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 Many of the Yogis of yore were quite
illiterate. There was, of course, oral teaching. It may be interesting
enough to know something about the following four:
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Goraksha
Shataka
This text has been attributed to Goraksha or Gorakhnath, a leading exponent
of the religious order known as the Natha Pantha, also called the Kanphatas.
He was a Yogi par excellence and was regarded as greater than his Guru,
Matsyendranath. His fame as a religious leader and reformer seems to have
caught the fancy of people all over India and thus led to a cluster of
contradictory legends about him. Popular belief took him to be a
representative of Shiva or even a form of that God himself. The early
stories connected with his name might have been inspired by fancied
etymology and gathered round his head after his death. It seems Gorakknath
has to be placed somewhere around the 10th century.
This text is generally looked upon as a fundamental text of the Nath Cult.
It appears that the book is mainly intended to serve as a kind of
"Students' Handbook of Instructions in Yogic Disciplinary
Practices".It opens with a statement of the goal of human life and
immediately proceeds to deal with the steps (six) leading to that end. The
six steps are calculated to secure absolute control of mind which alone is
said to result in the final emancipation.
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Hathayogapradipika
This is a Tantric Hatha Yoga treatise written by Cintamani, who as a hermit
took the name of Swatmarama and attained the title 'yogindra'. In the
opening verses of his work - which he himself called Hathapradipika
and not Hathayogapradipika
- he mentions a long list of Yogis
who preceded him, more than 24 in all. This suggests that his book is fairly
late, and one might perhaps assign it to the 15th century. Swatmarama's work
is certainly not completely original, for in it you can find quite some
verses from other works. This raises the hypothesis that Hathapradipika
is a compilation, a so-called Samhita. His work has been held in great
esteem both by scholars and practising yogis, for it is he who points out
that the yogic processes form a continuum. He did not consider Hatha Yoga
and Raja Yoga to be different compartments of yoga, but stressed their
interdependence (2.76).
Several translations into English were published:
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in 1915 by Pancham Singh and
printed at Allahabad in the series known as "The Sacred Books of
the Hindus";
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in 1933 the Theosophical
Publishing House, Adyar, Madras (it
was translated by Yogi Shrinivasa Iyangar in 1893)
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Gheranda
Samhita
This work is very similar to the
preceding, from which it borrows. It gives much attention to dhauti and more
details of 'personal hygiene'. Its author was an adept named Gheranda, a
Vaishnavite of Bengal. His shishya or pupil was Chanda Kapali.
In 1877 the work was edited by Bhuvana Chandra Vasaka, at Calcutta. There
are several English translations:
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in 1895 by Shri Chandra Vasu,
Bombay;
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in 1914 by Rai Bahadur
Shrisa Chandra Vasu and printed at
Allahabad in the series known as "The Sacred Books of the
Hindus";
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in 1933 the Theosophical
Publishing House at Adyar re-issued the latter.
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Shiva
Samhita
This is also a Tantric treatise on
Yoga, but much more difficult than the two preceding works, and also much
longer. It is Vedantic in its philosophical outlook. Chapter Five is assumed
to be of independent origin. There are several English translations:
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in 1884 by Shri Chandra Vasu,
Lahore, in the series known as "The Sacred Books of the
Hindus";
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in 1914 by Rai Bahadur
Shrisa Chandra Vasu and printed at
Allahabad, also in the series known as "The Sacred Books of the
Hindus".
Where
to find these books? Motilal
Banarsidass, 41 U.A. Bungalow Road, Jawahar Nagar, Delhi - 110 007, India
Web Site: http://www.mlbd.com
E-mail: mail@mlbd.com or gloryindia@poboxes.com
United Kingdom E-mail: bbl@com.bbt.se Kaivalyadhama,
S.M.Y.M. Samiti, Lonavla - 410 403, Puna, India
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