The Tántrika yoga. The Tantras or cabalistic works of modern times are all and every one of them no other than yoga sastras, containing directions and formulas for the adoration of innumerable deities for the purpose of their votaries’ attainment of consummation “Yoga Siddhi” through them. It is the Tántrika yoga which is chiefly current in Bengal, though the old forms may be in use in other parts of the country. It is reckoned with the heretical systems, because the processes and practices of its yoga are mostly at variance with the spiritual yoga of old. It has invented many múdras or masonic signs, monograms and mysterious symbols, which are wholly unintelligible to the yogis of the old school, and has the carnal rites of the pancha-makára for immediate consummation which a spiritualist will feel ashamed to learn (See Wilson. H. Religion).
The Hatha Yoga. This system, which as its name implies consists of the forced contortions of the body in order to subdue the hardy boors to quiescence, is rather a training of the body than a mental or spiritual discipline of a moral and intelligent being for the benefit of the rational soul. The votaries of this system are mostly of a vagrant and mendicant order, and subject to the slander of foreigners, though they command veneration over the ignorant multitude.
The Sectarian yogas. The modern sectarians in upper Hindustan, namely the followers of Rámánuja, Gorakhnáth, Nának, Kabir and others, possess their respective modes of yoga, written in the dialects of Hindi, for their practice in the maths or monasteries peculiar to their different orders.
Yoga an indigene of India. Lux-ab-oriens. “Light from the east:” and India has given more light to the west than it has derived from that quarter. We see India in Greece in many things, but not Greece in India in any. And when we see a correspondence of the Asiatic with the European, we have more reason to suppose its introduction to the west by its travellers to the east, since the days of Alexander the Great, than the Indians’ importation of any thing from Europe, by crossing the seas which they had neither the means nor privilege to do by the laws of their country. Whatever, therefore, the Indian has is the indigenous growth of the land, or else they would be as refined as the productions of Europe are generally found to be.
Its European forms &c. Professor Monier Williams speaking of the yoga philosophy says; “The votaries of animal magnetism, clairvoyance and so called spiritualism, will find most of their theories represented or far outdone by corresponding notions existing in the yoga system for more than two thousand years ago.” In speaking of the Vedanta he declares; “The philosophy of the Sufis, alleged to be developed out of the Koran, appears to be a kind of pantheism very similar to that of the Vedanta.” He has next shewn the correspondence of its doctrines with those of Plato. Again he says about the Sánkhya; “It may not be altogether unworthy of the attention of Darwinians” (Ind. Wisdom).
The yoga &c. in Greece. The Dialectic Nyáya in the opinion of Sir William Jones expressed in his Discourse on Hindu philosophy, was taken up by the followers of Alexander and communicated by them to Aristotle: and that Pythagoras derived his doctrine of Metempsychosis from the Hindu yoga in his travels through India. His philosophy was of a contemplative cast from the sensible to the immaterial Intelligibles.
The Gnostic yoga. Weber says; “The most flourishing epoch of the Sánkhya-yoga, belongs most probably to the first centuries of our eras, the influence it exercised upon the development of gnosticism in Asia Minor being unmistakable; while further both through that channel and afterwards directly also, it had an important influence upon the growth of Sophi-philosophy” (See Lassen I. A. K. & Gildemeister, Scrip. Arab. de rebus indicis loci et opuscula.)
Yoga among Moslems. It was at the beginning of the 11th century that Albiruni translated Pátanjali’s work (Yoga-Sútra) into Arabic, and it would appear the Sánkhya Sútras also; though the information we have of the contents of these works, do not harmonize with the sanskrit originals. (Reinaud Journal Asiatique and H. M. Elliot Mahomedan History of India. Weber’s Ind. Lit. p. 239).
Buddhistic Yoga in Europe. The Gnostic doctrines derived especially from Buddhistic missions through Persia and Punjab, were spread over Europe, and embraced and cultivated particularly by Basilides, Valentinian, and Bardesanes as well as Manes.
Manechian Doctrines. It is, however, a question as to the amount of influence to be ascribed to Indian philosophy generally, in shaping these gnostic doctrines of Manes in particular, was a most important one, as has been shown by Lassen III. 415. Beal. I. R. A. S. II. 424. Web. Ind. Lit. p. 309.