Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis c17.2

c17.2

YOGA is both a branch of Hindu philosophy¹ and a system of physical and mental discipline, ‘a code of disciplinary practices.’² In this latter aspect it plays an important part in all the philosophical systems of India and in asceticism in general. Yoga was, undoubtedly, a praxis, a set-up of actions, long before it was a system of philosophy.³ It is, undoubtedly, in this aspect of the Yoga that the *Gorakṣa-śataka* is chiefly interested, and in that text the philosophical implications of the Yoga system, or better, its background of systematic thought, is assumed rather than expounded. Without doubt the disciplines of the system, that is, performance, have been the dominating interest from the earliest times until now.