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Notes on an English translation of the Yogasūtrabhāṣyavivaraṇa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Tuvia Gelblum
Tuvia Gelblum
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, London
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Extract

The recent publication of the complete translation of the Yogasūtrabhāṣyavivaraṇa (also known as Pātañjalayogaśastrabhāṣyavivaraṇa and Bhagavatpadīya; henceforth abbreviated as Vivaraṇa) into English by Trevor Leggett is the latest contribution to the study of this intriguing and significant Sanskrit philosophical text. Prior to this publication (whose first two chapters were separately published already in 1981 and 1983 respectively) only a few excerpts thereof have been translated by Hajime Nakamura, into Japanese. It is a measure of the growing interest in the original text that it has attracted several astute preliminary studies, notably by P. Hacker, T. Vetter, W. Halbfass and A. Wezler in the West, and H. Nakamura in Japan.

As it stands, the title of the printed English translation reads: ‘The complete commentary by Ṥaṅkara on the Yoga Sūtra-s-a full translation of the newly discovered text.’ This is regrettably likely to be misleading in more than one way.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , February 1992 , pp. 76 - 89
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1992

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References

1 Edited by Sastri, Rama and Sastri, Krishnamurthi under the title Pātañjala-yogasūtra-bhāṣyavivaraṇam of Saṅkara-bhagavatpāda in the ‘Madras Government Oriental Series’, no. 94 (Madras, 1952)Google Scholar. On the problem of the correct title of the work see Wezler, Albrecht, ‘Philological observations on the so-called Pātañjalayogasūtrabhāṣyavivaraṇa (Studies in the Pātañjalayogaśāstravivaraṇa I )’, Indo-Iranian Journal, vol. 25, 1983, 17 ffGoogle Scholar. (Also cf. Bronkhorst, J., ‘Patanjali and the Yoga Sutras’, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik, no. 10Google Scholar. Wezler contends that regardless of the differing colophons ‘the title is mentioned in the body of the text itself, viz. in the very first prose sentence which runs thus: athetyādipātañjalayogaśāstravivaraṇam ārabhyate’. However, the probative force of this argument is questionable, for the possibility cannot be ruled out that the text here employs a description rather than the formal title.

2 Leggett, Trevor, The complete commentary by Ṥaṅkara on the Yoga Sūtras—a full translation of the newly discovered text (London: Kegan Paul International Ltd., 1990)Google Scholar. (Hereafter referred to as ‘Leggett’ or ‘transl. Leggett’.)

3 Leggett, Trevor, Ṥaṅkara on the Yoga-siitra-s (Vol. i: Samādhi)-the Vivaraṇa sub-commentary to Vyāsa-bhāṣya on the Yoga-sūtra-s of Patañjali: Samādhi-pāda (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1981)Google Scholar; id., Ṥaṇkara on the Yoga-sūtra-s (Vol. II: Means)-the Vivaraṇa sub-commentary to Vyāsabhṣṣya on the Yoga-sūtra-s of Patañjali: Sādhana-pāda (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983)Google Scholar.

4 Nakamura has published what he calls a tentative translation of Part I (the samādhi-pada) in Japanese in 36 successive issues of the Japanese Buddhist Journal Agama, from December 1979 (cf. Leggett, 17).

5 In his ‘Sankara der Yogin und Ṥaṅkara der Advaitin, einige Beobachtungen’, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Oslasiens, 12/13, 1968 (Fest. E., Frauwallner), 119–48Google Scholar (repr. in Kleine Schriften, (ed.) L., Schmithausen (Wiesbaden, 1978), 213–12)Google Scholar.

6 cf. Aśvaghoṣa's Buddhacarita, ch. 12.

7 In the Hebrew text:

‘This tells us that he had a full knowledge of every idol in the world—that he left no idol unworshipped by him.’ Also cf. Midrash Haggadol on Pentateuch: Exodus (ed.) Margolies, M. [Hebrew text], (Jerusalem, 1956), p. 340,11. 7–8Google Scholar.

