Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c16.113

c16.113

**The Terms Yoga and Samādhi.** The word *Yoga* and its meaning have a history behind them. It is from the root *yuj* "to join together", yoking, and is applied in the Rigveda to indicate the yoking of steeds. The term was soon applied from the control of steeds to the control of senses, as in the *Kaṭha-Upanishad* [iii, 4] (indriyāṇi hayānāhuḥ vishayāṁsteshu gocharān) or *Maitr.*, 2, 6 (Karmendriyāṇyasya hayāḥ, "the organs of actions are the horses"). In the time of Pāṇini, the spiritual sense of the word was established to indicate *samādhi*, as seen in his Sūtra, "*yuj samādhau*," while its physical sense of "joining together" is separately explained in the Sūtra "*yujir yoge*" (root *yujiḥ* = connecting). The sense of "joining together" lent itself also to spiritual application. The whole philosophy of the Upanishads, for instance, traces the root of sin, sorrow, and suffering, the ills to which flesh is heir, to the separation of the individual from the supreme soul. Accordingly, Yājñavalkya defines *yoga* to be "the bringing together of the individual and supreme souls" [Saṁyogo Yoga iti ukto jīvātmāparamātmanor iti (*Sarvadarśana Saṁgraha*, xv)]. Even Patañjali himself seems to take *yoga* in the sense of *union* and is concerned more with the fact of *viyoga* (as explained by the commentator, Bhoja) or separation between *Purusha* and *Prakṛiti* and the sustained effort necessary to get over that separation, so that *yoga* practically means this effort, a course of strenuous and sustained endeavour after the restraint of the senses and control of mind whereby *Samādhi* or the union above referred to may be attained.