BOOK II. ETHICS AND PRACTICE
CHAPTER VIII
MIND AND MORAL STATES
The Yoga philosophy has essentially a practical tone and its object consists mainly in demonstrating the means of attaining salvation, oneness, the liberation of the purusha. The metaphysical theory which we have discussed at some length, though it is the basis which justifies its ethical goal, is not itself the principal subject of Yoga discussion, and is only dealt with to the extent that it can aid in demonstrating the ethical view. We must now direct our attention to these ethical theories. Citta or mind always exists in the form of its states which are called vṛttis.[[38]] These comprehend all the manifold states of consciousness of our phenomenal existence. We cannot distinguish states of consciousness from consciousness itself, for the consciousness is not something separate from its states; it exists in them, passes away with their passing and submerges when they are submerged. It differs from the senses in this, that they represent the functions and faculties, whereas citta stands as the entity containing the conscious states with which we are directly concerned. But the citta which we have thus described as existing only in its states is called the kāryyacitta or citta as effect as distinguished from the kāraṇacitta or citta as cause. These kāraṇacittas or cittas as cause are all-pervading like the ākāśa and are infinite in number, each being connected with each of the numberless purushas or souls (Chāyāvyākhyā, IV. 10). The reason assigned for acknowledging such a kāraṇacitta which must be all-pervading, as is evident from the quotation, is that the Yogin may have knowledge of all things at once.
Vācaspati says that this citta being essentially of the nature of ahaṃkāra is as all-pervading as the ego itself (IV. 10).
This kāraṇacitta contracts or expands and appears as our individual cittas in our various bodies at successive rebirths. The kāraṇacitta is always connected with the purusha and appears contracted when the purusha presides over animal bodies, and as relatively expanded when he presides over human bodies, and more expanded when he presides over the bodies of gods, etc. This contracted or expanded citta appears as our kāryyacitta which always manifests itself as our states of consciousness. After death the kāraṇacitta, which is always connected with the purusha, manifests itself in the new body which is formed by the āpūra (filling in of prakṛti on account of effective merit or demerit that the purusha had apparently acquired). The formation of the body as well as the contraction or expansion of the kāraṇacitta as the corresponding kāryyacitta to suit it is due to this āpūra. The Yoga does not hold that the citta has got a separate fine astral body within which it may remain encased and be transferred along with it to another body on rebirth. The citta being all-pervading, it appears both to contract or expand to suit the particular body destined for it owing to its merit or demerit, but there is no separate astral body (Tattvavaiśāradī, IV. 10). In reality the karaṇacitta as such always remains vibhu or all-pervading; it is only its kāryyacitta or vṛtti that appears in a contracted or expanded form, according to the particular body which it may be said to occupy.
The Sāṃkhya view, however, does not regard the citta to be essentially all-pervading, but small or great according as the body it has to occupy. Thus Bhikshu and Nāgeśa in explaining the Bhāshya, “others think that the citta expands or contracts according as it is in a bigger or smaller body, just as light rays do according as they are placed in the jug or in a room,” attributes this view to the Sāṃkhya (Vyāsabhāshya, IV. 10, and the commentaries by Bhikshu and Nāgeśa on it).[[39]]
It is this citta which appears as the particular states of consciousness in which both the knower and the known are reflected, and it comprehends them both in one state of consciousness. It must, however, be remembered that this citta is essentially a modification of prakṛti, and as such is non-intelligent; but by the seeming reflection of the purusha it appears as the knower knowing a certain object, and we therefore see that in the states themselves are comprehended both the knower and the known. This citta is not, however, a separate tattva, but is the sum or unity of the eleven senses and the ego and also of the five prāṇas or biomotor forces (Nāgeśa, IV. 10). It thus stands for all that is psychical in man: his states of consciousness including the living principle in man represented by the activity of the five prāṇas.
It is the object of Yoga gradually to restrain the citta from its various states and thus cause it to turn back to its original cause, the kāraṇacitta, which is all-pervading. The modifications of the kāraṇacitta into such states as the kāryyacitta is due to its being overcome by its inherent tamas and rajas; so when the transformations of the citta into the passing states are arrested by concentration, there takes place a backward movement and the all-pervading state of the citta being restored to itself and all tamas being overcome, the Yogin acquires omniscience, and finally when this citta becomes as pure as the form of purusha itself, the purusha becomes conscious of himself and is liberated from the bonds of prakṛti.
The Yoga philosophy in the first chapter describes the Yoga for him whose mind is inclined towards trance-cognition. In the second chapter is described the means by which one with an ordinary worldly mind (vyutthāna citta) may also acquire Yoga. In the third chapter are described those phenomena which strengthen the faith of the Yogin on the means of attaining Yoga described in the second chapter. In the fourth chapter is described kaivalya, absolute independence or oneness, which is the end of all the Yoga practices.
The Bhāshya describes the five classes of cittas and comments upon their fitness for the Yoga leading to kaivalya. Those are I. kshipta (wandering), II. mūḍha (forgetful), III. vikshipta (occasionally steady), IV. ekāgra (one-pointed), niruddha (restrained).
I. The kshiptacitta is characterised as wandering, because it is being always moved by the rajas. This is that citta which is always moved to and fro by the rise of passions, the excess of which may indeed for the time overpower the mind and thus generate a temporary concentration, but it has nothing to do with the contemplative concentration required for attaining absolute independence. The man moved by rajas, far from attaining any mastery of himself, is rather a slave to his own passions and is always being moved to and fro and shaken by them (see Siddhānta-candrikā, I. 2, Bhojavṛtti, I. 2).
II. The mūḍhacitta is that which is overpowered by tamas, or passions, like that of anger, etc., by which it loses its senses and always chooses the wrong course. Svāmin Hariharāraṇya suggests a beautiful example of such concentration as similar to that of certain snakes which become completely absorbed in the prey upon which they are about to pounce.
III. The vikshiptacitta, or distracted or occasionally steady citta, is that mind which rationally avoids the painful actions and chooses the pleasurable ones. Now none of these three kinds of mind can hope to attain that contemplative concentration called Yoga. This last type of mind represents ordinary people, who sometimes tend towards good but relapse back to evil.
IV. The one-pointed (ekāgra) is that kind of mind in which true knowledge of the nature of reality is present and the afflictions due to nescience or false knowledge are thus attenuated and the mind better adapted to attain the nirodha or restrained state. All these come under the saṃprajñāta (concentration on an object of knowledge) type.
V. The nirodha or restrained mind is that in which all mental states are arrested. This leads to kaivalya.
Ordinarily our minds are engaged only in perception, inference, etc.—those mental states which we all naturally possess. These ordinary mental states are full of rajas and tamas. When these are arrested, the mind flows with an abundance of sattva in the saṃprajñāta samādhi; lastly when even the saṃprajñāta state is arrested, all possible states become arrested.
Another important fact which must be noted is the relation of the actual states of mind called the vṛttis with the latent states called the saṃskāras—the potency. When a particular mental state passes away into another, it is not altogether lost, but is preserved in the mind in a latent form as a saṃskāra, which is always trying to manifest itself in actuality. The vṛttis or actual states are thus both generating the saṃskāras and are also always tending to manifest themselves and actually generating similar vṛttis or actual states. There is a circulation from vṛttis to saṃskāras and from them again to vṛttis (saṃskārāḥ vṛttibhiḥ kriyante, saṃskāraiśca vṛttayaḥ evaṃ vṛttisaṃskāracakramaniśamāvarttate). So the formation of saṃskāras and their conservation are gradually being strengthened by the habit of similar vṛttis or actual states, and their continuity is again guaranteed by the strength and continuity of these saṃskāras. The saṃskāras are like roots striking deep into the soil and growing with the growth of the plant above, but even when the plant above the soil is destroyed, the roots remain undisturbed and may again shoot forth as plants whenever they obtain a favourable season. Thus it is not enough for a Yogin to arrest any particular class of mental states; he must attain such a habit of restraint that the saṃskāra thus generated is able to overcome, weaken and destroy the saṃskāra of those actual states which he has arrested by his contemplation. Unless restrained by such a habit, the saṃskāra of cessation (nirodhaja saṃskāra) which is opposed to the previously acquired mental states become powerful and destroy the latter, these are sure to shoot forth again in favourable season into their corresponding actual states.
The conception of avidyā or nescience is here not negative but has a definite positive aspect. It means that kind of knowledge which is opposed to true knowledge (vidyāviparītaṃ jñānāntaramavidyā). This is of four kinds: (1) The thinking of the non-eternal world, which is merely an effect, as eternal. (2) The thinking of the impure as the pure, as for example the attraction that a woman’s body may have for a man leading him to think the impure body pure. (3) The thinking of vice as virtue, of the undesirable as the desirable, of pain as pleasure. We know that for a Yogin every phenomenal state of existence is painful (II. 15). A Yogin knows that attachment (rāga) to sensual and other objects can only give temporary pleasure, for it is sure to be soon turned into pain. Enjoyment can never bring satisfaction, but only involves a man further and further in sorrows. (4) Considering the non-self, e.g. the body as the self. This causes a feeling of being injured on the injury of the body.
At the moment of enjoyment there is always present suffering from pain in the form of aversion to pain; for the tendency to aversion from pain can only result from the incipient memory of previous sufferings. Of course this is also a case of pleasure turned into pain (pariṇāmaduḥkhatā), but it differs from it in this that in the case of pariṇāmaduḥkha pleasure is turned into pain as a result of change or pariṇāma in the future, whereas in this case the anxiety as to pain is a thing of the present, happening at one and the same time that a man is enjoying pleasure.
Enjoyment of pleasure or suffering from pain causes those impressions called saṃskāra or potencies, and these again when aided by association naturally create their memory and thence comes attachment or aversion, then again action, and again pleasure and pain and hence impressions, memory, attachment or aversion, and again action and so forth.
All states are modifications of the three guṇas; in each one of them the functions of all the three guṇas are seen, contrary to one another. These contraries are observable in their developed forms, for the guṇas are seen to abide in various proportions and compose all our mental states. Thus a Yogin who wishes to be released from pain once for all is very sensitive and anxious to avoid even our so-called pleasures. The wise are like the eye-ball. As a thread of wool thrown into the eye pains by merely touching it, but not when it comes into contact with any other organ, so the Yogin is as tender as the eye-ball, when others are insensible of pain. Ordinary persons, however, who have again and again suffered pains as the consequence of their own karma, and who again seek them after having given them up, are all round pierced through as it were by nescience, their minds become full of afflictions, variegated by the eternal residua of the passions. They follow in the wake of the “I” and the “Mine” in relation to things that should be left apart, pursuing threefold pain in repeated births, due to external and internal causes. The Yogin seeing himself and the world of living beings surrounded by the eternal flow of pain, turns for refuge to right knowledge, cause of the destruction of all pains (Vyāsa-bhāshya, II. 15).
Thinking of the mind and body and the objects of the external world as the true self and feeling affected by their change is avidyā (false knowledge).
The modifications that this avidyā suffers may be summarised under four heads.
I. The ego, which, as described above, springs from the identification of the buddhi with the purusha.
II. From this ego springs attachment (rāga) which is the inclination towards pleasure and consequently towards the means necessary for attaining it in a person who has previously experienced pleasures and remembers them.
II. Repulsion from pain also springs from the ego and is of the nature of anxiety for its removal; anger at pain and the means which produces pain, remains in the mind in consequence of the feeling of pain, in the case of him who has felt and remembers pain.
IV. Love of life also springs from the ego. This feeling exists in all persons and appears in a positive aspect in the form “would that I were never to cease.” This is due to the painful experience of death in some previous existence, which abides in us as a residual potency (vāsanā) and causes the instincts of self-preservation, fear of death and love of life. These modifications including avidyā are called the five kleśas or afflictions.
We are now in a position to see the far-reaching effects of the identification of the purusha with the buddhi. We have already seen how it has generated the macrocosm or external world on the one hand, and manas and the senses on the other. Now we see that from it also spring attachment to pleasure, aversion from pain and love of life, motives observable in most of our states of consciousness, which are therefore called the klishṭa vṛtti or afflicted states. The five afflictions (false knowledge and its four modifications spoken above) just mentioned are all comprehended in avidyā, since avidyā or false knowledge is at the root of all worldly experiences. The sphere of avidyā is all false knowledge generally, and that of asmitā is also inseparably connected with all our experiences which consist in the identification of the intelligent self with the sensual objects of the world, the attainment of which seems to please us and the loss of which is so painful to us. It must, however, be remembered that these five afflictions are only different aspects of avidyā and cannot be conceived separately from avidyā. These always lead us into the meshes of the world, far from our final goal—the realisation of our own self—emancipation of the purusha.
Opposed to it are the vṛttis or states which are called unafflicted, aklishṭa, the habit of steadiness (abhyāsa) and non-attachment to pleasures (vairāgya) which being antagonistic to the afflicted states, are helpful towards achieving true knowledge. These represent such thoughts as tend towards emancipation and are produced from our attempts to conceive rationally our final state of emancipation, or to adopt suitable means for this. They must not, however, be confused with puṇyakarma (virtuous action), for both puṇya and pāpa karma are said to have sprung from the kleśas. There is no hard and fast rule with regard to the appearance of these klishṭa and aklishṭa states, so that in the stream of the klishṭa states or in the intervals thereof, aklishṭa states may also appear—as practice and desirelessness born from the study of the Veda-reasoning and precepts—and remain quite distinct in itself, unmixed with the klishṭa states. A Brahman being in a village which is full of the Kirātas, does not himself become a Kirāta (a forest tribe) for that reason.
Each aklishṭa state produces its own potency or saṃskāra, and with the frequency of the states their saṃskāra is strengthened which in due course suppresses the aklishṭa states.
These klishṭa and aklishṭa modifications are of five descriptions: pramāṇa (real cognition), viparyyaya (unreal cognition), vikalpa (logical abstraction and imagination), nidrā (sleep), smṛti (memory). These vṛttis or states, however, must be distinguished from the six kinds of mental activity mentioned in Vyāsa-bhāshya, II. 18: grahaṇa (reception or presentative ideation), dhāraṇa (retention), ūha (assimilation), apoha (differentiation), tattvajñāna (right knowledge), abhiniveśa (decision and determination), of which these states are the products.
We have seen that from avidyā spring all the kleśas or afflictions, which are therefore seen to be the source of the klishṭa vṛttis as well. Abhyāsa and vairāgya—the aklishṭa vṛttis, which spring from precepts, etc., lead to right knowledge, and as such are antagonistic to the modification of the guṇas on the avidyā side.
We know also that both these sets of vṛttis—the klishṭa and the aklishṭa—produce their own kinds of saṃskāras, the klishṭa saṃskāra and the aklishṭa or prajñā saṃskāra. All these modifications of citta as vṛtti and saṃskāra are the dharmas of citta, considered as the dharmin or substance.
CHAPTER IX
THE THEORY OF KARMA
The vṛttis are called the mānasa karmas (mental work) as different from the bāhya karmas (external work) achieved in the exterior world by the five motor or active senses. These may be divided into four classes: (1) kṛshṇa (black), (2) śukla (white), (3) śuklakṛshṇa (white and black), (4) aśuklākṛshṇa (neither white nor black). (1) The kṛshṇa karmas are those committed by the wicked and, as such, are wicked actions called also adharma (demerit). These are of two kinds, viz. bāhya and mānasa, the former being of the nature of speaking ill of others, stealing others’ property, etc., and the latter of the nature of such states as are opposed to śraddhā, vīrya, etc., which are called the śukla karma. (2) The śukla karmas are virtuous or meritorious deeds. These can only occur in the form of mental states, and as such can take place only in the mānasa karma. These are śraddhā (faith), vīrya (strength), smṛti (meditation), samādhi (absorption), and prajñā (wisdom), which are infinitely superior to actions achieved in the external world by the motor or active senses. The śukla karma belongs to those who resort to study and meditation. (3) The śuklakṛshṇa karma are the actions achieved in the external world by the motor or active senses. These are called white and black, because actions achieved in the external world, however good (śukla) they might be, cannot be altogether devoid of wickedness (kṛshṇa), since all external actions entail some harm to other living beings.
Even the Vedic duties, though meritorious, are associated with sins, for they entail the sacrificing of animals.[[40]]
The white side of these actions, viz.: that of helping others and doing good is therefore called dharma, as it is the cause of the enjoyment of pleasure and happiness for the doer. The kṛshṇa or black side of these actions, viz. that of doing injury to others is called adharma, as it is the cause of the suffering of pain to the doer. In all our ordinary states of existence we are always under the influence of dharma and adharma, which are therefore called vehicles of actions (āśerate sāṃsārikā purushā asmin niti āśayaḥ). That in which some thing lives is its vehicle. Here the purushas in evolution are to be understood as living in the sheath of actions (which is for that reason called a vehicle or āśaya). Merit or virtue, and sin or demerit are the vehicles of actions. All śukla karma, therefore, either mental or external, is called merit or virtue and is productive of happiness; all kṛshṇa karma, either mental or external, is called demerit, sin or vice and is productive of pain.