8 In his ‘Philological observations…’, IIJ, 25, 1983, 36Google Scholar. Also cf. Halbfass, Wilhelm, ‘Studies in Kumārila and Śaṅkara’, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik (Reinbek, 1983), 120Google Scholar.

9 In his Studien zur Lehre und Entwicklung Śaṅkaras (Wien, 1979), 21.Google Scholar

10 In his ‘Philological observations…’, IIJ, 25, 1983Google Scholar. Also cf. id. ‘Remarks on the definition of “Yoga” in the Vaiśeṣikasūtra’, Fest. Jong, J. W. de, (Canberra, 1982), 649 fGoogle Scholar.

11 Here the text of the sūtra (3.14) reads: śāntoditāvyapadeśya-dharmānupātī dharmī ‘(A substance) possessed of properties is correlated to properties which are quiescent (i.e. past) or emergent (i.e. present) or uncharacterizable (i.e. future)’. In the version proposed by the author of the Vivaraṇa, Vyāsa's text here would yield the following perfect reading: te khalu dharmino dharmāḥ śāntā ye krtvā vyāpārān uparatāh; savyāpārā uditās; te cānāgata-lakṣaṇasya samanantarāhḥ; vartamānasysānantarā atītāḥ. kim-artham atītasyānantarā na bhavanli vartamānāh?—pūrva-paścimatāyā (v. 1.: pūrva-paścima-) abhāvāt; yathānāgata-vartamānayoḥpūrva-paścimatā naivam atītasya. tasmān nātītasyāsti samanantarah; tad- (v. 1.: tasmād) anāgata eva samanantaro bhavaty atītasyeti (with the Vivaraṇa replacing the common reading vartamānasyeti). This may be translated: ‘Those properties of the substance which having been operative have now ceased functioning are the quiescent (i.e. past ones). Those that are still functioning are the emergent (i.e. present). The latter follow on from their future time-variation (namely, what has previously been potential is subsequently actualized) (just as) those that are past follow on from their present (time-variation). (Question:) “Why are those present properties not regarded as following on the past (rather than on the future as conceived here)?” (Answer:) Because (between these two i.e., past and present properties respectively) there is no (relationship consisting in) one thing preceding the other; (that is to say,) the past does not precede the present in the same way that the future (i.e. the latent, or potential) precedes the present (i.e. the actualized). Hence (the present) is not regarded as the immediate successor of the past. Accordingly it is only the future that is regarded as the successor of the past.’ Evidently the reading which the Vivaraṇa criticizes here, namely, vartamānasya (instead of the penultimate word atītasya in the passage above) is indeed senseless in the context of the theory of time as propounded by the Yoga school. It would convey the idea: ‘It is only the future that is the successor of the present’—which could not possibly have been intended here. The variant rejected by the Vivaraṇa (and presupposed by Vācaspati's as well as Vijñānabhikṣu's implausible comments ad loc.) may very well have resulted from a copyist failing to grasp the somewhat philosophically sophisticated conception of the sequence future-present-past (rather than pre-reflective sequence past-presentfuture of common usage).

In consonance with his proposed reading, the author of the Vivaraṇa proceeds to amplify and elucidate, in his own words, the last sentence in the Vyāsa passage above: katham?—yadā vyutthānasaṃskāro nirodha-saṃskāreṇādyo ’bhibhūyate tadā vartamānam adhvānaṃ hitvā vyutthāna-saṃskāro ‘tītam adhvānam upasampadya punar anāgataḥ san vartamāno (so to be read) bhavatīty asamanantaro ‘py anāgata eva samanantaro (so to be read) bhavaty atyītasyely ucyate. (The argument here seems to have as its model the mechanism of remembering: an ordinary conscious cognitive event— an instance of vyutthāna, ‘extraversion’—turning into a saṃskāra, a latent subliminal impression, which in turn is again actualized as a recalled cognitive event.) This is reasonably well conveyed in Leggett's translation (transl. p. 304, paragraph 6): ‘How so? When a saṃskāra of extraversion is first overcome by a saṃskāra of inhibition, that saṃskāra of extraversion comes into the time-period [i.e. the time-phase] of the past, having left the time-period [i.e. the time-phase] of the present. But it is something yet-to-come again in the future, which then becomes present, though not in direct sequence (from the past). This is why it is said [by Vyāsa] that it is only the future which follows the past.’ For the Yoga theory of time cf. also sūtras 4.12–13 cum commentaries. As applied to the doctrine of rebirth, the same cyclical theory of time is implicit in Bhagavadgītā 2.28:

