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The Hindu Yoga-System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Charles Rockwell Lanman
Affiliation:
Harvard University

Extract

Frederic Palmer's account of Angelus Silesius, published in the April number of this Review, portrays admirably the struggles of a German mystic of some three hundred years ago, to attain the unattainable, to give utterance to the unutterable. Three and twenty hundred years ago, the like struggles were making part of the spiritual history of distant India. Perhaps Dr. Palmer's essay may lend a certain timeliness to an endeavor to interest Occidental readers in those sombre followers of the Mystic Way, who—time out of mind—have held retreat for meditation in the solemn stillness of the forests “lapped by the storied Hydaspes.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1918

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References

1 Possibly Demokritos of Abdera visited them, perhaps a century earlier. According to Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, 1.xv.69), Demokritos maintained that none of his contemporaries had seen more countries and made the acquaintance of more men distinguished in every kind of science than himself. Among those men, Aelian includes the sages of India (τοὺς σοφιστὰς τῶν Ἰνδῶν: Varia historia, iv.20); and Diogenes Laertius reports a similar tradition (τοῖς γυμνοσοφισταῖς φασί τινες συμμῖξαι αὐτὸν ἐν Ἰνδίᾳ: ix.35). Such a tradition is not to be set aside too lightly, when we consider the views of Demokritos concerning peace of mind (εὐθυμία: ix.45) as the best fruit of philosophy, and the many references thereto in the fragments of his ethical treatises. Had these last been preserved, it is possible that we might have found in them distinctly recognizable traces of Indian teaching.

2 Strabo xv.65: τὰ γοῦν λεχθέντα εἰς τοῦτ᾽ ἔφη συντείνειν ὡς εἴη λόγος ἄριστος ὃς ἡδονὴν καὶ λὑπην ψυχῆς ἀφαιρήσεται. … καὶ γὰρ οἰκίαν ἀρίστην εἶναι ἥτις ἄν ἐπισκευῆς ἐλαχίστης δέηται.

3 This is beautifully set forth by Buddhaghosa in his great treatise on Buddhism, The Way of Salvation or Visuddhi-magga. See book 1, sections 105–112, especially 106, in volume 49 of the Proceedings of the American Academy, p. 159. Of all names in the history of Buddhist Scholasticism, Buddhaghosa's is the most illustrious. He is not less renowned in the East than is his contemporary, Saint Augustin, in the West, and for the same reasons,—sanctity of life, wide learning, and great literary achievement. An edition of the Pāli text of this treatise was undertaken by my beloved and unforgotten friend and pupil, the late Henry Clarke Warren. It is my hope to complete his unfinished work, and to issue the text with an English version.

4 The recently edited Arthaçāstra, published at Mysore, 1909. See the articles by Hillebrandt, Hertel, Jacobi, and Jolly, and especially the three articles by Jacobi, Berliner Akademie, 1911 and 1912. He calls it “eine historische Quelle allerersten Ranges” (1911, p. 954: cf. p. 957, and 1912, p. 834).

5 Berliner Akademie, 1911, p. 954.

5a Ibidem, p. 733.

6 In his learned article, Yoga-technique in the Great Epic, Journal of the Am. Oriental Society (1901), vol. 22, p. 333379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar To him, my most grateful acknowledgments.

7 This, with all due deference to Garbe and his excellent chapters on Yoga in the Grundriss der Indoarischen Philologie (1896).

8 It is certain that the Gheraṇḍa-sanhitā, more or less widely known in the Occident, does not meet them. My former pupil, Professor S. K. Belvalkar of Poona, India, assures me that it is condemned by those whose learning and character he respects. The like is true of Haṭhayoga-pradīpikā and numerous similar works.

9 Quoting from the Mahā-bhārata, xii.174.46, a stanza of significance and dignity.

10 Jacobi's translation, Leipzig, 1882, vol. 1, p. 467 ff.

11 Göttinger Nachrichten, 1896.

12 Revue de l'histoire des religions, 1900.

13 Vinaya-piṭaka, vol. 1, p. 10; Samyutta-nikāya, vol. 5, p. 420. These Truths become a kind of canonical commonplace: see Majjhima, vol. 1, p. 48.

14 This coincidence the Hindu medical writers did not fail to observe: so Vāgbhaṭa in the stanza introductory to the Aşṭānga-hṘdaya.

15 Anguttara-nikāya, vol. 1, p. 286; translated by Henry C. Warren, p. xiv of his Buddhism in translations, Harvard Oriental Series, vol. 3. See also Visuddhimagga, book xx.

16 Or, to speak in terms of the twentieth century, the “cameral” or “snapshot” observer. The National Geographic Society of Washington devoted most of its Magazine for December, 1913, to the “Religious penances and punishments selfinflicted by the Holy Men of India.” The paper is illustrated with seventy pictures. The sensational aspects of Yoga-practice have been treated in easily accessible works. Such are Oman's, John C.The Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints of India, London, 1903Google Scholar; Schmidt's, RichardFakire und Fakirtum, Berlin, 1908.Google Scholar

17 At xii.197.7, cited by Hopkins, Yoga-technique, JAOS. xxii.344.

18 Braid was a surgeon of Manchester, England. The copy of his book that lay before me when I wrote this, was a gift “To the President of Harvard College with the author's compliments” in 1852. The little volume has since been transferred to the “Treasure Room.” The account was reprinted by Garbe, in The Monist for July, 1900, Chicago.Google Scholar See also Garbe in Westermann's Monatshefte for September, 1900; or Preyer's, W.Der Hypnotismus, Berlin, 1882 (p. 46, translated from Braid); or Richard Schmidt, Fakire, p. 88.Google Scholar

19 In his paper on Yoga-technique, already cited, Journal of the Am. Oriental Society, xxii.359. Compare his excellent comments upon the technical features of the story.

20 In such a story as this, the phraseology of the original Sanskrit (at Mahā-bhārata xiii.40) is of moment. My phrases are accordingly intended to be correct reproductions. Note especially those enclosed within marks of quotation, and see stanzas 50–52 and 56–59 of the original, as numbered in the Bombay edition of 1888.

21 Such is, I take it, the significance of lakṣaṇaṁ lakṣaṇenāiva, vadanaṁ vadanena ca, at stanza 58.