(4) The karma called aśuklakṛshṇa (neither black nor white) is of those who have renounced everything, whose afflictions have been destroyed and whose present body is the last one they will have. Those who have renounced actions, the karma-sannyāsis (and not those who belong to the sannyāsāśrama merely), are nowhere found performing actions which depend upon external means. They have not got the black vehicle of actions, because they do not perform such actions. Nor do they possess the white vehicle of actions, because they dedicate to Īśvara the fruits of all vehicles of action, brought about by the practice of Yoga.
Returning to the question of karmāśaya again for review, we see that being produced from desire (kāma), avarice (lobha), ignorance (moha), and anger (krodha) it has really got at its root the kleśas (afflictions) such as avidyā (ignorance), asmitā (egoism), rāga (attachment), dvesha (antipathy), abhiniveśa (love of life). It will be easily seen that the passions named above, desire, lust, etc., are not in any way different from the kleśas or afflictions previously mentioned; and as all actions, virtuous or sinful, have their springs in the said sentiments of desire, anger, covetousness, and infatuation, it is quite enough that all these virtuous or sinful actions spring from the kleśas.
Now this karmāśaya ripens into life-state, life-experience and life-time, if the roots—the afflictions—exist. Not only is it true that when the afflictions are rooted out, no karmāśaya can accumulate, but even when many karmāśayas of many lives are accumulated, they are rooted out when the afflictions are destroyed. Otherwise, it is difficult to conceive that the karmāśaya accumulated for an infinite number of years, whose time of ripeness is uncertain, will be rooted out! So even if there be no fresh karmāśaya after the rise of true knowledge, the purusha cannot be liberated but will be required to suffer an endless cycle of births and rebirths to exhaust the already accumulated karmāśayas of endless lives. For this reason, the mental plane becomes a field for the production of the fruits of action only, when it is watered by the stream of afflictions. Hence the afflictions help the vehicle of actions (karmāśaya) in the production of their fruits also. It is for this reason that when the afflictions are destroyed the power which helps to bring about the manifestation also disappears; and on that account the vehicles of actions although existing in innumerable quantities have no time for their fruition and do not possess the power of producing fruit, because their seed-powers are destroyed by intellection.
Karmāśaya is of two kinds. (1) Ripening in the same life dṛshṭajanmavedanīya. (2) Ripening in another unknown life. That puṇya karmāśaya, which is generated by intense purificatory action, trance and repetition of mantras, and that pāpa karmāśaya, which is generated by repeated evil done either to men who are suffering the extreme misery of fear, disease and helplessness, or to those who place confidence in them or to those who are high-minded and perform tapas, ripen into fruit in the very same life, whereas other kinds of karmāśayas ripen in some unknown life.
Living beings in hell have no dṛshṭajanma karmāśaya, for this life is intended for suffering only and their bodies are called the bhoga-śarīras intended for suffering alone and not for the accumulation of any karmāśaya which could take effect in that very life.
There are others whose afflictions have been spent and exhausted and thus they have no such karmāśaya, the effect of which they will have to reap in some other life. They are thus said to have no adṛshṭa-janmavedanīya karma.
The karmāśaya of both kinds described above ripens into life-state, life-time and life-experience. These are called the three ripenings or vipākas of the karmāśaya; and they are conducive to pleasure or pain, according as they are products of puṇyakarmāśaya (virtue) or pāpa karmāśaya (vice or demerit). Many karmāśayas combine to produce one life-state; for it is not possible that each karma should produce one or many life-states, for then there would be no possibility of experiencing the effects of the karmas, because if for each one of the karmas we had one or more lives, karmas, being endless, space for obtaining lives in which to experience effects would not be available, for it would take endless time to exhaust the karmas already accumulated. It is therefore held that many karmas unite to produce one life-state or birth (jāti) and to determine also its particular duration (āyush) and experience (bhoga). The virtuous and sinful karmāśayas accumulated in one life, in order to produce their effects, cause the death of the individual and manifest themselves in producing his rebirth, his duration of life and particular experiences, pleasurable or painful. The order of undergoing the experiences is the order in which the karmas manifest themselves as effects, the principal ones being manifested earlier in life. The principal karmas here refer to those which are quite ready to generate their effects. Thus it is said that those karmas which produce their effects immediately are called primary, whereas those which produce effects after some delay are called secondary. Thus we see that there is continuity of existence throughout; when the karmas of this life ripen jointly they tend to fructify by causing another birth as a means to which death is caused, and along with it life is manifested in another body (according to the dharma and adharma of the karmāśaya) formed by the prakṛtyāpūra (cf. the citta theory described above); and the same karmāśaya regulates the life-period and experiences of that life, the karmāśayas of which again take a similar course and manifest themselves in the production of another life and so on.
We have seen that the karmāśaya has three fructifications, viz. jāti, āyush and bhoga. Now generally the karmāśaya is regarded as ekabhavika or unigenital, i.e. it accumulates in one life. Ekabhava means one life and ekabhavika means the product of one life, or accumulated in one life. Regarded from this point of view, it may be contrasted with the vāsanās which remain accumulated from thousands of previous lives since eternity, the mind, being pervaded all over with them, as a fishing-net is covered all over with knots. This vāsanā results from memory of the experiences of a life generated by the fructification of the karmāśaya and kept in the citta in the form of potency or impressions (saṃskāra). Now we have previously seen that the citta remains constant in all the births and rebirths that an individual has undergone from eternity; it therefore keeps the memory of those various experiences of thousands of lives in the form of saṃskāra or potency and is therefore compared with a fishing-net pervaded all over with knots. The vāsanās therefore are not the results of the accumulation of experiences or their memory in one life but in many lives, and are therefore called anekabhavika as contrasted with the karmāśaya representing virtuous and vicious actions which are accumulated in one life and which produce another life, its experiences and its life-duration as a result of fructification (vipāka). This vāsanā is the cause of the instinctive tendencies, or habits of deriving pleasures and pains peculiar to different animal lives.
Thus the habits of a dog-life and its peculiar modes of taking its experiences and of deriving pleasures and pains are very different in nature from those of a man-life; they must therefore be explained on the basis of an incipient memory in the form of potency, or impressions (saṃskāra) of the experiences that an individual must have undergone in a previous dog-life.
Now when by the fructification of the karmāśaya a dog-life is settled for a person, his corresponding vāsanās of a previous dog-life are at once revived and he begins to take interest in his dog-life in the manner of a dog; the same principle applies to the virtue of individuals as men or as gods (IV. 8).
If there was not this law of vāsanās, then any vāsanā would be revived in any life, and with the manifestation of the vāsanā of animal life a man would take interest in eating grass and derive pleasure from it. Thus Nāgeśa says: “Now if those karmas which produce a man-life should manifest the vāsanās of animal lives, then one might be inclined to eat grass as a man, and it is therefore said that only the vāsanās corresponding to the karmas are revived.”
Now as the vāsanās are of the nature of saṃskāras or impressions, they lie ingrained in the citta and nothing can prevent their being revived. The intervention of other births has no effect. For this reason, the vāsanās of a dog-life are at once revived in another dog-life, though between the first dog-life and the second dog-life, the individual may have passed through many other lives, as a man, a bull, etc., though the second dog-life may take place many hundreds of years after the first dog-life and in quite different countries. The difference between saṃskāras, impressions, and smṛti or memory is simply this that the former is the latent state whereas the latter is the manifested state; so we see that the memory and the impressions are identical in nature, so that whenever a saṃskāra is revived, it means nothing but the manifestation of the memory of the same experiences conserved in the saṃskāra in a latent state. Experiences, when they take place, keep their impressions in the mind, though thousands of other experiences, lapse of time, etc., may intervene. They are revived in one moment with the proper cause of their revival, and the other intervening experiences can in no way hinder this revival. So it is with the vāsanās, which are revived at once according to the particular fructification of the karmāśaya, in the form of a particular life, as a man, a dog, or anything else.
It is now clear that the karmāśaya tending towards fructification is the cause of the manifestation of the vāsanās already existing in the mind in a latent form. Thus the Sūtra says:—“When two similar lives are separated by many births, long lapses of time and remoteness of space, even then for the purpose of the revival of the vāsanās, they may be regarded as immediately following each other, for the memories and impressions are the same” (Yoga-sūtra, IV. 9). The Bhāshya says: “the vāsanā is like the memory (smṛti), and so there can be memory from the impressions of past lives separated by many lives and by remote tracts of country. From these memories the impressions (saṃskāras) are derived, and the memories are revived by manifestation of the karmāśayas, and though memories from past impressions may have many lives intervening, these interventions do not destroy the causal antecedence of those past lives” (IV. 9).
These vāsanās are, however, beginningless, for a baby just after birth is seen to feel the fear of death instinctively, and it could not have derived it from its experience in this life. Again, if a small baby is thrown upwards, it is seen to shake and cry like a grown-up man, and from this it may be inferred that it is afraid of falling down on the ground and is therefore shaking through fear. Now this baby has never learnt in this life from experience that a fall on the ground will cause pain, for it has never fallen on the ground and suffered pain therefrom; so the cause of this fear cannot be sought in the experiences of this life, but in the memory of past experiences of fall and pain arising therefrom, which is innate in this life as vāsanā and causes this instinctive fear. So this innate memory which causes instinctive fear of death from the very time of birth, has not its origin in this life but is the memory of the experience of some previous life, and in that life, too, it existed as innate memory of some other previous life, and in that again as the innate memory of some other life and so on to beginningless time. This goes to show that the vāsanās are without beginning.
We come now to the question of unigenitality—ekabhavikatva—of the karmāśaya and its exceptions. We find that great confusion has occurred among the commentators about the following passage in the Bhāshya which refers to this subject: The Bhāshya according to Vācaspati in II. 13 reads: tatra dṛshṭajanmavedanīyasya niyatavipākasya, etc. Here Bhikshu and Nāgeśa read tatrādṛshṭajanmavedanīyasya niyatavipākasya, etc. There is thus a divergence of meaning on this point between Yoga-vārttika and his follower Nāgeśa, on one side, and Vācaspati on the other.
Vācaspati says that the dṛshṭajanmavedanīya (to be fructified in the same visible life) karma is the only true karma where the karmāśaya is ekabhavika, unigenital, for here these effects are positively not due to the karma of any other previous lives, but to the karma of that very life. Thus these are the only true causes of ekabhavika karmāśaya.
Thus according to Vācaspati we see that the adṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma (to be fructified in another life) of unappointed fruition is never an ideal of ekabhavikatva or unigenital character; for it may have three different courses: (1) It may be destroyed without fruition. (2) It may become merged in the ruling action. (3) It may exist for a long time overpowered by the ruling action whose fruition has been appointed.
Vijñāna Bhikshu and his follower Nāgeśa, however, say that the dṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma (to be fructified in the same visible life) can never be ekabhavika or unigenital for there is no bhava, or previous birth there, whose product is being fructified in that life, for this karma is of that same visible life and not of some other previous bhava or life; and they agree in holding that it is for that reason that the Bhāshya makes no mention of this dṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma; it is clear that the karmāśaya in no other bhava is being fructified here. Thus we see that about dṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma, Vācaspati holds that it is the typical case of ekabhavika karma (karma of the same birth), whereas Vijñāna Bhikshu holds just the opposite view, viz. that the dṛhṭajanmavedanīya karma should by no means be considered as ekabhavika since there is here no bhava or birth, it being fructified in the same life.
The adṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma (works to be fructified in another life) of unfixed fruition has three different courses: (I) As we have observed before, by the rise of aśuklākṛshṇa (neither black nor white) karma, the other karmas—śukla (black), kṛshṇa (white) and śuklakṛshṇa (both black and white)—are rooted out. The śukla karmāśaya again arising from study and asceticism destroys the kṛshṇa karmas without their being able to generate their effects. These therefore can never be styled ekabhavika, since they are destroyed without producing any effect. (II) When the effects of minor actions are merged in the effects of the major and ruling action. The sins originating from the sacrifice of animals at a holy sacrifice are sure to produce bad effects, though they may be minor and small in comparison with the good effects arising from the performance of the sacrifice in which they are merged. Thus it is said that the experts being immersed in floods of happiness brought about by their sacrifices bear gladly particles of the fire of sorrow brought about by the sin of killing animals at sacrifice. So we see that here also the minor actions having been performed with the major do not produce their effects independently, and so all their effects are not fully manifested, and hence these secondary karmāśayas cannot be regarded as ekabhavika. (III) Again the adṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma (to be fructified in another life) of unfixed fruition (aniyata vipāka) remains overcome for a long time by another adṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma of fixed fruition. A man may for example do some good actions and some extremely vicious ones, so that at the time of death, the karmāśaya of those vicious actions becoming ripe and fit for appointed fruition, generates an animal life. His good action, whose benefits are such as may be reaped only in a man-life, will remain overcome until the man is born again as a man: so this also cannot be said to be ekabhavika (to be reaped in one life). We may summarise the classification of karmas according to Vācaspati in a table as follows:—
Thus the karmāśaya may be viewed from two sides, one being that of fixed fruition and the other unfixed fruition, and the other that of dṛshṭajanmavedanīya and adṛshṭajanmavedanīya. Now the theory is that the niyatavipāka (of fixed fruition) karmāśaya is always ekabhavika, i.e. it does not remain separated by other lives, but directly produces its effects in the succeeding life.
Ekabhavika means that which is produced from the accumulation of karmas in one life in the life which succeeds it. Vācaspati, however, takes it also to mean that action which attains fruition in the same life in which it is performed, whereas what Vijñāna Bhikshu understands by ekabhavika is that action alone which is produced in the life immediately succeeding the life in which it was accumulated. So according to Vijñāna Bhikshu, the niyata vipāka (of fixed fruition) dṛshṭajanmavedanīya (to be fructified in the same life) action is not ekabhavika, since it has no bhava, i.e. it is not the production of a preceding life. Neither can it be anekabhavika; thus this niyatavipākadṛshṭajanmavedanīya action is neither ekabhavika nor anekbhavika. Whereas Vācaspati is inclined to call this also ekabhavika. About the niyatavipāka-adṛshṭajanmavedanīya action being called ekabhavika (unigenital) there seems to be no dispute. The aniyatavipāka-adṛshṭajanmavedanīya action cannot be called ekabhavika as it undergoes three different courses described above.
CHAPTER X
THE ETHICAL PROBLEM
We have described avidyā and its special forms as the kleśas, from which also proceed the actions virtuous and vicious, which in their turn again produce as a result of their fruition, birth, life and experiences of pleasure and pain and the vāsanās or residues of the memory of these experiences. Again every new life or birth is produced from the fructification of actions of a previous life; a man is made to perform actions good or bad by the kleśas which are rooted in him, and these actions, as a result of their fructification, produce another life and its experiences, in which life again new actions are earned by virtue of the kleśas, and thus the cycle is continued. When there is pralaya or involution of the cosmical world-process the individual cittas of the separate purushas return back to the prakṛti and lie within it, together with their own avidyās, and at the time of each new creation or evolution these are created anew with such changes as are due according to their individual avidyās, with which they had to return back to their original cause, the prakṛti, and spend an indivisible inseparable existence with it. The avidyās of some other creation, being merged in the prakṛti along with the cittas, remain in the prakṛti as vāsanās, and prakṛti being under the influence of these avidyās as vāsanās creates as modifications of itself the corresponding minds for the individual purushas, connected with them before the last pralaya dissolution. So we see that though the cittas had returned to their original causes with their individual nescience (avidyā), the avidyā was not lost but was revived at the time of the new creation and created such minds as should be suitable receptacles for it. These minds (buddhi) are found to be modified further into their specific cittas or mental planes by the same avidyā which is manifested in them as the kleśas, and these again in the karmāśaya, jāti, āyush and bhoga, and so on; the individual, however, is just in the same position as he was or would have been before the involution of pralaya. The avidyās of the cittas which had returned to the prakṛti at the time of the creation being revived, create their own buddhis of the previous creation, and by their connection with the individual purushas are the causes of the saṃsāra or cosmic evolution—the evolution of the microcosm, the cittas, and the macrocosm or the exterior world.
In this new creation, the creative agencies of God and avidyā are thus distinguished in that the latter represents the end or purpose of the prakṛti—the ever-evolving energy transforming itself into its modifications as the mental and the material world; whereas the former represents that intelligent power which abides outside the pale of prakṛti, but removes obstructions offered by the prakṛti. Though unintelligent and not knowing how and where to yield so as to form the actual modifications necessary for the realisation of the particular and specific objects of the numberless purushas, these avidyās hold within themselves the serviceability of the purushas, and are the cause of the connection of the purusha and the prakṛti, so that when these avidyās are rooted out it is said that the purushārthatā or serviceability of the purusha is at an end and the purusha becomes liberated from the bonds of prakṛti, and this is called the final goal of the purusha.
