. II. 3. 39 (samādhyabhāvāc-ca). In the Upaniṣads 'Muni' and 'Yati' have come to denote²²⁷⁶ the same meaning, e g. Bṛ. Up. IV. 4. 22 states 'one becomes muni by realizing this very self,' while the Mundaka (III. 1. 5)²²⁷⁷ states 'this self is to be attained by Truth, by *tapas*, by right knowledge and by sexual purity at all times: that self resides inside the body (like a light), is pure, whom spotless ascetics realize.' The Kathopanisad (III. 13) provides that the wise man should restrain speech in mind (speech and mind, as the text stands), he should keep it within the self which is knowledge, he should keep down knowledge within the self that is the great, and he, should keep that (the great) within the self which is quiet. The Upanisads thus not only employ the word 'Yoga' but provide some of the stages of yoga and its technique for realizing the Supreme Spirit. About twenty Yoga Upanisads are published at Adyar, edited by A. Mahadev Sastri (1920), but as their chronology is most uncertain and as most of them appear to the present writer to be later than the Mahābhārata, Manu and probably the Yogasūtra, they are passed over here and are referred to in this work sparingly ²²⁷⁸