A History of Indian Philosophy v2.c19.s9.8

v2.c19.s9.8

The division of the progressive process into seven stages naturally reminds one of the seven stages of *prajñā* (wisdom) in Patañjali’s *Yoga-sūtra* and *Vyāsa-bhāṣya*. The seven stages of *prajñā* are there divided into two parts, the first containing four and the second three. Of these the four are psychological and the three are ontological, showing the stages of the disintegration of *citta* before its final destruction or *citta-vimukti*⁴. Here also the first four stages, ending with *vilāpanī*, are psychological, whereas the last three stages represent the advance of the evolution of *citta* towards its final disruption. But, apart from this, it does not seem that there is any one to one correspondence of the *prajñā* states of the *Yoga-vāsiṣṭha* with those of Patañjali. The *Yoga-vāsiṣṭha* occasionally mentions the name *Yoga* as denoting the highest state and defines it as the ultimate state of unconsciousness (*avedanaṃ vidur yogam*) or as the cessation of the poisonous effects of desire⁵. In the first half of the sixth book, chapter 125, the ultimate state is described as the state of universal negation (*sarvāpahnava*). Existence of *citta* is pain, and its destruction bliss; the destruction of *citta* by cessation of knowledge—a state of neither pain nor pleasure nor any intermediate state—a state as feelingless as that of the stone (*pāṣāṇavat-samam*), is the ultimate state aimed at¹.