A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.7.3

c7.7.3

We thus see that if we just add the Yama and the Niyama of later Yogic philosophy to the various elements of Yoga as mentioned in the old Upanishads, namely, the Āsana, the Prāṇāyāma, the Pratyāhāra, the Dhāraṇā and the Dhyāna, all as preparatory to Samādhi, we have the full-fledged eight-fold scheme of the Yoga, or the Way to Spiritual Realisation. Moreover, the deistic conception of God as advanced in the Yoga-Sūtras, especially in a Sūtra like kleśakarmavipākāśayaiḥ aparāmṛiṣṭaḥ puruṣaviśeṣa Īśvaraḥ, is already present in the Upanishads when, as in the Muṇḍaka, we are told that the Universal Soul merely looks on, while the Individual Soul is engaged in the enjoyment of Prakṛiti, or, as in the Kaṭha, the Godhead is described as being beyond the reach of the sorrows of the world, just as the Sun, who is the eye of the world, is beyond the reach of the defects of vision (S. 9. d). Finally, the physiological basis of Yoga was being already discussed in the days of the Kaushitaki and the Maitri, when it seems an impetus was being given to physiological thought, which, as later advanced by the embryological and other discussions in the Garbhopanishad, was to pave the way for a physiology which was to be at the root of the systems propounded by Charaka, Agniveśa and others. Thus in the Maitri Upanishad an enumeration is made of the seven Dhātus : bone, skin, muscle, marrow, flesh, semen and blood ; of the four Malas, namely, mucus, tears, fæces, and urine ;