The ethical problem of the Pātañjala philosophy is the uprooting of this avidyā by the attainment of true knowledge of the nature of the purusha, which will be succeeded by the liberation of the purusha and his absolute freedom or independence—kaivalya—the last realisation of the purusha—the ultimate goal of all the movements of the prakṛti.
This final uprooting of the avidyā with its vāsanās directly follows the attainment of true knowledge called prajñā, in which state the seed of false knowledge is altogether burnt and cannot be revived again. Before this state, the discriminative knowledge which arises as the recognition of the distinct natures of purusha and buddhi remains shaky; but when by continual practice this discriminative knowledge becomes strengthened in the mind, its potency gradually grows stronger and stronger, and roots out the potency of the ordinary states of mental activity, and thus the seed of false knowledge becomes burnt up and incapable of fruition, and the impurity of the energy of rajas being removed, the sattva as the manifesting entity becomes of the highest purity, and in that state flows on the stream of the notion of discrimination—the recognition of the distinct natures of purusha and buddhi—free from impurity. Thus when the state of buddhi becomes almost as pure as the purusha itself, all self-enquiry subsides, the vision of the real form of the purusha arises, and false knowledge, together with the kleśas and the consequent fruition of actions, ceases once for all. This is that state of citta which, far from tending towards the objective world, tends towards the kaivalya of the purusha.
In the first stages, when the mind attains discriminative knowledge, the prajñā is not deeply seated, and occasionally phenomenal states of consciousness are seen to intervene in the form of “I am,” “Mine,” “I know,” “I do not know,” because the old potencies, though becoming weaker and weaker are not finally destroyed, and consequently occasionally produce their corresponding conscious manifestation as states which impede the flow of discriminative knowledge. But constant practice in rooting out the potency of this state destroys the potencies of the outgoing activity, and finally no intervention occurs in the flow of the stream of prajñā through the destructive influence of phenomenal states of consciousness. In this higher state when the mind is in its natural, passive, and objectless stream of flowing prajñā, it is called the dharmamegha-saṁādhi. When nothing is desired even from dhyāna arises the true knowledge which distinguishes prakṛti from purusha and is called the dharmamegha-samādhi (Yoga-sūtra, IV. 29). The potency, however, of this state of consciousness lasts until the purusha is finally liberated from the bonds of prakṛti and is absolutely free (kevalī). Now this is the state when the citta becomes infinite, and all its tamas being finally overcome, it shines forth like the sun, which can reflect all, and in comparison to which the crippled insignificant light of objective knowledge shrinks altogether, and thus an infinitude is acquired, which has absorbed within itself all finitude, which cannot have any separate existence or manifestation through this infinite knowledge. All finite states of knowledge are only a limitation of true infinite knowledge, in which there is no limitation of this and that. It absorbs within itself all these limitations.
The purusha in this state may be called the emancipated being, jīvanmukta. Nāgeśa in explaining Vyāsa-bhāshya, IV. 31, describing the emancipated life says: “In this jīvanmukta stage, being freed from all impure afflictions and karmas, the consciousness shines in its infirmity. The infiniteness of consciousness is different from the infiniteness of materiality veiled by tamas. In those stages there could be consciousness only with reference to certain things with reference to which the veil of tamas was raised by rajas. When all veils and impurities are removed, then little is left which is not known. If there were other categories besides the 25 categories, these also would then have been known” (Chāyāvyākhyā, IV. 31).
Now with the rise of such dharmamegha the succession of the changes of the qualities is over, inasmuch as they have fulfilled their object by having achieved experience and emancipation, and their succession having ended, they cannot stay even for a moment. And now comes absolute freedom, when the guṇas return back to the pradhāna their primal cause, after performing their service for the purusha by providing his experience and his salvation, so that they lose all their hold on purusha and purusha remains as he is in himself, and never again has any connection with the buddhi. The purusha remains always in himself in absolute freedom.
The order of the return of the guṇas for a kevalī purusha is described below in the words of Vācaspati: The guṇas as cause and effect involving ordinary experiences samādhi and nirodha, become submerged in the manas; the manas becomes submerged in the asmitā, the asmitā in the liṅga, and the liṅga in the aliṅga.
This state of kaivalya must be distinguished from the state of mahāpralaya in which also the guṇas return back to prakṛti, for that state is again succeeded by later connections of prakṛti with purushas through the buddhis, but the state of kaivalya is an eternal state which is never again disturbed by any connection with prakṛti, for now the separation of prakṛti from purusha is eternal, whereas that in the mahāpralaya state was only temporary.
We shall conclude this section by noting two kinds of eternity of purusha and of prakṛti, and by offering a criticism of the prajñā state. The former is said to be perfectly and unchangeably eternal (kūṭastha nitya), and the latter is only eternal in an evolutionary form. The permanent or eternal reality is that which remains unchanged amid its changing appearances; and from this point of view both purusha and prakṛti are eternal. It is indeed true, as we have seen just now, that the succession of changes of qualities with regard to buddhi, etc., comes to an end when kaivalya is attained, but this is with reference to purusha, for the changes of qualities in the guṇas themselves never come to an end. So the guṇas in themselves are eternal in their changing or evolutionary character, and are therefore said to possess evolutionary eternity (pariṇāminityatā). Our phenomenal conception cannot be free from change, and therefore it is that in our conception of the released purushas we affirm their existence, as for example when we say that the released purushas exist eternally. But it must be carefully noted that this is due to the limited character of our thoughts and expressions, not to the real nature of the released purushas, which remain for ever unqualified by any changes or modifications, pure and colourless as the very self of shining intelligence (see Vyāsa-bhāshya, IV. 33).
We shall conclude this section by giving a short analysis of the prajñā state from its first appearance to the final release of purusha from the bondage of prakṛti. Patañjali says that this prajñā state being final in each stage is sevenfold. Of these the first four stages are due to our conscious endeavour, and when these conscious states of prajñā (supernatural wisdom) flow in a stream and are not hindered or interfered with in any way by other phenomenal conscious states of pratyayas the purusha becomes finally liberated through the natural backward movement of the citta to its own primal cause, and this backward movement is represented by the other three stages.
The seven prajñā stages may be thus enumerated:—
I. The pain to be removed is known. Nothing further remains to be known of it.
This is the first aspect of the prajñā, in which the person willing to be released knows that he has exhausted all that is knowable of the pains.
II. The cause of the pains has been removed and nothing further remains to be removed of it. This is the second stage or aspect of the rise of prajñā.
III. The nature of the extinction of pain has already been perceived by me in the state of samādhi, so that I have come to learn that the final extinction of my pain will be something like it.
IV. The final discrimination of prakṛti and purusha, the true and immediate means of the extinction of pain, has been realised.
After this stage, nothing remains to be done by the purusha himself. For this is the attainment of final true knowledge. It is also called the para vairāgya. It is the highest consummation, in which the purusha has no further duties to perform. This is therefore called the kārya vimukti (or salvation depending on the endeavour of the purusha) or jīvanmukti.
After this follows the citta vimukti or the process of release of the purusha from the citta, in three stages.
V. The aspect of the buddhi, which has finally finished its services to purusha by providing scope for purusha’s experiences and release; so that it has nothing else to perform for purusha. This is the first stage of the retirement of the citta.
VI. As soon as this state is attained, like the falling of stones thrown from the summit of a hill, the guṇas cannot remain even for a moment to bind the purusha, but at once return back to their primal cause, the prakṛti; for the avidyā being rooted out, there is no tie or bond which can keep it connected with purusha and make it suffer changes for the service of purusha. All the purushārthatā being ended, the guṇas disappear of themselves.
VII. The seventh and last aspect of the guṇas is that they never return back to bind purusha again, their teleological purpose being fulfilled or realised. It is of course easy to see that, in these last three stages, purusha has nothing to do; but the guṇas of their own nature suffer these backward modifications and return back to their own primal cause and leave the purusha kevalī (for ever solitary). Vyāsa-bhāshya, II. 15.
Vyāsa says that as the science of medicine has four divisions: (1) disease, (2) the cause of disease, (3) recovery, (4) medicines; so this Yoga philosophy has also four divisions, viz.: (I) Saṃsāra (the evolution of the prakṛti in connection with the purusha). (II) The cause of saṃsāra. (III) Release. (IV) The means of release.
Of these the first three have been described at some length above. We now direct our attention to the fourth. We have shown above that the ethical goal, the ideal to be realised, is absolute freedom or kaivalya, and we shall now consider the line of action that must be adopted to attain this goal—the summum bonum. All actions which tend towards the approximate realisation of this goal for man are called kuśala, and the man who achieves this goal is called kuśalī. It is in the inherent purpose of prakṛti that man should undergo pains which include all phenomenal experiences of pleasures as well, and ultimately adopt such a course of conduct as to avoid them altogether and finally achieve the true goal, the realisation of which will extinguish all pains for him for ever. The motive therefore which prompts a person towards this ethico-metaphysical goal is the avoidance of pain. An ordinary man feels pain only in actual pain, but a Yogin who is as highly sensitive as the eye-ball, feels pain in pleasure as well, and therefore is determined to avoid all experiences, painful or so-called pleasurable. The extinguishing of all experiences, however, is not the true ethical goal, being only a means to the realisation of kaivalya or the true self and nature of the purusha. But this means represents the highest end of a person, the goal beyond which all his duties cease; for after this comes kaivalya which naturally manifests itself on the necessary retirement of the prakṛti. Purusha has nothing to do in effectuating this state, which comes of itself. The duties of the purusha cease with the thorough extinguishing of all his experiences. This therefore is the means of extinguishing all his pains, which are the highest end of all his duties; but the complete extinguishing of all pains is identical with the extinguishing of all experiences, the states or vṛttis of consciousness, and this again is identical with the rise of prajñā or true discriminative knowledge of the difference in nature of prakṛti and its effects from the purusha—the unchangeable. These three sides are only the three aspects of the same state which immediately precede kaivalya. The prajñā aspect is the aspect of the highest knowledge, the suppression of the states of consciousness or experiences, and it is the aspect of the cessation of all conscious activity and of painlessness or the extinguishing of all pains as the feeling aspect of the same nirvīja—samādhi state. But when the student directs his attention to this goal in his ordinary states of experience, he looks at it from the side of the feeling aspect, viz. that of acquiring a state of painlessness, and as a means thereto he tries to purify the mind and be moral in all his actions, and begins to restrain and suppress his mental states, in order to acquire this nirvīja or seedless state. This is the sphere of conduct which is called Yogāṅga.
Of course there is a division of duties according to the advancement of the individual, as we shall have occasion to show hereafter. This suppression of mental states which has been described as the means of attaining final release, the ultimate ethical goal of life, is called Yoga. We have said before that of the five kinds of mind—kshipta, mūḍha, vikshipta, ekāgra, niruddha—only the last two are fit for the process of Yoga and ultimately acquire absolute freedom. In the other three, though concentration may occasionally happen, yet there is no extrication of the mind from the afflictions of avidyā and consequently there is no final release.
CHAPTER XI
YOGA PRACTICE
The Yoga which, after weakening the hold of the afflictions and causing the real truth to dawn upon our mental vision, gradually leads us towards the attainment of our final goal, is only possible for the last two kinds of minds and is of two kinds: (1) samprajñāta (cognitive) and (2) asamprajñāta (ultra-cognitive). The samprajñāta Yoga is that in which the mind is concentrated upon some object, external or internal, in such a way that it does not oscillate or move from one object to another, but remains fixed and settled in the object that it holds before itself. At first, the Yogin holds a gross material object before his view, but when he can make himself steady in doing this, he tries with the subtle tanmātras, the five causes of the grosser elements, and when he is successful in this he takes his internal senses as his object and last of all, when he has fully succeeded in these attempts, he takes the great egohood as his object, in which stage his object gradually loses all its determinate character and he is said to be in a state of suppression in himself, although devoid of any object. This state, like the other previous states of the samprajñāta type, is a positive state of the mind and not a mere state of vacuity of objects or negativity. In this state, all determinate character of the states disappears and their potencies only remain alive. In the first stages of a Yogin practising samādhi conscious states of the lower stages often intervene, but gradually, as the mind becomes fixed, the potencies of the lower stages are overcome by the potencies of this stage, so that the mind flows in a calm current and at last the higher prajñā dawns, whereupon the potencies of this state also are burnt and extinguished, the citta returns back to its own primal cause, prakṛti, and purusha attains absolute freedom.
The first four stages of the samprajñāta state are called madhumatī, madhupratīka, viśoka and the saṃskāraśesha and also vitarkānugata, vicārānugata, ānandānugata and asmitānugata. True knowledge begins to dawn from the first stage of this samprajñāta state, and when the Yogin reaches the last stage the knowledge reaches its culminating point, but still so long as the potencies of the lower stages of relative knowledge remain, the knowledge cannot obtain absolute certainty and permanency, as it will always be threatened with a possible encroachment by the other states of the past phenomenal activity now existing as the subconscious. But the last stage of asamprajñāta samādhi represents the stage in which the ordinary consciousness has been altogether surpassed and the mind is in its own true infinite aspect, and the potencies of the stages in which the mind was full of finite knowledge are also burnt, so that with the return of the citta to its primal cause, final emancipation is effected. The last state of samprajñāta samādhi is called saṃskāraśesha, only because here the residua of the potencies of subconscious thought only remain and the actual states of consciousness become all extinct. It is now easy to see that no mind which is not in the ekāgra or one-pointed state can be fit for the asamprajñāta samādhi in which it has to settle itself on one object and that alone. So also no mind which has not risen to the state of highest suppression is fit for the asamprajñāta or nirvīja state.
It is now necessary to come down to a lower level and examine the obstructions, on account of which a mind cannot easily become one-pointed or ekāgra. These, nine in number, are the following:—
Disease, languor, indecision, want of the mental requirements necessary for samādhi, idleness of body and mind, attachment to objects of sense, false and illusory knowledge, non-attainment of the state of concentrated contemplation, unsteadiness and unstability of the mind in a samādhi state even if it can somehow attain it. These are again seen to be accompanied with pain and despair owing to the non-fulfilment of desire, physical shakiness or unsteadiness of the limbs, taking in of breath and giving out of it, which are seen to follow the nine distractions of a distracted mind described above.
To prevent these distractions and their accompaniments it is necessary that we should practise concentration on one truth. Vācaspati says that this one truth on which the mind should be settled and fixed is Īśvara, and Rāmānanda Sarasvatī and Nārāyaṇa Tīrtha agree with him. Vijñāna Bhikshu, however, says that one truth means any object, gross or fine, and Bhoja supports Vijñāna Bhikshu, staying that here “one truth” might mean any desirable object.
Abhyāsa means the steadiness of the mind in one state and not complete absence of any state; for the Bhāshyakāra himself has said in the samāpattisūtra, that samprajñāta trance comes after this steadiness. As we shall see later, it means nothing but the application of the five means, śraddhā, vīrya, smṛti, samādhi and prajñā; it is an endeavour to settle the mind on one state, and as such does not differ from the application of the five means of Yoga with a view to settle and steady the mind (Yoga-vārttika, I. 13). This effort becomes firmly rooted, being well attended to for a long time without interruption and with devotion.
Now it does not matter very much whether this one truth is Īśvara or any other object; for the true principle of Yoga is the setting of the mind on one truth, principle or object. But for an ordinary man this is no easy matter; for in order to be successful the mind must be equipped with śraddhā or faith—the firm conviction of the Yogin in the course that he adopts. This keeps the mind steady, pleased, calm and free from doubts of any kind, so that the Yogin may proceed to the realisation of his object without any vacillation. Unless a man has a firm hold on the course that he pursues, all the steadiness that he may acquire will constantly be threatened with the danger of a sudden collapse. It will be seen that vairāgya or desirelessness is only the negative aspect of this śraddhā. For by it the mind is restrained from the objects of sense, with an aversion or dislike towards the objects of sensual pleasure and worldly desires; this aversion towards worldly joys is only the other aspect of the faith of the mind and the calmness of its currents (cittaprasāda) towards right knowledge and absolute freedom. So it is said that the vairāgya is the effect of śraddhā and its product (Yoga-vārttika, I. 20). In order to make a person suitable for Yoga, vairāgya represents the cessation of the mind from the objects of sense and their so-called pleasures, and śraddhā means the positive faith of the mind in the path of Yoga that one adopts, and the right aspiration towards attaining the highest goal of absolute freedom.