avyaktddTni bhutdni vyakta-madhydni bhdrata/

avyākta-nidhanāny eva talra kā paridevanā//

‘Bhārata, in their beginning creatures are unmanifest (i.e. subsist in the future, in potentia); in their intermediate state they are manifest (i.e. exist in the present, in actu); in their final state they are (again) unmanifest (i.e. subsist in the past); why lament over this?’ As in the doctrine of the Buddhist Vaibhāṣikas the underlying view here is that things considered as eternal have two modes of subsistence: actuality and non-actuality. For further consideration cf. Stcherbatsky, Th., The central conception of Buddhism (repr. Calcutta, 1956), 31 fGoogle Scholar.; monograph, S. Schayer's (Contributions to the problem of time in Indian philosophy (Krakow, 1983)Google Scholar, passim; Braj M., Sinha, Time and temporality in Sāmkhya-Yoga and the Abhidharma Buddhism (New Delhi, 1983)Google Scholar; Anindita Niyogi, Balslev, A study of time in Indian philosophy (Wiesbaden, 1983)Google Scholar. Also cf. Pines, S. and Gelblum, T., ‘Al-BIrunrs Arabic version of Patanjali's Yogasutra’, fourth ch., ‘Excursus’, BSOAS, LII, 2, 1989, 273 ffGoogle Scholar.

12 Concerning which cf. Wezler, ‘Remarks&’, n. 30. Also cf. Leggett, 17.

13 Thus e.g. the Sanskrit text, p. 58,1. 18 seq. offers a series of formal inferences arguing for the existence of God or his special nature. Cf. especially the last three paragraphs on p. 112 in Leggett's translation, where the probative force of the arguments is greatly diminished or blurred since the exemplifications appear to be treated as if they were literary ornamental similes, while ignoring their logical function as an element in a formal inference (anumānd), viz. as illustrating as well as asserting a universal relation of invariable concomitance between a probans (hetu) and a probandum (sādhya). In fact, the Vivaraṇa palpably and constantly follows the standard formal procedure or pattern of Indian logic, as in the Indian stock example of inference:

(1)(‘Statement of thesis’:) ‘The mountain possesses fire’;Google Scholar

(2) (‘Statement of the reason’:) ‘Because of smoke’;

(3) (‘Exemplification’:) ‘As in the kitchen’.

Here (3) is a citation of an example (udāharaṇa) to illustrate—and state—the logical relation between (1) and (2), as well as provide the evidence that there are in fact things which are loci of the generic character fireness and the generic character smoke-ness. In other words, the expression ‘as m a kitchen’ is an abbreviation of the statement ‘Where there is smoke there is fire, as in a kitchen etc.’ Hence the logical-technical significance of the ‘examples’ consisting of yantra, prāsāda and grha discussed below, in the next paragraph, all of which occur in the Vivaraṇa in the context of such formal inferences. (Cf. Matilal, B. K., Logic, language and reality: an introduction to Indian philosophical studies, (Delhi, 1985), ch iGoogle Scholar, ‘Logic in ancient and medieval India’.)

14 For a somewhat similar argument from design cf. sūtra 4.24: tad& parārthaṃ saṃhatyakāritvāt’ It (the mind)& exists for another's sake because of its functioning as an aggregate (or, conjointly with other things or ingredients)’—on which Vyāsa comments:&gṛhavat ‘like the case of a house (or, dwelling place)’. The latter expression is in turn explained by Vijiiañābhikṣu: gṛham hi śayanādi-kāryam āstaraṇa-śarīrādi-sāhāyyenaiva karoti ‘For it is precisely by association with (ingredients) such as a bed and a body that a dwelling place fulfils the function of (enabling) to lie down and rest.’ Also cf. Iśvarakṛṣṇa's Sāṅkhyakārikā, k. 17: saṃghāta-parārthatvāt& ‘Because an aggregate (invariably) exists for another's sake&’.