In its negative aspect, vairāgya is of two kinds, apara and para. The apara is that of a mind free from attachment to worldly enjoyments, such as women, food, drinks and power, as also from thirst for heavenly pleasures attainable by practising the vedic rituals and sacrifices. Those who are actuated by apara vairāgya do not desire to remain in a bodiless state (videha) merged in the senses or merged in the prakṛti (prakṛtilīna). It is a state in which the mind is indifferent to all kinds of pleasures and pains. This vairāgya may be said to have four stages: (1) Yatamāna—in which sensual objects are discovered to be defective and the mind recoils from them. (2) Vyatireka—in which the senses to be conquered are noted. (3) Ekendriya—in which attachment towards internal pleasures and aversion towards external pains, being removed, the mind sets before it the task of removing attachment and aversion towards mental passions for obtaining honour or avoiding dishonour, etc. (4) The fourth and last stage of vairāgya called vaśīkāra is that in which the mind has perceived the futility of all attractions towards external objects of sense and towards the pleasures of heaven, and having suppressed them altogether feels no attachment, even should it come into connection with them.
With the consummation of this last stage of apara vairāgya, comes the para vairāgya which is identical with the rise of the final prajñā leading to absolute independence. This vairāgya, śraddhā and the abhyāsa represent the unafflicted states (aklishṭavṛtti) which suppress gradually the klishṭa or afflicted mental states. These lead the Yogin from one stage to another, and thus he proceeds higher and higher until the final state is attained.
As vairāgya advances, śraddhā also advances; from śraddhā comes vīrya, energy, or power of concentration (dhāraṇā); and from it again springs smṛti—or continuity of one object of thought; and from it comes samādhi or cognitive and ultra-cognitive trance; after which follows prajñā, cognitive and ultra-cognitive trance; after which follows prajñā and final release. Thus by the inclusion of śraddhā within vairāgya, its effect, and the other products of śraddhā with abhyāsa, we see that the abhyāsa and vairāgya are the two internal means for achieving the final goal of the Yogin, the supreme suppression and extinction of all states of consciousness, of all afflictions and the avidyā—the last state of supreme knowledge or prajñā.
As śraddhā, vīrya, smṛti, samādhi which are not different from vairāgya and abhyāsa (they being only their other aspects or simultaneous products), are the means of attaining Yoga, it is possible to make a classification of the Yogins according to the strength of these with each, and the strength of the quickness (saṃvega) with which they may be applied towards attaining the goal of the Yogin. Thus Yogins are of nine kinds:—
(1) mildly energetic, (2) of medium energy, (3) of intense energy.
Each of these may vary in a threefold way according to the mildness, medium state, or intensity of quickness or readiness with which the Yogin may apply the means of attaining Yoga. There are nine kinds of Yogins. Of these the best is he whose mind is most intensely engaged and whose practice is also the strongest.
There is a difference of opinion here about the meaning of the word saṃvega, between Vācaspati and Vijñāna Bhikshu. The former says that saṃvega means vairāgya here, but the latter holds that saṃvega cannot mean vairāgya, and vairāgya being the effect of śraddhā cannot be taken separately from it. “Saṃvega” means quickness in the performance of the means of attaining Yoga; some say that it means “vairāgya.” But that is not true, for if vairāgya is an effect of the due performance of the means of Yoga, there cannot be the separate ninefold classification of Yoga apart from the various degrees of intensity of the means of Yoga practice. Further, the word “saṃvega” does not mean “vairāgya” etymologically (Yoga-vārttika, I. 20).
We have just seen that śraddhā, etc., are the means of attaining Yoga, but we have not discussed what purificatory actions an ordinary man must perform in order to attain śraddhā, from which the other requisites are derived. Of course these purificatory actions are not the same for all, since they must necessarily depend upon the conditions of purity or impurity of each mind; thus a person already in an advanced state, may not need to perform those purificatory actions necessary for a man in a lower state. We have just said that Yogins are of nine kinds, according to the strength of their mental acquirements—śraddhā, etc.—the requisite means of Yoga and the degree of rapidity with which they may be applied. Neglecting division by strength or quickness of application along with these mental requirements, we may again divide Yogins again into three kinds: (1) Those who have the best mental equipment. (2) Those who are mediocres. (3) Those who have low mental equipment.
In the first chapter of Yoga aphorisms, it has been stated that abhyāsa, the application of the mental acquirements of śraddhā, etc., and vairāgya, the consequent cessation of the mind from objects of distraction, lead to the extinction of all our mental states and to final release. When a man is well developed, he may rest content with his mental actions alone, in his abhyāsa and vairāgya, in his dhāraṇā (concentration), dhyāna (meditation), and samādhi (trance), which may be called the jñānayoga. But it is easy to see that this jñānayoga requires very high mental powers and thus is not within easy reach of ordinary persons. Ordinary persons whose minds are full of impurities, must pass through a certain course of purificatory actions before they can hope to obtain those mental acquirements by which they can hope to follow the course of jñānayoga with facility.
These actions, which remove the impurities of the mind, and thus gradually increase the lustre of knowledge, until the final state of supreme knowledge is acquired, are called kriyāyoga. They are also called yogāṅgas, as they help the maturity of the Yoga process by gradually increasing the lustre of knowledge. They represent the means by which even an ordinary mind (vikshiptacitta) may gradually purify itself and become fit for the highest ideals of Yoga. Thus the Bhāshya says: “By the sustained practice of these yogāṅgas or accessories of Yoga is destroyed the fivefold unreal cognition (avidyā), which is of the nature of impurity.” Destruction means here disappearance; thus when that is destroyed, real knowledge is manifested. As the means of achievement are practised more and more, so is the impurity more and more attenuated. And as more and more of it is destroyed, so does the light of wisdom go on increasing more and more. This process reaches its culmination in discriminative knowledge, which is knowledge of the nature of purusha and the guṇas.
CHAPTER XII
THE YOGĀṄGAS
Now the assertion that these actions are the causes of the attainment of salvation brings up the question of the exact natures of their operation with regard to this supreme attainment. Bhāshyakara says with respect to this that they are the causes of the separation of the impurities of the mind just as an axe is the cause of the splitting of a piece of wood; and again they are the causes of the attainment of the supreme knowledge just as dhaṛma is the cause of happiness. It must be remembered that according to the Yoga theory causation is viewed as mere transformation of energy; the operation of concomitant causes only removes obstacles impeding the progress of these transformations in a particular direction; no cause can of itself produce any effect, and the only way in which it can help the production of an effect into which the causal state passes out of its own immanent energy by the principles of conservation and transformation of energy, is by removing the intervening obstacles. Thus just as the passage of citta into a happy state is helped by dharma removing the intervening obstacles, so also the passage of the citta into the state of attainment of true knowledge is helped by the removal of obstructions due to the performance of the yogāṅgas; the necessary obstructions being removed, the citta passes naturally of itself into this infinite state of attainment of true knowledge, in which all finitude is merged.
In connection with this, Vyāsa mentions nine kinds of operation of causes: (1) cause of birth; (2) of preservation; (3) of manifestation; (4) of modification; (5) knowledge of a premise leading to a deduction; (6) of otherness; (7) of separation; (8) of attainment; (9) of upholding (Vyāsabhāshya, II. 28.)
The principle of conservation of energy and transformation of energy being the root idea of causation in this system, these different aspects represent the different points of view in which the word causation is generally used.
Thus, the first aspect as the cause of birth or production is seen when knowledge springs from manas which renders indefinite cognition definite so that mind is called the cause of the birth of knowledge. Here mind is the material cause (upādāna kāraṇa) of the production of knowledge, for knowledge is nothing but manas with its particular modifications as states (Yoga-vārttika, II. 18). The difference of these positive cause from āptikāraṇa, which operates only in a negative way and helps production, in an indirect way by the removal of obstacles, is quite manifest. The sthitikāraṇa or cause through which things are preserved as they are, is the end they serve; thus the serviceability of purusha is the cause of the existence and preservation of the mind as it is, and not only of mind but of all our phenomenal experiences.
The third cause of the abhivyaktikāraṇa or manifestation which is compared to a lamp which manifests things before our view is an epistemological cause, and as such includes all sense activity in connection with material objects which produce cognition.
Then come the fourth and the fifth causes, vikāra (change) and pratyaya (inseparable connection); thus the cause of change (vikāra) is exemplified as that which causes a change; thus the manas suffers a change by the objects presented to it, just as bile changes and digests the food that is eaten; the cause of pratyaya[[41]] is that in which from inseparable connection, with the knowledge of the premise (e.g. there is smoke in the hill) we can also have inferential knowledge of the other (e.g. there is fire in the hill). The sixth cause as otherness (anyatva) is that which effects changes of form as that brought about by a goldsmith in gold when he makes a bangle from it, and then again a necklace, is regarded as differing from the change spoken of as vikāra. Now the difference between the gold being turned into bangles or necklaces and the raw rice being turned into soft rice is this, that in the former case when bangles are made out of gold, the gold remains the same in each case, whereas in the case of the production of cooked rice from raw by fire, the case is different, for heat changes paddy in a far more definite way; goldsmith and heat are both indeed efficient causes, but the former only effects mechanical changes of shape and form, whereas the latter is the cause of structural and chemical changes. Of course these are only examples from the physical world, their causal operations in the mental sphere varying in a corresponding manner; thus the change produced in the mind by the presentation of different objects, follows a law which is the same as is found in the physical world, when the same object causes different kinds of feelings in different persons; when ignorance causes forgetfulness in a thing, anger makes it painful and desire makes it pleasurable, but knowledge of its true reality produces indifference; there is thus the same kind of causal change as is found in the external world. Next for consideration is the cause of separation (viyoga) which is only a negative aspect of the positive side of the causes of transformations, as in the gradual extinction of impurities, consequent upon the transformation of the citta towards the attainment of the supreme state of absolute independence through discriminative knowledge. The last cause for consideration is that of upholding (dhṛti); thus the body upholds the senses and supports them for the actualisation of their activities in the body, just as the five gross elements are the upholding causes of organic bodies; the bodies of animals, men, etc., also employ one another for mutual support. Thus the human body lives by eating the bodies of many animals; the bodies of tigers, etc., live on the bodies of men and other animals; many animals live on the bodies of plants, etc. (Tattvavaiśāradī, II. 28). The four kinds of causes mentioned in Śaṅkara’s works and grammatical commentaries like that of Susheṇa, viz.: utpādya, vikāryya, āpya and saṃskāryya, are all included within the nine causes contained mentioned by Vyāsa.
The yogāṅgas not only remove the impurities of the mind but help it further by removing obstacles in the way of attaining the highest perfection of discriminative knowledge. Thus they are the causes in a double sense (1) of the dissociation of impurities (viyogakāraṇa); (2) of removing obstacles which impede the course of the mind in attaining the highest development (āptikāraṇa).
Coming now to the yogāṅgas, we enumerate them thus:—restraint, observance, posture, regulation of breath, abstraction, concentration, meditation and trance: these are the eight accessories of Yoga.
It must be remembered that abhyāsa and vairāgya and also the five means of attaining Yoga, viz.: śraddhā, vīryya, etc., which are not different from abhyāsa and vairāgya, are by their very nature included within the yogāṅgas mentioned above, and are not to be considered as independent means different from them. The parikarmas or embellishments of the mind spoken of in the first chapter, with which we shall deal later on, are also included under the three yogāṅgas dhāraṇā, dhyāna and samādhi. The five means śraddhā, vīryya, smṛti, samādhi and prajñā are said to be included under asceticism (tapaḥ) studies (svādhyāya) and devotion to God of the niyamas and vairāgya in contentment.
In order to understand these better, we will first give the definitions of the yogāṅgas and then discuss them and ascertain their relative values for a man striving to attain the highest perfection of Yoga.
I. Yama (restraint). These yama restraints are: abstinence from injury (ahiṃsā); veracity; abstinence from theft; continence; abstinence from avarice.
II. Niyama (observances). These observances are cleanliness, contentment, purificatory action, study and the making of God the motive of all action.
III. Āsanas (posture). Steady posture and easy position are regarded as an aid to breath control.
IV. Regulation of breath (prāṇāyāma) is the stoppage of the inspiratory and expiratory movements (of breath) which may be practised when steadiness of posture has been secured.
V. Pratyāhāra (abstraction). With the control of the mind all the senses become controlled and the senses imitate as it were the vacant state of the mind. Abstraction is that by which the senses do not come in contact with their objects and follow as it were the nature of the mind.
VI. Dhāraṇā (concentration). Concentration is the steadfastness of the mind applied to a particular object.
VII. Dhyāna (mediation). The continuation there of the mental effort by continually repeating the object is meditation (dhyāna).
VIII. Samādhi (trance contemplation). The same as above when shining with the light of the object alone, and devoid as it were of itself, is trance. In this state the mind becomes one with its object and there is no difference between the knower and the known.
These are the eight yogāṅgas which a Yogin must adopt for his higher realisation. Of these again we see that some have the mental side more predominant, while others are mostly to be actualised in exterior action. Dhāraṇā, dhyāna and samādhi, which are purely of the samprajñāta type, and also the prāṇāyāma and pratyāhāra, which are accessories to them, serve to cleanse the mind of impurities and make it steady, and can therefore be assimilated with the parikarmas mentioned in Book I. Sūtras 34–39. These samādhis of the samprajñāta type, of course, only serve to steady the mind and to assist attaining discriminative knowledge.
In this connection, it will be well to mention the remaining aids for cleansing the mind as mentioned in Yoga-sūtra I., viz. the cultivation of the habits of friendliness, compassion, complacency and indifference towards happiness, misery, virtue and vice.
This means that we are to cultivate the habit of friendliness towards those who are happy, which will remove all jealous feelings and purify the mind. We must cultivate the habit of compassion towards those who are suffering pain; when the mind shows compassion (which means that it wishes to remove the miseries of others as if they were his own) it becomes cleansed of the stain of desire to do injury to others, for compassion is only another name for sympathy which naturally identifies the compassionate one with the objects of his sympathy. Next comes the habit of complacency, which one should diligently cultivate, for it leads to pleasure in virtuous deeds. This removes the stain of envy from the mind. Next comes the habit of indifference, which we should acquire towards vice in vicious persons. We should acquire the habit of remaining indifferent where we cannot sympathise; we should not on any account get angry with the wicked or with those with whom sympathy is not possible. This will remove the stain of anger. It will be clearly seen here that maītrī, karuṇā, muditā and upekshā are only different aspects of universal sympathy, which should remove all perversities in our nature and unite us with our fellow-beings. This is the positive aspect of the mind with reference to abstinence from injuring ahiṃsā (mentioned under yamas), which will cleanse the mind and make it fit for the application of means of śraddhā, etc. For unless the mind is pure, there is no scope for the application of the means of making it steady. These are the mental endeavours to cleanse the mind and to make it fit for the proper manifestation of śraddhā, etc., and for steadying it with a view to attaining true discriminative knowledge.
Again of the parikarmas by dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and saṃprajñāta samādhi and the habit of sympathy as manifested in maitrī, karuṇā, etc., the former is a more advanced state of the extinction of impurities than the latter.
But it is easy to see that ordinary minds can never commence with these practices. They are naturally so impure that the positive universal sympathy as manifested in maitrī, etc., by which turbidity of mind is removed, is too difficult. It is also difficult for them to keep the mind steady on an object as in dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and samādhi, for only those in advanced stages can succeed in this. For ordinary people, therefore, some course of conduct must be discovered by which they can purify their minds and elevate them to such an extent that they may be in a position to avail themselves of the mental parikarmas or purifications just mentioned. Our minds become steady in proportion as their impurities are cleansed. The cleansing of impurities only represents the negative aspect of the positive side of making the mind steady. The grosser impurities being removed, finer ones remain, and these are removed by the mental parikarmas, supplemented by abhyāsa or by śraddhā, etc. As the impurities are gradually more and more attenuated, the last germs of impurity are destroyed by the force of dhyāna or the habit of nirodha samādhi, and kaivalya is attained.
We now deal with yamas, by which the gross impurities of ordinary minds are removed. They are, as we have said before, non-injury, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, and non-covetousness; of these non-injury is given such a high place that it is regarded as the root of the other yamas; truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, non-covetousness and the other niyamas mentioned previously only serve to make the non-injury perfect. We have seen before that maitrī, karuṇa, muditā and upekshā serve to strengthen the non-injury since they are only its positive aspects, but we see now that not only they but other yamas and also the other niyamas, purity, contentment, asceticism, studies and devotion to God, only serve to make non-injury more and more perfect. This non-injury when it is performed without being limited or restricted in any way by caste, country, time and circumstances, and is always adhered to, is called mahāvrata or the great duty of abstinence from injury. It is sometimes limited to castes, as for example injury inflicted by a fisherman, and in this case it is called anuvrata or restricted ahiṃsā of ordinary men as opposed to universal ahiṃsā of the Yogins called mahāvrata; the same non-injury is limited by locality, as in the case of a man who says to himself, “I shall not cause injury at a sacred place”; or by time, when a person says to himself, “I shall not cause injury on the sacred day of Caturdaśī”; or by circumstances, as when a man says to himself, “I shall cause injury for the sake of gods and Brahmans only”; or when injury is caused by warriors in the battle-field alone and nowhere else. This restricted ahiṃsā is only for ordinary men who cannot follow the Yogin’s universal law of ahiṃsā.
Ahiṃsā is a great universal duty which a man should impose on himself in all conditions of life, everywhere, and at all times without restricting or qualifying it with any limitation whatsoever. In Mahābhārata Mokshadharmādhyāya it is said that the Sāṃkhya lays stress upon non-injury, whereas the Yoga lays stress upon samādhi; but here we see that Yoga also holds that ahiṃsā should be the greatest ethical motive for all our conduct. It is by ahiṃsā alone that we can make ourselves fit for the higher type of samādhi. All other virtues of truthfulness, non-stealing only serve to make non-injury more and more perfect. It is not, however, easy to say whether the Sāṃkhyists attached so much importance to non-injury that they believed it to lead to samādhi directly without the intermediate stages of samādhi. We see, however, that the Yoga also attaches great importance to it and holds that a man should refrain from all external acts; for however good they may be they cannot be such as not to lead to some kind of injury or hiṃsā towards beings, for external actions can never be performed without doing some harm to others. We have seen that from this point of view Yoga holds that the only pure works (śuklakarma) are those mental works of good thoughts in which perfection of ahiṃsā is attained. With the growth of good works (śuklakarma) and the perfect realisation of non-injury the mind naturally passes into the state in which its actions are neither good (śukla) nor bad (aśukla); and this state is immediately followed by that of kaivalya.
Veracity consists in word and thought being in accordance with facts. Speech and mind correspond to what has been seen, heard and inferred. Speech is for the purpose of transferring knowledge to another. It is always to be employed for the good of others and not for their injury; for it should not be defective as in the case of Yudhishṭhira, where his motive was bad.[[42]] If it prove to be injurious to living beings, even though uttered as truth, it is not truth; it is sin only. Though outwardly such a truthful course may be considered virtuous, yet since by his truth he has caused injury to another person, he has in reality violated the true standard of non-injury (ahiṃsā). Therefore let everyone first examine well and then utter truth for the benefit of all living beings. All truths should be tested by the canon of non-injury (ahiṃsā).
Asteya is the virtue of abstaining from stealing. Theft is making one’s own unlawfully things that belong to others. Abstinence from theft consists in the absence of the desire thereof.
Brahmacaryya (continence) is the restraint of the generative organ and the thorough control of sexual tendencies.
Aparigraha is want of avariciousness, the non-appropriation of things not one’s own; this is attained on seeing the defects of attachment and of the injury caused by the obtaining, preservation and destruction of objects of sense.
If, in performing the great duty of non-injury and the other virtues auxiliary to it, a man be troubled by thoughts of sin, he should try to remove sinful ideas by habituating himself to those which are contrary to them. Thus if the old habit of sins opposed to virtues tend to drive him along the wrong path, he should in order to banish them entertain ideas such as the following:—“Being burnt up as I am in the fires of the world, I have taken refuge in the practice of Yoga which gives protection to all living beings. Were I to resume the sins which I have abandoned, I should certainly be behaving like a dog, which eats its own vomit. As the dog takes up his own vomit, so should I be acting if I were to take up again what I have once given up.” This is called the practice of pratipaksha bhāvān, meditating on the opposites of the temptations.
A classification of sins of non-injury, etc., may be made according as they are actually done, or caused to be done, or permitted to be done; and these again may be further divided according as they are preceded by desire, anger or ignorance; these are again mild, middling or intense. Thus we see that there may be twenty-seven kinds of such sins. Mild, middling and intense are each again threefold, mild-mild, mild-middling and mild-intense; middling-mild, middling-middling and middling-intense; also intense-mild, intense-middling and intense-intense. Thus there are eighty-one kinds of sins. But they become infinite on account of rules of restriction, option and conjunction.
The contrary tendency consists in the notion that these immoral tendencies cause an infinity of pains and untrue knowledge. Pain and unwisdom are the unending fruits of these immoral tendencies, and in this idea lies the power which produces the habit of giving a contrary trend to our thoughts.
These yamas, together with the niyamas about to be described, are called kriyāyoga, by the performance of which men become fit to rise gradually to the state of jñānayoga by samādhi and to attain kaivalya. This course thus represents the first stage with which ordinary people should begin their Yoga work.
Those more advanced, who naturally possess the virtues mentioned in Yama, have no need of beginning here.
Thus it is said that some may begin with the niyamas, asceticism, svādhyāya and devotion to God; it is for this reason that, though mentioned under the niyamas, they are also specially selected and spoken of as the kriyāyoga in the very first rule of the second Book. Asceticism means the strength of remaining unchanged in changes like that of heat and cold, hunger and thirst, standing and sitting, absence of speech and absence of all indications by gesture, etc.
Svādhyāya means the study of philosophy and repetition of the syllable “Aum.”
This Īśvarapraṇidhāna (devotion to God) is different from the Īśvarapraṇidhāna mentioned in Yoga-sūtra, I. 23, where it meant love, homage and adoration of God, by virtue of which God by His grace makes samādhi easy for the Yogin.
Here it is a kind of kriyāyoga, and hence it means the bestowal of all our actions upon the Great Teacher, God, i.e. to work, not for one’s own self but for God, so that a man desists from all desires for fruit therefrom.
When these are duly performed, the afflictions become gradually attenuated and trance is brought about. The afflictions thus attenuated become characterised by unproductiveness, and when their seed-power has, as it were, been burnt up by the fire of high intellection and the mind untouched by afflictions realises the distinct natures of purusha and sattva, it naturally returns to its own primal cause prakṛti and kaivalya is attained.
Those who are already far advanced do not require even this kriyāyoga, as their afflictions are already in an attenuated state and their minds in a fit condition to adapt themselves to samādhi; they can therefore begin at once with jñānayoga. So in the first chapter it is with respect to these advanced men that it is said that kaivalya can be attained by abhyāsa and vairāgya, without adopting the kriyāyoga (Yoga-vārttika, II. 2) kriyāyogas. Only śauca and santosha now remain to be spoken of. Śauca means cleanliness of body and mind. Cleanliness of body is brought about by water, cleanliness of mind by removal of the mental impurities of pride, jealousy and vanity.
Santosha (contentment) is the absence of desire to possess more than is necessary for the preservation of one’s life. It should be added that this is the natural result of ceasing to desire to appropriate the property of others.
At the close of this section on the yamas and niyamas, it is best to note their difference, which lies principally in this that the former are the negative virtues, whereas the latter are positive. The former can, and therefore must, be practised at all stages of Yoga, whereas the latter being positive are attainable only by distinct growth of mind through Yoga. The virtues of non-injury, truthfulness, sex restraint, etc., should be adhered to at all stages of the Yoga practice. They are indispensable for steadying the mind.
It is said that in the presence of a person who has acquired steadiness in ahiṃsā all animals give up their habits of enmity; when a person becomes steady in truthfulness, whatever he says becomes fulfilled. When a person becomes steady in asteya (absence of theft) all jewels from all quarters approach him.
Continence being confirmed, vigour is obtained. Non-covetousness being confirmed, knowledge of the causes of births is attained. By steadiness of cleanliness, disinclination to this body and cessation of desire for other bodies is obtained.
When the mind attains internal śauca, or cleanliness of mind, his sattva becomes pure, and he acquires highmindedness, one-pointedness, control of the senses and fitness for the knowledge of self. By the steadiness of contentment comes the acquisition of extreme happiness. By steadiness of asceticism the impurities of this body are removed, and from that come miraculous powers of endurance of the body and also miraculous powers of the sense, viz. clairaudience and thought-reading from a distance. By steadiness of studies the gods, the ṛshis and the siddhas become visible. When Īśvara is made the motive of all actions, trance is attained. By this the Yogin knows all that he wants to know, just as it is in reality, whether in another place, another body or another time. His intellect knows everything as it is.
It should not, however, be said, says Vācaspati, that inasmuch as the saṃprajñāta is attained by making Īśvara the motive of all actions, the remaining seven yogāṅgas are useless. For the yogāṅgas are useful in the attainment of that mental mood which devotes all actions to the purposes of Īśvara. They are also useful in the attainment of saṃprajñāta samādhi by separate kinds of collocations, and samādhi also leads to the fruition of saṃprajñāta, but though this meditation on Īśvara is itself a species of Īśvarapraṇidhāna, saṃprajñāta Yoga is a yet more direct means. As to the relation of Īśvarapraṇidhāna with the other aṅgas of Yoga, Bhikshu writes:—It cannot be asked what is the use of the other disciplinary practices of the Yoga since Yoga can be attained by meditation on Īśvara, for meditation on Īśvara only removes ignorance. The other accessories bring about samādhi by their own specific modes of operation. Moreover, it is by help of meditation on Īśvara that one succeeds in bringing about samādhi, through the performance of all the accessories of Yoga; so the accessories of Yoga cannot be regarded as unnecessary; for it is the accessories which produce dhāraṇa, dhyāna and samādhi, through meditation on God, and thereby salvation; devotion to God brings in His grace and through it the yogāṅgas can be duly performed. So though devotion to God may be considered as the direct cause, it cannot be denied that the due performance of the yogāṅgas is to be considered as the indirect cause.
Āsanas are secured when the natural involuntary movements cease, and this may be effected by concentrating the mind on the mythological snake which quietly bears the burden of the earth on its head. Thus posture becomes perfect and effort to that end ceases, so that there is no movement of the body; or the mind is transformed into the infinite, which makes the idea of infinity its own and then brings about the perfection of posture. When posture has once been mastered there is no disturbance through the contraries of heat and cold, etc.
After having secured stability in the Āsanas the prāṇāyāmas should be attempted. The pause that comes after a deep inhalation and that after a deep exhalation are each called a prāṇāyāma; the first is external, the second internal. There is, however, a third mode, by means of which, since the lungs are neither too much dilated nor too much contracted, total restraint is obtained; cessation of both these motions takes place by a single effort, just as water thrown on a heated stone shrivels up on all sides.
These can be regulated by calculating the strength of inhalation and exhalation through space, time or number. Thus as the breathing becomes slower, the space that it occupies also becomes smaller and smaller. Space again is of two kinds, internal and external. At the time of inhalation, the breath occupies internal space, which can be felt even in the soles of hand and feet, like the slight touch of an ant. To try to feel this touch along with deep inhalation serves to lengthen the period of cessation of breathing. External space is the distance from the tip of the nose to the remotest point at which breath when inhaled can be felt, by the palm of the hand, or by the movement of any light substance like cotton, etc., placed there. Just as the breathing becomes slower and slower, the distances traversed by it also becomes smaller and smaller. Regulations by time is seen when the attention is fixed upon the time taken up in breathing by moments, a moment (kshaṇa) is the fourth part of the twinkling of the eye. Regulation by time thus means the fact of our calculating the strength of the prāṇāyāma the moments or kshaṇas spent in the acts of inspiration, pause and respiration. These prāṇāyāmas can also be measured by the number of moments in the normal duration of breaths. The time taken by the respiration and expiration of a healthy man is the same as that measured by snapping the fingers after turning the hand thrice over the knee and is the measure of duration of normal breath; the first attempt or udghāta called mild is measured by thirty-six such mātrās or measures; when doubled it is the second udghāta called middling; when trebled it is the third udghāta called intense. Gradually the Yogin acquires the practice of prāṇāyāma of long duration, by daily practice increasing in succession from a day, a fortnight, a month, etc. Of course he proceeds first by mastering the first udghāta, then the second, and so on until the duration increases up to a day, a fortnight, a month as stated. There is also a fourth kind of prāṇāyāma transcending all these stages of unsteady practice, when the Yogin is steady in his cessation of breath. It must be remembered, however, that while the prāṇāyāmas are being practised, the mind must be fixed by dhyāna and dhāraṇā to some object external or internal, without which these will be of no avail for the true object of Yoga. By the practice of prāṇāyāma, mind becomes fit for concentration as described in the sūtra I. 34, where it is said that steadiness is acquired by prāṇāyāma in the same way as concentration, as we also find in the sūtra II. 53.
When the senses are restrained from their external objects by pratyāhāra we have what is called pratyāhāra, by which the mind remains as if in its own nature, being altogether identified with the object of inner concentration or contemplation; and thus when the citta is again suppressed, the senses, which have already ceased coming into contact with other objects and become submerged in the citta, also cease along with it. Dharaṇa is the concentration of citta on a particular place, which is so very necessary at the time of prāṇāyāmas mentioned before. The mind may thus be held steadfast in such places as the sphere of the navel, the lotus of the heart, the light in the brain, the forepart of the nose, the forepart of the tongue, and such like parts of the body.
Dhyāna is the continuance or changing flow of the mental effort in the object of dharaṇa unmediated by any other break of conscious states.
Samādhi, or trance contemplation, results when by deep concentration mind becomes transformed into the shape of the object of contemplation. By pratyāhāra or power of abstraction, mind desists from all other objects, except the one on which it is intended that it should be centred; the Yogin, as he thus abstracts his mind, should also try to fix it upon some internal or external object, which is called dhāraṇā; it must also be noticed that to acquire the habit of dhāraṇā and in order to inhibit the abstraction arising from shakiness and unsteadiness of the body, it is necessary to practise steadfast posture and to cultivate the prāṇāyāma. So too for the purpose of inhibiting distractions arising from breathing. Again, before a man can hope to attain steadfastness in these, he must desist from any conduct opposed to the yamas, and also acquire the mental virtues stated in the niyamas, and thus secure himself against any intrusion of distractions arising from his mental passions. These are the indirect and remote conditions which qualify a person for attaining dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and samādhi. A man who through his good deeds or by the grace of God is already so much advanced that he is naturally above all such distractions, for the removal of which it is necessary to practise the yamas, the niyamas, the āsanas, the prāṇāyāma and pratyāhara, may at once begin with dhāraṇā; dhāraṇā we have seen means concentration, with the advancement of which the mind becomes steady in repeating the object of its concentration, i.e. thinking of that thing alone and no other thing; thus we see that with the practice of this state called dhyāna, or meditation, in which the mind flows steadily in that one state without any interruption, gradually even the conscious flow of this activity ceases and the mind, transformed into the shape of the object under concentration, becomes steady therein. We see therefore that samādhi is the consummation of that process which begins in dhāraṇā or concentration. These three, dhāraṇā, dhyāna and samādhi, represent the three stages of the same process of which the last one is the perfection; and these three are together technically called saṃyama, which directly leads to and is immediately followed by the samprajñāta state, whereas the other five yogāṅgas are only its indirect or remote causes. These three are, however, not essential for the asamprajñāta state, for a person who is very far advanced, or one who is the special object of God’s grace, may pass at once by intense vairāgya and abhyāsa into the nirodha state or state of suppression.
As the knowledge of samādhi gradually dawns through the possession of saṃyama, so is the saṃyama gradually strengthened. For this saṃyama also rises higher and higher with the dawning of prajñāloka or light of samādhi knowledge. This is the beginning, for here the mind can hold saṃyama or concentrate and become one with a gross object together with its name, etc., which is called the savitarka state; the next plane or stage of saṃyama is that where the mind becomes one with the object of its meditation, without any consciousness of its name, etc. Next come the other two stages called savicāra and nirvicāra when the mind is fixed on subtle substances, as we shall see later on.
CHAPTER XIII
STAGES OF SAMĀDHI
Saṃprajñāta samādhi (absorptive concentration in an object) may be divided into four classes, savitarka, nirvitarka, savicāra and nirvicāra.
To comprehend its scope we must first of all understand the relation between a thing, its concept, and the particular name with which the concept or thing is associated. It is easy to see that the thing (artha), the concept (jñāna), and the name (śabda) are quite distinct. But still, by force of association, the word or name stands both for the thing and its concept; the function of mind, by virtue of which despite this unreality or want of their having any real identity of connection they seem to be so much associated that the name cannot be differentiated from the thing or its idea, is called vikalpa.
Now that state of samādhi in which the mind seems to become one with the thing, together with its name and concept, is the lowest stage of samādhi called savitarka; it is the lowest stage, because here the gross object does not appear to the mind in its true reality, but only in the false illusory way in which it appears associated with the concept and the name in ordinary life. This state does not differ from ordinary conceptual states, in which the particular thing is not only associated with the concepts and their names, but also with other concepts and their various relations; thus a cow will not only appear before the mind with its concept and name, but also along with other relations and thoughts associated with cows, as for example—“This is a cow, it belongs to so and so, it has so many hairs on its body, and so forth.” This state is therefore the first stage of samādhi, in which the mind has not become steady and is not as yet beyond the range of our ordinary consciousness.
The nirvitarka stage arises from this when the mind by its steadiness can become one with its object, divested of all other associations of name and concept, so that it is in direct touch with the reality of the thing, uncontaminated by associations. The thing in this state does not appear to be an object of my consciousness, but my consciousness becoming divested of all “I” or “mine,” becomes one with the object itself; so that there is no such notion here as “I know this,” but the mind becomes one with the thing, so that the notion of subject and object drops off and the result is the one steady transformation of the mind into the object of its contemplation. This state brings home to us real knowledge of the thing, divested from other false and illusory associations, which far from explaining the real nature of the object, serves only to hide it. This samādhi knowledge or prajñā is called nirvitarka. The objects of this state may be the gross material objects and the senses.