15 cf. Carakasamhitd, Sārīrasthāna, ch. III; also cf. Udayana's, Kiraṇāvalī, ed. in Musashi, Tachikawa, The structure of the world in Udayana's realism (Dordrecht, 1981), 124Google Scholar.

16 On the meaning of the term kaivalya, cf. Gelblum, T., ‘Sarikhya and Sartre’, Journal of Indian Philosophy. I, 1970, 77 ffGoogle Scholar.

17 cf. Purāṣa, Viṣṇu 6.7.33 seq. (quoted by Vyāsa under sūtra 1.28); Bhagavadgītā 17. 14–16Google Scholar. For further discussion of the term see Pines, Shlomo and Gelblum, Tuvia, ‘Al-Bīrūnī's Arabic version of Pataṣjali's Yogasūtra: a translation of the second chapter and a comparison with related texts‘, BSOAS XL, 3, 1977, n. 15, p. 530 fGoogle Scholar.

18 With sūtra 2.1 (tapaḥ-svādhyāyeṡvara-praṣidhānāni kriyā-yogaḥ) compare Vyāsa on sūtra 4.7: tapaḥ-svādhyāya-dhyānavatām, where dhyāna substitutes īṡvara-praṣidhāna. Also cf. the use of the term praṣidhāna in Vatsyayana commentary on Nyāyasūtra 3.2.41. For further discussion see S. Pines and T. Gelblum, loc. cit.

19 Thus, e.g., Prasada, Rama translates the sentence under consideration: ‘These acts of friendliness etc. are the sports of the thinkers …’ (Patanñjali's Yogasiitra… (Allahabad 1912), repr. New Delhi, 1978, 279)Google Scholar; Woods, J. H.: ‘As for friendliness and such (exalted states-of-mind), they are the diversions of contemplative (yogins)…’ (The Yoga-system of Patañjali…, (HOS, 17). Cambridge, Mass., 1927, 309)Google Scholar; Baba, Bengali: ‘… those which are friendship, etc., are the amusements of the meditators’ (Yogasūtra of Patañjali…, Delhi, 1976, 101)Google Scholar. The misinterpretation of vihdra under discussion has also been observed by Wezler, A. in an article entitled ‘On two medical verses in the YuktidTpikd’, Journal of the Ayurvedic Society, vol. I, 1990, 137Google Scholar. The article contains an elaborate study of the usages and applications of the term. Accordingly Wezler's proposed translation of the sentence under discussion r e a d s: ‘…are the activities [of the mind-stuff] of [yogins] practising meditation’. However, the meaning ‘exertion’, involving the notion of volition, rather than ‘activities’, would seem to be more appropriate in view of the evidence afforded by the two references, (a) from Vyāsa on sutra 3.15 (see note 23 below) and (b) from Vātsyāyana on Nyāyasūtra 1.1.11 adduced below.

20 Evidently mistaking vihāra here to have the same meaning as līlā, lit. ‘a play’, in the sense of ‘child's play, ease℉.

21 Also cf. Vyāsa on sūtra 3.23: maitrī-karuṣā-muditeti tisro bhāvanāḥ ‘Friendliness, compassion and sympathetic joy are the three attitudes-of-mind (i.e. sentiments or meditations) to be cultivated.’

22 cf. e.g. Visuddhi-Magga, PTS, 1920–1, 111Google Scholar.