Now this state is followed by the state of savicārā prajñā, which dawns when the mind neglecting the grossness of the object sinks deeper and deeper into its finer constituents; the appearance of the thing in its grosser aspects drops off and the mind having sunk deep, centres in and identifies itself with the subtle tanmātras, which are the constituents of the atoms, as a conglomeration of which the object appeared before our eyes in the nirvitarka state. Thus when the mind, after identifying itself with the sun in its true aspect as pure light, tends to settle on a still finer state of it, either by making the senses so steady that the outward appearance vanishes, or by seeking finer and finer stages than the grosser manifestation of light as such, it apprehends the tanmātric state of the light and knows it as such, and we have what is called the savicāra stage. It has great similarities with the savitarka stage, while its differences from that stage spring from the fact that here the object is the tanmātra and not the gross bhūta. The mind in this stage holding communion with the rūpa tanmātra, for example, is not coloured variously as red, blue, etc., as in the savitarka communion with gross light, for the tanmātric light or light potential has no such varieties as different kinds of colour, etc., so that there are also no such different kinds of feeling of pleasure or pain as arise from the manifold varieties of ordinary light. This is a state of feelingless representation of one uniform tanmātric state, when the object appears as a conglomeration of tanmātras of rūpa, rasa or gandha, as the case might be. This state, however, is not indeterminate, as the nirvitarka stage, for this tanmātric conception is associated with the notions of time, space and causality, for the mind here feels that it sees those tanmātras which are in such a subtle state that they are not associated with pleasures and pains. They are also endowed with causality in such a way that from them and their particular collocations originate the atoms.
It must be noted here that the subtle objects of concentration in this stage are not the tanmātras alone, but also other subtle substances including the ego, the buddhi and the prakṛti.
But when the mind acquires the complete habit of this state in which it becomes identified with these fine objects—the tanmātras—etc., then all conceptual notions of the associations of time, space, causality, etc., spoken of in the savicāra and the savitarka state vanish away and it becomes one with the fine object of its communion. These two kinds of prajñā, savicāra and nirvicāra, arising from communion with the fine tanmātras, have been collocated under one name as vicārānugata. But when the object of communion is the senses, the samādhi is called ānandānugata, and when the object of communion is the subtle cause the ego (asmitā), the samādhi is known as asmitānugata.
There is a difference of opinion regarding the object of the last two varieties of samādhi, viz. ānandānugata and asmitānugata, and also about the general scheme of division of the samādhis. Vācaspati thinks that Yoga-sūtra I. 41 suggests the interpretation that the saṃprajñāta samādhis may be divided into three different classes according as their objects of concentration belong to one or other of the three different planes of grāhya (external objects), grahaṇa (the senses) and grahītṛ (the ego). So he refers vitarka and vicāra to the plane of grāhya (physical objects and tanmātras), ānandānugata to the plane of grahaṇa (the senses) and asmitānugata to the plane of grahītṛ. Bhikshu, however, disapproves of such an interpretation. He holds that in ānandānugata the object of concentration is bliss (ānanda) and not the senses. When the Yogin rises to the vicārānugata stage there is a great flow of sattva which produces bliss, and at this the mind becomes one with this ānanda or bliss, and this samādhi is therefore called ānandānugata. Bhikshu does not think that in asmitānugata samādhi the object of concentration is the ego. He thinks that in this stage the object of concentration is the concept of self (kevalapurushākārā saṃvit) which has only the form of ego or “I” (asmītyetāvanmātrākāratvādasmitā).
Again according to Vācaspati in addition to the four varieties of savitarka, nirvitarka, savicāra and nirvicāra there are two varieties of ānandanugata as sānanda and nirānanda and two varieties of asmitānugata as sāsmita and nirasmita. This gives us eight different kinds of samādhi. With Bhikshu there are only six kinds of samādhi, for he admits only one variety as ānandānugata and one variety as asmitānugata. Bhikshu’s classification of samādhis is given below in a tabular form (see Vācaspati’s Tattvavaiśāradī and Yoga-vārttika, I. 17, 41, 42, 43, 44).
(with association of name and concept of the tanmātras) 4. nirvicāra (without association of name, etc.)'
Through the nirvicāra state our minds become altogether purified and there springs the prajñā or knowledge called ṛtambharā or true; this true knowledge is altogether different from the knowledge which is derived from the Vedas or from inferences or from ordinary perceptions; for the knowledge that it can give of Reality can never be had by any other means, by perception, inference or testimony, for their communication is only by the conceptual process of generalisations and abstractions and these can never help us to affirm anything about things as they are in themselves, which are altogether different from their illusory demonstrations in conceptual terms which only prevent us from knowing the true reality. The potency of this prajñā arrests the potency of ordinary states of consciousness and thus attains stability. When, however, this prajñā is also suppressed, we have what is called the state of nirvīja samādhi, at the end of which comes final prajñā leading to the dissolution of the citta and the absolute freedom of the purusha.
Samādhi we have seen is the mind’s becoming one with an object by a process of acute concentration upon it and a continuous repetition of it with the exclusion of all other thoughts of all kinds. We have indeed described the principal stages of the advancement of samprajñāta Yoga, but it is impossible to give an exact picture of it with the symbolical expressions of our concepts; for the stages only become clear to the mental vision of the Yogin as he gradually acquires firmness in his practice. The Yogin who is practising at once comes to know them as the higher stages gradually dawn in his mind and he distinguishes them from each other; it is thus a matter of personal experience, so that no teacher can tell him whether a certain stage which follows is higher or lower, for Yoga itself is its own teacher.
Even when the mind is in the samprajñāta state it is said to be in vyutthāna (phenomenal) in comparison with the nirodha state, just as the ordinary conscious states are called vyutthāna in comparison with the samprajñāta state; the potencies of the samprajñāta state become weaker and weaker, while the potencies of the nirodha state become stronger and stronger until finally the mind comes to the nirodha state and becomes stable therein; of course this contains within itself a long mental history, for the potency of the nirodha state can become stronger only when the mind practises it and remains in this suppressed condition for long intervals of time. This shows that the mind, being made up of the three guṇas, is always suffering transformations and changes. Thus from the ordinary state of phenomenal consciousness it gradually becomes one-pointed and then gradually becomes transformed into the state of an object (internal or external), when it is said to be undergoing the samādhi pariṇāma or samādhi change of the samprajñāta type; next comes the change, when the mind passes from the samprajñāta stage to the state of suppression (nirodha). Here also, therefore, we see that the same dharma, lakshṇa, avasthāpariṇāma which we have already described at some length with regard to sensible objects apply also to the mental states. Thus the change from the vyutthāna (ordinary experience) to the nirodha state is the dharmapariṇāma, the change as manifested in time, so that we can say that the change of vyutthāna into nirodha has not yet come, or has just come, or that the vyutthāna state (ordinary experience) exists no longer, the mind having transformed itself into the nirodha state. There is also here the third change of condition, when we see that the potencies of the samprajñāta state become weaker and weaker, while that of the nirodha state becomes stronger and stronger. These are the three kinds of change which the mind undergoes called the dharma, lakshaṇa and avasthā change. But there is one difference between this change thus described from the changes observed in sensible objects that here the changes are not visible but are only to be inferred by the passage of the mind from one state to another.
It has been said that there are two different kinds of qualities of the mind, visible and invisible. The visible qualities whose changes can be noticed are conscious states, or thought-products, or percepts, etc. The invisible ones are seven in number and cannot be directly seen, but their existence and changes or modifications may be established by inference. These are suppression, characterisation, subconscious maintenance of experience, constant change, life, movement and power or energy.
In connection with samprajñāta samādhi some miraculous attainments are described, which are said to strengthen the faith or belief of the Yogin in the processes of Yoga as the path of salvation. These are like the products or the mental experiments in the Yoga method, by which people may become convinced of the method of Yoga as being the true one. No reasons are offered as to the reason for these attainments, but they are said to happen as a result of mental union with different objects. It is best to note them here in a tabular form.
| Object of Saṃyama. | Saṃyama. | Attainment. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| (1) | Threefold change of things as dharma, lakshaṇa and avasthāpariṇāma. | Saṃyama. | |
| (2) | The distinctions of name, external object and the concept which ordinarily appears united as one. | „ | Knowledge of the sounds of all living beings. |
| (3) | Residual potencies saṃskāra of the nature of dharma and adharma. | „ | Knowledge of previous life. |
| (4) | Concepts alone (separated from the objects). | „ | Knowledge of other minds. |
| (5) | Over the form of body. | „ | Disappearance (by virtue of perceptibility being checked). |
| (6) | Karma of fast or slow fruition. | „ | Knowledge of death. |
| (7) | Friendliness, sympathy, and compassion. | „ | Power. |
| (8) | Powers of elephant. | „ | Power of elephant. |
| (9) | Sun. | „ | Knowledge of the world (the geographical position of countries, etc.). |
| (10) | Heavens. | „ | Knowledge of the heavenly systems. |
| (11) | Pole star. | „ | Knowledge of its movements. |
| (12) | Plenus of the navel. | „ | Knowledge of the system of the body. |
| (13) | Base of the throat. | „ | Subdual of hunger and thirst. |
| (14) | Tortoise tube. | Saṃyama. | Steadiness. |
| (15) | Coronal light. | „ | Vision of the perfected ones—the knowledge of the seer, or all knowledge by prescience. |
| (16) | Heat. | „ | Knowledge of the mind. |
| (17) | Purusha. | „ | Knowledge of purusha. |
| (18) | Gross nature subtle pervasiveness and purposefulness. | „ | Control over the element from which follows attenuation, perfection of the body and non-resistance by their characteristics. |
| (19) | Act, substantive appearance, egoism, pervasiveness and purposefulness of sensation. | „ | Mastery over the senses; thence quickness of mind, unaided mental perception and mastery over the pradhāna. |
These vibhūtis, as they rise with the performance of the processes of Yoga, gradually deepen the faith śraddha of the Yogin in the performance of his deeds and thus help towards his main goal or ideal by always pushing or drawing him forward towards it by the greater and greater strengthening of his faith. Divested from the ideal, they have no value.
CHAPTER XIV
GOD IN YOGA
After describing the nature of karmayoga, and the way in which it leads to jñānayoga, we must now describe the third and easiest means of attaining salvation, the bhaktiyoga and the position of Īśvara in the Yoga system, with reference to a person who seeks deliverance from the bonds and shackles of avidyā.
Īśvara in the Yoga system is that purusha who is distinguished from all others by the fact of his being untouched by the afflictions or the fruits of karma. Other purushas are also in reality untouched by the afflictions, but they, seemingly at least, have to undergo the afflictions and consequently birth and rebirth, etc., until they are again finally released; but Īśvara, though he is a purusha, yet does not suffer in any way any sort of bondage. He is always free and ever the Lord. He never had nor will have any relation to these bonds. He is also the teacher of the ancient teachers beyond the range of conditioning time.
This nature of Īśvara has been affirmed in the scriptures and is therefore taken as true on their authority. The authority of the scriptures is again acknowledged only because they have proceeded from God or Īśvara. The objection that this is an argument in a circle has no place here, since the connection of the scriptures with Īśvara is beginningless.
There is no other divinity equal to Īśvara, because in the case of such equality there might be opposition between rival Īśvaras, which might result in the lowering in degree of any of them. He is omniscient in the highest degree, for in him is the furthest limit of omniscience, beyond which there is nothing.
This Īśvara is all-merciful, and though he has no desires to satisfy, yet for the sake of his devotees he dictates the Vedas at each evolution of the world after dissolution. But he does not release all persons, because he helps only so far as each deserves; he does not nullify the law of karma, just as a king, though quite free to act in any way he likes, punishes or rewards people as they deserve.
At the end of each kalpa, he adopts pure body from his sattva, which is devoid of any karmāśaya, and thus communicates through it to all his devotees and dictates the Vedas. Again at the time of dissolution this body of pure sattva becomes submerged in prakṛti; and at the time of its submersion, Īśvara wishes that it might come forth again at the beginning of the new creation; thus for ever at each new creation the pure sattva body springs forth and is submerged again into prakṛti at the time of the dissolution of the universe.
In accepting this body he has no personal desires to satisfy, as we have said before. He adopts it only for the purpose of saving mankind by instructing them as to knowledge and piety, which is not possible without a pure sattvamaya body; so he adopts it, but is not affected in any way by it. One who is under the control of nescience cannot distinguish his real nature from nescience, and thus is always led by it, but such is not the case with Īśvara, for he is not in any way under its control, but only adopts it as a means of communicating knowledge to mankind.
A Yogin also who has attained absolute independence may similarly accept one or more pure sattvamaya nirmāṇa cittas from asmitāmātra and may produce one citta as the superintendent of all these. Such a citta adopted by a true Yogin by the force of his meditation is not under the control of the vehicles of action as is the case with the other four kinds of citta from birth, oshadhi, mantra and tapas.
The praṇava or oṃkāra is his name; though at the time of dissolution, the word of praṇava together with its denotative power becomes submerged in the prakṛti, to reappear with the new creation, just as roots shoot forth from the ground in the rainy season. This praṇava is also called svādhyāya. By concentration of this svādhyāya or praṇava, the mind becomes one-pointed and fit for Yoga.
Now one of the means of attaining Yoga is Īśvarapraṇidhāna, or worship of God. This word, according to the commentators, is used in two senses in the first and the second books of the Pātañjala Yoga aphorisms. In the first book it means love or devotion to God as the one centre of meditation, in the second it is used to mean the abnegation of all desires of the fruits of action to Īśvara, and thus Īśvarapraṇidhāna in this sense is included under kriyāyoga. This dedication of all fruits of action to Īśvara, purifies the mind and makes it fit for Yoga and is distinguished from the Īśvarapraṇidhāna of the first book as the bhāvanā of praṇava and Īśvara in this that it is connected with actions and the abnegation of their fruits, whereas the latter consists only in keeping the mind in a worshipful state towards Īśvara and his word or name praṇava.
By devotion (bhakti) Īśvara is drawn towards the devotee through his nirmāṇa citta of pure sattva and by his grace he removes all obstructions of illness, etc., described in I. 30, 31, and at once prepares his mind for the highest realisation of his own absolute independence. So for a person who can love and adore Īśvara, this is the easiest course of attaining samādhi. We can make our minds pure most easily by abandoning all our actions to Īśvara and attaining salvation by firm and steady devotion to Him. This is the sphere of bhaktiyoga by which the tedious complexity of the Yoga process may be avoided and salvation speedily acquired by the supreme grace of Īśvara.
This means is not, however, distinct from the general means of Yoga, viz. abhyāsa and vairāgya, which applies to all stages. For here also abhyāsa applies to the devotion of Īśvara as one supreme truth and vairāgya is necessarily associated with all true devotion and adoration of Īśvara.
This conception of Īśvara differs from the conception of Īśvara in the Rāmānuja system in this that there prakṛti and purusha, acit and cit, form the body of Īśvara, whereas here Īśvara is considered as being only a special purusha with the aforesaid powers.
In this system Īśvara is not the superintendent of prakṛti in the sense of the latter’s remaining in him in an undifferentiated way, but is regarded as the superintendent of dharma and adharma, and his agency is active only in the removal of obstacles, thereby helping the evolutionary process of prakṛti.
Thus Īśvara is distinguished from the Īśvara of Saṅkara Vedānta in this that there true existence is ascribed only to Īśvara, whereas all other forms and modes of Being are only regarded as illusory.
From what we have seen above it is clear that the main stress of the Yoga philosophy is on the method of samādhi. The knowledge that can be acquired by it differs from all other kinds of knowledge, ordinary perception, inference, etc., in this that it alone can bring objects before our mental eye with the clearest and most unerring light of comprehensibility in which the true nature of the thing is at once observed. Inferences and the words of scriptures are based on concepts or general notions of things. For the teaching of the Vedas is manifested in words; and words are but names, terms or concepts formed by noting the general similarities of certain things and binding them down by a symbol. All deductive inferences are also based upon major propositions arrived at by inductive generalisations; so it is easy to see that all knowledge that can be acquired by them is only generalised conceptions. Their process only represents the method by which the mind can pass from one generalised conception to another; so the mind can in no way attain the knowledge of real things, absolute species, which are not the genus of any other thing; so inference and scripture can only communicate to us the nature of the agreement or similarity of things and not the real things as they are. Ordinary perception also is not of much avail here, since it cannot bring within its scope subtle and fine things and things that are obstructed from the view of the senses. But samādhi has no such limitations and the knowledge that can be attained by it is absolutely unobstructed, true and real in the strictest sense of the terms.
Of all the points of difference between Yoga and Sāṃkhya the admission of Īśvara by the former and the emphasis given by it to the Yoga practice are the most important in distinguishing it from the latter. It seems probable that Īśvara was traditionally believed in the Yoga school to be a protector of the Yogins proceeding in their arduous course of complete self-control and absorptive concentration. The chances of a person adopting the course of Yoga practice for the attainment of success in this field does not depend only on the exertions of the Yogin, but upon the concurrence of many convenient circumstances such as physical fitness, freedom from illnesses and other obstacles. Faith in the patronage of God in favour of honest workers and believers served to pacify their minds and fill them with the cheerful hope and confidence which were so necessary for the success of Yoga practice. The metaphysical functions which are ascribed to Īśvara seem to be later additions for the sake of rendering his position more in harmony with the system. Mere faith in Īśvara for the practical benefit of the Yogins is thus interpreted by a reference to his superintendence of the development of cosmic evolution. Sāṃkhya relied largely on philosophical thinking leading to proper discrimination as to the difference between prakrti and purusha which is the stage immediately antecedent to emancipation. There being thus no practical need for the admission of Īśvara, the theoretical need was also ignored and it was held that the inherent teleological purpose (purushārthatā) of prakṛti was sufficient to explain all the stages of cosmic evolution as well as its final separation from the purushas.
We have just seen that Sāṃkhya does not admit the existence of God, and considers that salvation can be obtained only by a steady perseverance in philosophical thinking, and does not put emphasis on the practical exercises which are regarded as essential by the Yoga. One other point of difference ought to be noted with regard to the conception of avidyā. According to Yoga, avidyā, as we have already explained it, means positive untrue beliefs such as believing the impure, uneternal, sorrow, and non-self to be the pure eternal, pleasure and the self respectively. With Sāṃkhya, however, avidyā is only the non-distinction of the difference between prakṛti and purusha. Both Sāṃkhya and Yoga admit that our bondage to prakṛti is due to an illusion or ignorance (avidyā), but Sāṃkhya holds the akhyāti theory which regards non-distinction of the difference as the cause of illusion whereas the Yoga holds the anyathākhyāti theory which regards positive misapprehension of the one as the other to be the cause of illusion. We have already referred to the difference in the course of the evolution of the categories as held by Sāṃkhya and Yoga. This also accounts for the difference between the technical terms of prakṛti, vikṛti and prakṛti-vikṛti of Sāṃkhya and the viśesha and aviśesha of the Yoga. The doctrine of dharma, lakshaṇa and avasthāpariṇāma, though not in any way antagonistic to Sāṃkhya, is not so definitely described as in the Yoga. Some scholars think that Sāṃkhya did not believe in atoms as Yoga did. But though the word paramāṇu has not been mentioned in the Kārikā, it does not seem that Sāṃkhya did not believe in atoms; and we have already noticed that Bhikshu considers the word sūkshma in Kārikā 39 as referring to the atoms. There are also slight differences with regard to the process involved in perception and this has been dealt with in my Yoga philosophy in relation to other Indian systems of thought.[[43]] On almost all other fundamental points Sāṃkhya and Yoga are in complete agreement.
CHAPTER XV
MATTER AND MIND
In conclusion it may be worth while saying a few words as to theories of the physical world supplementary to the views that have already been stated above.
Gross matter, as the possibility of sensation, has been divided into five classes, according to their relative grossness, corresponding to the relative grossness of the senses. Some modern investigators have tried to understand the five bhūtas, viz. ākāśa, marut, tejas, ap and kshiti as ether, gaseous heat and light, liquids and solids. But I cannot venture to agree when I reflect that solidity, liquidity and gaseousness represent only an impermanent aspect of matter. The division of matter from the standpoint of the possibility of our sensations, has a firm root in our nature as cognising beings and has therefore a better rational footing than the modern chemical division into elements and compounds, which are being daily threatened by the gradual advance of scientific culture. This carries with it no fixed and consistent rational conception as do the definitions of the ancients, but is a mere makeshift for understanding or representing certain chemical changes of matter and has therefore a merely relative value.
There are five aspects from which gross matter can be viewed. These are (1) sthūla (gross), (2) svarūpa (substantive), (3) sūkshma (subtle), (4) anvaya (conjunction), (5) arthavattva (purpose for use). The sthūla or gross physical characteristics of the bhūtas are described as follows:—
Qualities of Earth—Form, heaviness, roughness, obstruction, stability, manifestation (vṛtti), difference, support, turbidity, hardness and enjoyability.
Ap—Smoothness, subtlety, clearness, whiteness, softness, heaviness, coolness, conservation, purity, cementation.
Tejas—Going upwards, cooking, burning, light, shining, dissipating, energising.
Vāyu—Transverse motion, purity, throwing, pushing, strength, movability, want of shadow.
Ākāśa—Motion in all directions, non-agglomeration, non-obstruction.
These physical characteristics are distinguished from the aspects by which they appeal to the senses, which are called their svarūpas. Earth is characterised by gandha or smell, ap by rasa or taste, tejas by rūpa, etc. Looked at from this point of view, we see that smell arises by the contact of the nasal organ with the hard particles of matter; so this hardness or solidity which can so generate the sensibility of gandha, is said to be the svarūpa of kshiti. Taste can originate only in connection with liquidity, so this liquidity or sneha is the svarūpa or nature of ap. Light—the quality of visibility—manifests itself in connection with heat, so heat is the svarūpa of fire. The sensibility of touch is generated in connection with the vibration of air on the epidermal surface; so this vibratory nature is the svarūpa of air.
The sensibility to sound proceeds from the nature of obstructionlessness, which belongs to ākāśa, so this obstructionlessness is the svarūpa of ākāśa.
The third aspect is the aspect of tanmātras, which are the causes of the atoms or paramāṇus. Their fourth aspect is their aspect of guṇas or qualities of illumination, action, inertia. Their fifth aspect is that by which they are serviceable to purusha, by causing his pleasurable or painful experiences and finally his liberation.
Speaking of aggregation with regard to the structure of matter, we see that this is of two kinds (1) when the parts are in intimate union and fusion, e.g. any vegetable or animal body, the parts of which can never be considered separately. (2) When there are such mechanical aggregates or collocations of distinct and independent parts yutasiddhāvayava as the trees in a forest.
A dravya or substance is an aggregate of the former type, and is the grouping of generic or specific qualities and is not a separate entity—the abode of generic and specific qualities like the dravya of the Vaiśeshika conception. The aspect of an unification of generic and specific qualities seen in parts united in intimate union and fusion is called the dravya aspect. The aggregation of parts is the structural aspect of which the side of appearance is the unification of generic and specific qualities called the dravya.
The other aggregation of yutasiddhāvayava, i.e. the collocation of the distinct and independent parts, is again of two kinds, (1) in which stress may be laid on the distinction of parts, and (2) that in which stress is laid on their unity rather than on their distinctness. Thus in the expression mango-grove, we see that many mangoes make a grove, but the mangoes are not different from the grove. Here stress is laid on the aspect that mangoes are the same as the grove, which, however, is not the case when we say that here is a grove of mangoes, for the expression “grove of mangoes” clearly brings home to our minds the side of the distinct mango-trees which form a grove.
Of the gross elements, ākāśa seems especially to require a word of explanation. There are according to Vijñāna Bhikshu and Nāgeśa two kinds of ākāśa—kāraṇa (or primal) and kārya (atomic). The first or original is the undifferentiated formless tamas, for in that stage it has not the quality of manifesting itself in sounds. This kāraṇa later on develops into the atomic ākāśa, which has the property of sound. According to the conception of the purāṇas, this karyākāśa evolves from the ego as the first envelope of vāyu or air. The kāraṇakāśa or non-atomic ākāśa should not be considered as a mere vacuum, but must be conceived as a positive, all-pervasive entity, something like the ether of modern physicists.
From this ākāśa springs the atomic ākāśa or kāryākāśa, which is the cause of the manifestation of sound. All powers of hearing, even though they have their origin in the principle of egoism, reside in the ākāśa placed in the hollow of the ear. When soundness or defect is noticed therein, soundness or defect is also noticed in the power of hearing. Further, when of the sounds working in unison with the power of hearing, the sounds of solids, etc., are to be apprehended, then the power of hearing located in the hollow of the ear requires the capacity of resonance residing in the substratum of the ākāśa of the ear. This sense of hearing, then, operates when it is attracted by the sound originated and located in the mouth of the speaker, which acts as a loadstone. It is this ākāśa which gives penetrability to all bodies; in the absence of this, all bodies would be so compact that it would be difficult to pierce them even with a needle. In the Sāṃkhya-sūtra II. 12, it is said that eternal time and space are of the nature of ākāśa. So this so-called eternal time and space do not differ from the one undifferentiated formless tamas of which we have just spoken. Relative and infinite time arise from the motion of atoms in space—the cause of all change and transformation; and space as relative position cannot be better expressed than in the words of Dr. B. N. Seal, as “totality of positions as an order of co-existent points, and as such it is wholly relative to the understanding like order in time, being constructed on the basis of relations of position intuited by our empirical or relative consciousness. But there is this difference between space order and time order:—there is no unit of space as position (dik) though we may conceive time, as the moment (kshaṇa) regarded as the unit of change in the causal series. Spatial position (dik) results only from the different relations in which the all-pervasive ākāśa stands to the various finite objects. On the other hand, space as extension or locus of a finite body, or deśa, has an ultimate unit, being analysable into the infinitesimal extension quality inherent in the guṇas of prakṛti.”[[44]]
Citta or mind has two degrees: (1) the form of states such as real cognition, including perception, inference, competent evidence, unreal cognition, imagination, sleep and memory. (2) In the form in which all those states are suppressed. Between the stage of complete outgoing activity of ordinary experience (vyutthāna) and complete suppression of all states, there are thousands of states of infinite variety, through which a man’s experiences have to pass, from the vyutthāna state to the nirodha. In addition to the five states spoken of above, there is another kind of real knowledge and intuition, called prajñā, which dawns when by concentration the citta is fixed upon any one state and that alone. This prajñā is superior to all other means of knowledge, whether perception, inference or competent evidence of the Vedas, in this, that it is altogether unerring, unrestricted and unlimited in its scope.
Pramāṇa, we have seen, includes perception, inference and competent evidence. Perception originates when the mind or citta, through the senses (ear, skin, eye, taste and nose) is modified by external objects and passes to them, generating a kind of knowledge about them in which their specific characters become more predominant.
Mind is all-pervasive and can come in touch with the external world, by which we have the perception of the thing. Like light, which emits rays and pervades all, though it remains in one place, the citta by its vṛttis comes in contact with the external world, is changed into the form of the object of perception and thus becomes the cause of perception; as the citta has to pass through the senses, it becomes coloured by them, which explains the fact that perception is impossible without the help of the senses. As it has to pass through the senses, it undergoes the limitations of the senses, which it can avoid, if it can directly concentrate itself upon any object without the help of the senses; from this originates the prajñā, through which dawns absolute real knowledge of the thing; unhampered by the limitations of the senses which can act only within a certain area or distance and cannot cognize subtler objects.
We see that in ordinary perception our minds are drawn towards the object, as iron is attracted by magnets. Thus Bhikshu says in explaining Vyāsa-bhāshya IV. 17:—
“The objects of knowledge, though inactive in themselves, may yet draw the everchanging cittas towards them like a magnet and change them in accordance with their own forms, just as a piece of cloth is turned red by coming into contact with red lac.” So it is that the cittas attain the form of anything with which they come in touch and there is then the perception that that thing is known. Perception (pratyaksha) is distinguished from inference, etc., in this, that here the knowledge arrived at is predominantly of the specific and special characters (viśesha) of the thing and not of its generic qualities us in inference, etc.
Inference proceeds from inference, and depends upon the fact that certain common qualities are found in all the members of a class, as distinguished from the members of a different class. Thus the qualities affirmed of a class will be found to exist in all the individual members of that class; this attribution of the generic characters of a class to the individual members that come under it is the essence of inference.
An object perceived or inferred by a competent man is described by him in words with the intention of transferring his knowledge to another; and the mental modification, which has for its sphere the meaning of such words, is the verbal cognition of the hearer. When the speaker has neither perceived nor inferred the object, and speaks of things which cannot be believed, the authority of verbal cognition fails. But it does not fail in the original speaker, God or Īśvara, and his dictates the Śāstras with reference either to the object of perception or of inference.
Viparyyaya or unreal cognition is the knowledge of the unreal as in doubt—a knowledge which possesses a form that does not tally with the real nature of the thing either as doubt or as false knowledge. Doubt may be illustrated by taking the case of a man who sees something in dim light and doubts its nature. “Is it a wooden post or a man?” In nature there is either the wooden post or the man, but there is no such fact or entity which corresponds with doubt: “Is it a wooden post or a man?” Knowledge as doubt is not cognition of a fact or entity. The illusion of seeing all things yellow through a defect of the eye (as in jaundice) can only be corrected when the objects are seen in their true colours. In doubt, however, their defective nature is at once manifest. Thus when we cannot be sure whether a certain thing is a post or a man, we know that our knowledge is not definite. So we have not to wait till the illusoriness of the previous knowledge is demonstrated by the advent of right knowledge. The evil nature of viparyyaya is exemplified in avidyā nescience, asmitā, rāga, etc.[[45]]
Viparyyaya is distinguished from vikalpa—imagination—in this, that though the latter is also unreal knowledge its nature as such is not demonstrated by any knowledge that follows, but is on the contrary admitted on all sides by the common consent of mankind. But it is only the learned who can demonstrate by arguments the illusoriness of vikalpa or imagination.
All class notions and concepts are formed by taking note only of the general characters of things and associating them with a symbol called “name.” Things themselves, however, do not exist in the nature of these symbols or names or concepts; it is only an aspect of them that is diagrammatically represented by the intellect in the form of concepts. When concepts are united or separated in our thought and language, they consequently represent only an imaginary plane of knowledge, for the things are not as the concepts represent them. Thus when we say “Caitra’s cow,” it is only an imaginary relation for, strictly speaking, no such thing exists as the cow of Caitra. Caitra has no connection in reality with the cow. When we say purusha is of the nature of consciousness, there is the same illusory relation. Now what is here predicated of what? Purusha is consciousness itself, but in predication there must always be a statement of the relation of one to another. Thus it sometimes breaks a concept into two parts and predicates the one of the other, and sometimes predicates the unity of two concepts which are different. Thus its sphere has a wide latitude in all thought-process conducted through language and involves an element of abstraction and construction which is called vikalpa. This represents the faculty by which our concepts are arranged in an analytical or synthetical proposition. It is said to be śabdajñānānupāti vastuśūnyo vikalpaḥ, i.e. the knowledge that springs from relating concepts or names, which relating does not actually exist in the objective world as it is represented in propositional forms.
Sleep is that mental state which has for its objective substratum the feeling of emptiness. It is called a state or notion of mind, for it is called back on awakening; when we feel that we have slept well our minds are clear, when we have slept badly our minds are listless, wandering and unsteady. For a person who seeks to attain communion or samādhi, these desires of sleep are to be suppressed, like all other desires. Memory is the retaining in the mind of objects perceived when perception occurs by the union of the cittas with external objects, according to the forms of which the cittas are transformed; it retains these perceptions, as impressions or saṃskāras by means of its inherent tamas. These saṃskāras generate memory, when such events occur as can manifest them by virtue of associations.
Thus memory comes when the percepts already known and acquired are kept in the mind in the form of impressions and are manifested by the udbodhakas or associative manifestors. It differs from perceptions in this that the latter are of the nature of perceiving the unknown and unperceived, whereas the former serves to bring before the mind percepts that have already been acquired. Memory is therefore of percepts already acquired by real cognition, unreal cognition, imagination, sleep and memory. It manifests itself in dreams as well as in waking states.
The relation between these states of mind and the saṃskāras is this that their frequency and repetition strengthens the saṃskāras and thus ensures the revival of these states.
They are all endowed with sukha (pleasure), duḥkha (pain) and moha (ignorance). These feelings cannot be treated separately from the states themselves, for their manifestations are not different from the manifestation of the states themselves. Knowledge and feeling are but two different aspects of the modifications of cittas derived from prakṛti; hence neither can be thought separately from the other. The fusion of feeling with knowledge is therefore here more fundamental than in the modern tripartite division of mind.
In connection with this we are to consider the senses whose action on the external world is known as “perceiving,” “grahaṇa,” which is distinguished from “pratyaksha,” which means the effect of “perceiving,” viz. perception. Each sense has got its special sphere of work, e.g. sight is of the eye, and this is called their second aspect, viz. svarūpa. Their third aspect is of “asmitā” or ego, which manifests itself through the senses. Their fourth aspect is their characteristic of guṇas, viz. that of manifestation (prakāśa), action (kriyā) and retention (sthiti). Their fifth aspect is that they are set in motion for purusha, his experiences and liberation.