23 This quotation consists of a verse reading:

nirodha-dharma-saṃskārāḥ pariṣāmo ‘tha jīvanam/

ceṣṭā ṡaktiṡ ca cittasya dharmā darṡana-varjitāḥ//

‘The (seven) characteristics of the mind which are subconscious (in contradistinction to pratyaya, “cognition”, which is self-illuminating) are: (1) suppression (of the mind's modes of functioning), (2) merit (and demerit; v.l.: karma), (3) subliminal impressions (inferred from memory; cf. Vācaspati ad loc.), (4) modification, (5) vitality, (6) exertion (ceṣṭā), and (7) potency.’ Also cf. the characterization of vihdra as vāg-deha-manaṡ-ceṣṭā-lakṣaṣa in Arunadatta's commentary on Vāgbhatta's Aṣṭdhgahṛdaya, Ṥārīrasthāna 3.44 (referred to by A. Wezler, ‘On two medical verses…’, p. 137, n. 54).

24 (ed.) Ganganatha Jha, Poona Oriental Series, No. 58 (Poona, 1939), 25.

25 The quoted verse reads:

utpatti-sthity-abhivyakti-vikāra-pratyayāptayaḥ/

viyogānyatva-dhṛtayaḥ kāraṣaṃ navadhā smṛtam//

26 cf. e.g. Vyāsa's elucidation of the term abhiniveśa (under sūtra 2.9) merely by referring to the case of fear of death or clinging to life. The latter, however, should not be taken as constituting a definition, but rather as an exemplification of the wider concept of abhinivesa, a blanket-term for obsessive attachments consisting of congenital instinctive drives, sexual as well as self-preservative. Cf. Filliozat, J., ‘The psychological discoveries of Buddhism’, in his Laghu-prabandhdh (Leiden, 1974), 147. Also cfGoogle Scholar. Pines, S. and Gelblum, T., ‘Al-būrūnū's version…’, BSOAS, XL, 3, 1977, n. 47, p. 536Google Scholar.

27 Also cf. Bhāṣyacchāyākhyavṛtt of Nāgeśa Bhaṭṭa (= Nāgojī Bhaṭṭa) ad loc. (summarizing Vijñānabhikṣu's elaboration here): yathā śabddāinā yat parvate ‘gni-jñānam jātam tasya pratyayajanakaṃ dhūma-jñānam; ānumānika-vahni-jñānaṃ tv abhivyaktyaiva saṃgṛhītam ‘For instance in a case where one has already been informed that there is fire on the mountain, the observation of smoke generates confidence (i.e. certitude—pratyaya) about it. As for inferential knowledge concerning the fire (i.e. a cognitive or ideational cause), it is included in (the other type of cause in the list, i.e. the one termed) “manifestation” (abhivyakti).’ Also cf. Vacaspati ad loc.

28 All available editions have the following reading of sūutra 3.36: tataḥ prātibha-śrāvaṣawdanādarśāsvāda-vārtājāyante. Given the emendation proposed below it may be translated: ‘From this there arise (supernal percepts which are) intuitive, auditory, tactile visual, gustatory and olfactory.’

29 cf. A. Wezler, ‘Philological observations…’, p. 31, paragraph 4.

30 cf. the definition of the term siddha in al-Bīrunī's, India (Kitdb fi tahqlq ma li'l-hind… [Arabic text], (Hyderabad, 1958), 70,11. 19 fGoogle Scholar.:

‘Siddha is he who has attained by his action the faculty to do in the world whatever he likes, but who does not aspire further, and does not exert himself on the path leading to liberation’ (transl. Sachau, E., London 1910, I, 93)Google Scholar. Cf. also op. cit., p. 63,11. 11 f. Also cf. Zvelebil, Kamil V., The poets of the powers (London, 1973), 27 ffGoogle Scholar.

31 cf. Vivaraṣa on 3.55: yat tu yoga-jñānam aiśvaryaṃ coktarn tat samyag-darśanārthānukrāntasattva-śuddhi-pada-mārgeṣa prakrāntam ānuṣahgikam (‘The yogic knowledge and power that have been described are a by-product (ānuṣaṅgika) brought about by way of the purity of (mind-)sattva, attained in the course of the pursuit of right vision (samyagdarśana)’, transl. Leggett, 363).

32 cf. Gelblum, Tuvia, ‘India's philosophies—whose presuppositions?’, BSOAS, xxvm, 2, 1965, 308 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.