It is indeed difficult to find the relation of manas with the senses and the cittas. In more than one place manas is identified with cittas, and, on the other hand, it is described as a sense organ. There is another aspect in which manas is said to be the king of the cognitive and motor senses. Looked at in this aspect, manas is possibly the directive side of the ego by which it guides the cognitive and conative senses in the external world and is the cause of their harmonious activity for the experience of purusha. As a necessary attribute of this directive character of manas, the power of concentration, which is developed by prāṇāyāma, is said to belong to manas. This is the rajas side of manas.
There is another aspect of manas which is called the anuvyavasāya or reflection, by which the sensations (ālocana) are associated, differentiated, integrated, assimilated into percepts and concepts. This is possibly the sāttvika side of manas.
There is another aspect by which the percepts and concepts are retained (dhāraṇa) in the mind as saṃskāras, to be repeated or revealed again in the mind as actual states. This is the tamas side of manas.
In connection with this we may mention ūha (positive argumentation), apoha (negative argumentation) and tattvajñāna (logical conclusion) which are the modes of different anuvyavasāyas of the manas. Will, etc., are to be included with these (Yoga-varttikā, II. 18). Looked at from the point of view of cittas, these may equally be regarded as the modifications of cittas.
The motives which sustain this process of outgoing activity are false knowledge, and such other emotional elements as egoism, attachment, aversion, and love of life. These emotional elements remain in the mind in the germinal state as power alone; or they exist in a fully operative state when a man is under the influence of any one of them; or they alternate with others, such as attachment or aversion; or they may become attenuated by meditation upon opposites. Accordingly they are called respectively prasupta, udāra, vicchinna or tanu. Man’s minds or cittas may follow these outgoing states or experiences, or gradually remove those emotions which are commonly called afflictions, thus narrowing their sphere and proceeding towards final release.
All the psychic states described above, viz. pramāṇa, viparyyaya, etc., are called either afflicted or unafflicted according as they are moved towards outgoing activity or are actuated by the higher motive of emancipation by narrowing the field of experiences gradually to a smaller and smaller sphere and afterwards to suppress them altogether. These two kinds of motives, one of afflictions that lead towards external objects of attachment and aversion or love of life, and the other which leads to striving for kaivalya, are the sole motives which guide all human actions and psychic states.
They influence us whenever suitable opportunities occur, so that by the study of the Vedas, self-criticism or right argumentation, or from the instruction of good men, abhyāsa and vairāgya may be roused by vidyā. Right knowledge and a tendency towards kaivalya may appear in the mind even when a man is immersed in the afflicted states of outgoing activity. So also afflicted states may appear when a man is bent upon or far advanced in those actions which are roused by vidyā or the tendency towards kaivalya.
It seems that the Yoga view of actions, or karma, does not deprive man of his freedom of will. The habit of performing particular types of action only strengthens the corresponding subconscious impressions or saṃskāras of those actual states, and thus makes it more and more difficult to overcome their propensity to generate their corresponding actual states, and thus obstructs the adoption of an unhampered and free course of action. The other limitation to the scope of the activity of his free will is the vāsanā aspect of the saṃskāras by which he naturally feels himself attached by pleasurable ties to certain experiences and by painful ones to others. But these only represent the difficulties and impediments which come to a man, when he has to adopt the Yoga course of life, the contrary of which he might have been practising for a very long period, extending over many life-states.
The free will is not curbed in any way, for it follows directly from the teleological purpose of prakṛti, which moves for the experience and liberation of purusha. So this motive of liberation, which is the basis of all good conduct, can never be subordinated to the other impulse, which goads man towards outgoing experiences. But, on the other hand, this original impulse which attracts man towards these ordinary experiences, as it is due to the false knowledge which identifies prakṛti with purusha, becomes itself subordinate and loses its influence and power, when such events occur, which nullify false knowledge by tending to produce a vision of the true knowledge of the relation of prakṛti with purusha. Thus, for example, if by the grace of God false knowledge (avidyā) is removed, true knowledge at once dawns upon the mind and all the afflictions lose their power.
Free will and responsibility for action cease in those life-states which are intended for suffering from actions only, e.g. life-states of insects, etc.
APPENDIX
SPHOṬAVĀDA
Another point to be noted in connection with the main metaphysical theories of Patañjali is the Sphoṭa theory which considers the relation of words with their ideas and the things which they signify. Generally these three are not differentiated one from the other, and we are not accustomed to distinguish them from one another. Though distinct yet they are often identified or taken in one act of thought, by a sort of illusion. The nature of this illusory process comes to our view when we consider the process of auditory perception of words. Thus if we follow the Bhāshya as explained by Vijñāna Bhikshu we find that by an effect of our organs of speech, the letters are pronounced. This vocal sound is produced in the mouth of the speaker from which place the sound moves in aerial waves until it reaches the ear drum of the hearer, by coming in contact with which it produces the audible sound called dhvani (Yoga-vārttika, III. 17). The special modifications of this dhvani are seen to be generated in the form of letters (varṇa) and the general name for these modifications is nāda. This sound as it exists in the stage of varṇas or letters is also called varṇa. If we apply the word śabda or sound in the most general sense, then we can say that this is the second stage of sound moving towards word-cognition, the first stage being that of its utterance in the mouth of the speaker. The third stage of śabda is that in which the letters, for example, g, au, and ḥ, of the word “gauḥ” are taken together and the complete word-form “gauḥ” comes before our view. The comprehension of this complete word-form is an attribute of the mind and not of the sense of hearing. For the sense of hearing senses the letter-forms of the sound one by one as the particular letters are pronounced by the speaker and as they approach the ear one by one in air-waves. But each letter-form sound vanishes as it is generated, for the sense of hearing has no power to hold them together and comprehend the letter-forms as forming a complete word-form. The ideation of this complete word-form in the mind is called sphoṭa. It differs from the letter-form in this that it is a complete, inseparable, and unified whole, devoid of any past, and thus is quite unlike the letter-forms which die the next moment after they originate. According to the system of Patañjali as explained by the commentators, all significance belongs to this sphoṭa-form and never to the letters pronounced or heard. Letters when they are pronounced and heard in a particular order serve to give rise to such complete ideational word-images which possess some denotation and connotation of meaning and are thus called “sphoṭas,” or that which illuminates. These are essentially different in nature from the sounds in letter-forms generated in the senses of hearing which are momentary and evanescent and can never be brought together to form one whole, have no meaning, and have the sense of hearing as their seat.
The Vaiśeshika view.—Saṅkara Miśra, however, holds that this “sphoṭa” theory is absolutely unnecessary, for even the supporters of sphoṭa agree that the sphoṭa stands conventionally for the thing that it signifies; now if that be the case what is the good of admitting sphoṭa at all? It is better to say that the conventionality of names belongs to the letters themselves, which by virtue of that can conjointly signify a thing; and it is when you look at the letters from this aspect—their unity with reference to their denotation of one thing—that you call them a pada or name (Upaskāra, II. 2, 21). So according to this view we find that there is no existence of a different entity called “name” or “sphoṭa” which can be distinguished from the letters coming in a definite order within the range of the sense of hearing. The letters pronounced and heard in a definite order are jointly called a name when they denote a particular meaning or object.
Kumārila’s view:—Kumārila, the celebrated scholar of the Mīmāṃsa school, also denies the sphoṭa theory and asserts like the Vaiśeshika that the significance belongs to the letters themselves and not to any special sphoṭa or name. To prove this he first proves that the letter-forms are stable and eternal and suffer no change on account of the differences in their modes of accent and pronunciation. He then goes on to show that the sphoṭa view only serves to increase the complexity without any attendant advantage. Thus the objection that applies to the so-called defect of the letter-denotation theory that the letters cannot together denote a thing since they do not do it individually, applies to the name-denotation of the sphoṭa theory, since there also it is said that though there is no sphoṭa or name corresponding to each letter yet the letters conjointly give rise to a sphoṭa or complete name (Ślokavārttika, Sphoṭavāda, śl. 91–93).
The letters, however, are helped by their potencies (saṃskāras) in denoting the object, or the meaning. The sphoṭa theory has, according to Kumārila and Pārthasārathi, also to admit this saṃskāra of the letters in the manifestation of the name or the śabda-sphoṭa, whereas they only admit it as the operating power of the letters in denoting the object or the thing signified. Saṃskāras according to Kumārila are thus admitted both by the sphoṭa theorists and the Kumārila school of Mīmāṃsa, only with this difference that the latter with its help can directly denote the object of the signified, whereas the former have only to go a step backwards in thinking their saṃskāra to give rise to the name or the śabda-sphoṭa alone (Nyāyaratnākara, Sphoṭavāda, śl. 104).
Kumārila says that he takes great pains to prove the nullity of the sphoṭa theory only because if the sphoṭa view be accepted then it comes to the same thing as saying that words and letters have no validity, so that all actions depending on them also come to lose their validity (Ślokavārttika, Sphoṭavāda, śl. 137).
Prabhākara.—Prabhākara also holds the same view; for according to him also the letters are pronounced in a definite order; though when individually considered they are momentary and evanescent, yet they maintain themselves by their potency in the form of a pāda or name, and thus signify an object. Thus Śāliknātha Miśra says in his Prakaraṇa Pañcikā, p. 89: “It is reasonable to suppose that since the later letters in a word are dependent upon the perception of a preceding one some special change is wrought in the letters themselves which leads to the comprehension of the meaning of a word.... It cannot be proved either by perception or by inference that there is any word apart from the letters; the word has thus for its constituents the letters.”
Śabara.—The views of Kamārila and Prahhākara thus explicated are but elaborate explanations of the view of Śabara who states the whole theory in a single line—pūrvavarṇajanitasaṃskārasahito’ntyo varṇaḥ pratyāyakaḥ.
“The last letter together with the potency generated by the preceding letters is the cause of significance.”
Mahābhāshya and Kaiyaṭa.—After describing the view of those who are antagonistic to the sphoṭa theory it is necessary to mention the Vaiākaraṇa school which is in favour of it; thus we find that in explaining the following passage of Mahābhāshya,
“What is then a word? It is that which being pronounced one can understand specific objects such as those (cows) which have tail, hoofs, horns, etc.”
Kaiyata says: “The grammarians think that denotation belongs to words, as distinct from letters which are pronounced, for if each of the letters should denote the object, there would be no need of pronouncing the succeeding letters....”
The vaiyakaraṇas admit the significant force of names as distinguished from letters. For if the significant force be attributed to letters individually, then the first letter being quite sufficient to signify the object, the utterance of other letters becomes unnecessary; and according to this view if it is held that each letter has the generating power, then also they cannot do it simultaneously, since they are uttered one after another. On the view of manifestation, also, since the letters are manifested one after another, they cannot be collected together in due order; if their existence in memory is sufficient, then we should expect no difference of signification or meaning by the change of order in the utterance of the letters; that is “sara” ought to have the same meaning as “rasa.” So it must be admitted that the power of signification belongs to the sphoṭa as manifested by the nādas as has been described in detail in Vākyapadīya.
As the relation between the perceiving capacity and the object of perception is a constant one so also is the relation between the sphoṭa and the nāda as the manifested and the manifestor (Vākyapadīya 98). Just as the image varies corresponding to the variation of the reflector, as oil, water, etc., so also the reflected or manifested image differs according to the difference of the manifestor (Vāk. 100). Though the manifestation of letters, propositions and names occurs at one and the same time yet there seems to be a “before and after” according to the “before and after” of the nāda utterances (Vāk. 102). That which is produced through the union and disunion (of nādas or dhvanis) is called sphoṭa, whereas other sound-perceptions arising from sounds are called dhvanis (Vāk. 103). As by the movement of water the image of a thing situated elsewhere also appears to adopt the movement of the water and thus seems to move, so also the sphoṭa, though unchanging in itself, yet appears to suffer change in accordance with the change of nāda which manifests it (Vāk. 49). As there are no parts of the letters themselves so the letters also do not exist as parts of the name. There is again no ultimate or real difference between names and propositions (Vāk. 73). It is only in popular usage that they are regarded as different. That which others regard as the most important thing is regarded as false here, for propositions only are here regarded as valid (Vāk. 74). Though the letters which manifest names and propositions are altogether different from them, yet their powers often appear as quite undifferentiated from them (Vāk. 89). Thus when propositions are manifested by the cause of the manifestation of propositions they appear to consist of parts when they first appear before the mind. Thus, though the pada-sphoṭa or the vākya-sphoṭa does not really consist of parts, yet, as the powers of letters cannot often be differentiated from them, they also appear frequently to be made up of parts (Vāk. 91).
The Yoga View.—As to the relation of the letters to the sphoṭa, Vācaspati says, in explaining the Bhāshya, that each of the letters has the potentiality of manifesting endless meanings, but none of them can do so individually; it is only when the letter-form sounds are pronounced in succession by one effort of speech that the individual letters by their own particular contiguity or distance from one another can manifest a complete word called the sphoṭa. Thus owing to the variation of contiguity of distance by intervention from other letter-form sounds any letter-form sound may manifest any meaning or word; for the particular order and the association of letter-form sounds depend upon the particular output of energy required in uttering them. The sphoṭa is thus a particular modification of buddhi, whereas the letter-form sounds have their origin in the organ of speech when they are uttered, and the sense of hearing when they are heard. It is well to note here that the theory that the letters themselves have endless potentiality and can manifest any word-sphoṭas, according to their particular combinations and recombinations, is quite in keeping with the main metaphysical doctrine of the Pātañjala theory.
Vākya-sphoṭa.—What is said here of the letter-form sounds and the śabda-sphoṭas also applies to the relation that the śabda-sphoṭas bear to propositions or sentences. A word or name does not stand alone; it always exists as combined with other words in the form of a proposition. Thus the word “tree” whenever it is pronounced carries with it the notion of a verb “asti” or “exists,” and thereby demonstrates its meaning. The single word “tree” without any reference to any other word which can give it a propositional form has no meaning. Knowledge of words always comes in propositional forms; just as different letter-form sounds demonstrate by their mutual collocation a single word or śabda-sphoṭa, so the words also by their mutual combination or collocation demonstrate judgmental or propositional significance or meaning. As the letters themselves have no meaning so the words themselves have also no meaning; it is only by placing them side by side in a particular order that a meaning dawns in the mind. When single words are pronounced they associate other words with themselves and thus appear to signify a meaning. But though a single word is sufficient by association with other words to carry a meaning, yet sentences or propositions should not be deemed unnecessary for they serve to specialise that meaning (niyamārthe anuvādaḥ). Thus “cooks” means that any subject makes something the object of his cooking. The mention of the subject “Devadatta” and the object “rice” only specialises the subject and the object. Though the analysis of a sentence into the words of which it is constituted is as imaginary as the analysis of a word into the letter-form sounds, it is generally done in order to get an analytical view of the meaning of a sentence—an imaginary division of it as into cases, verbs, etc.
Abhihitānvayavada and Anvitābhidhānavāda.—This reminds us of the two very famous theories about the relation of sentences to words, viz. the “Abhihitānvayavāda” and the “Anvitābhidhānavāda.” The former means that words themselves can express their separate meanings by the function abhidhā or denotation; these are subsequently combined into a sentence expressing one connected idea. The latter means that words only express a meaning as parts of a sentence, and as grammatically connected with each other; they only express an action or something connected with action; in “sāmānaya”, “bring the cow”—“gām” does not properly mean “gotva” but “ānayanānvitagotva,” that is, the bovine genus as connected with bringing. We cannot have a case of a noun without some governing verb and vice versa—(Sarvadarśana-saṃgraha, Cowell).
The Yoga point of view.—It will be seen that strictly speaking the Yoga view does not agree with any one of these views though it approaches nearer to the Anvitābhidhāna view than to the Abhihitānvaya view. For according to the Yoga view the idea of the sentence is the only true thing; words only serve to manifest this idea but have themselves no meaning. The division of a sentence into the component word-conceptions is only an imaginary analysis—an afterthought.
Confusion the cause of verbal cognition.—According to Patañjali’s view verbal cognition proceeds only from a confusion of the letter-form sounds (which are perceived in the sense of hearing), the śabda-sphoṭa which is manifested in the buddhi, and the object which exists in the external world. These three though altogether distinct from one another yet appear to be unified on account of the saṅketa or sign, so that the letter-form sounds, the śabda-sphoṭa, and the thing, can never be distinguished from one another. Of course knowledge can arise even in those cases where there is no actual external object, simply by virtue of the manifesting power of the letter-form sounds. This saṅketa is again defined as the confusion of words and their meanings through memory, so that it appears that what a word is, so is its denoted object, and what a denoted word is, so is its object. Convention is a manifestation of memory of the nature of mutual confusion of words and their meanings. This object is the same as this word, and this word is the same as this object. Thus there is no actual unity of words and their objects: such unity is imaginary and due to beginningless tradition. This view may well be contrasted with Nyāya, according to which the convention of works as signifying objects is due to the will of God.