Hinduism, Buddhism and Haṭha Yoga - A Review of the book "THE AMṚTASIDDHI" By JamesMallinson

 

Hinduism, Buddhism and Haṭha Yoga

[A Review of the book "THE AMṚTASIDDHI AND THE AMṚTASIDDHIMŪLA — The Earliest Texts of the Haṭhayoga Tradition" by James Mallinson and Péter-Dániel Szántó]

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

This book is published (2022) by the "Institut Français de Pondichéry École Française d'extrême Orient" as part of the Haṭha Yoga Project, Collection Indologie-150, HaṭhaYoga Series-2, and is written mainly by (Sir) James Mallinson, a British Indologist noted for his particular study of the Haṭhayoga tradition in India.

This book is important because it sets out in detail the text and translation , for people interested in the study of the history of Yoga in India, of perhaps the earliest extant texts on the subject of the particular physical aspect of Yoga, known specifically as Haṭhayoga (as distinct from the larger and deeper school of dārśanik philosophy in which this physical aspect is rooted), which immediately springs to the mind of the lay man when he hears the word Yoga.

The school of Yoga philosophy itself is known to be quite ancient: the earliest known text (or at least the earliest official text which lays out the principles of this philosophy), the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, is generally dated to the Mauryan period, which was the time when most known ancient Sanskrit texts were committed to writing, although official western academic sources generally dump many of these texts into a time frame several centuries later: Wikipedia, for example, in its article on "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali", tells us that this text "was compiled in the early centuries CE, by the sage Patanjali in India who synthesized and organized knowledge about yoga from much older traditions". The last four words alone point to the unstated truth that these traditions were very much older than the date of their actual compilation (let alone the date insisted upon by western academia).

However, when it comes to the physical aspects of Yoga, represented by āsanas, breathing techniques, cleansing techniques, etc., the general academic consensus is even more niggardly in its dating: most people date the physical aspects of Yoga to some period in the 15th century CE on the basis of texts like the Haṭhayogapradīpikā which more or less belongs to that period. No matter that this text already lists at least 35 earlier masters of this physical Yoga, including the traditional figure of Matsyendranāth (dated to the early 10th century CE) the founder of the Nāth Sampradaya, who is credited with reviving and codifying the principles of this physical Yoga. The detailed research by scholars like Mallinson confirms this earlier date at least, when he studies, translates and publishes in detail earlier works like the Amṛtasiddhi (a text first brought to the attention of modern scholars by Kurtis Schaeffer in an article published as recently as 2002, as Mallinson points out on p.4 in his Introduction to the book) which dates back to the 11th century CE and cites it as the earliest text of Haṭhayoga, several centuries before the Haṭhayogapradīpikā.

Generally, this book by Mallinson would be of special interest to those specializing in deeper studies of Yoga or Haṭhayoga, rather than to the lay person. However, like most things having to with Indian culture or the Hindu heritage, this topic also has its important historical-political issues and implications which require to be examined thoroughly. Let me state at the outset that the historical-political aspects that will be dealt in this article have less to do with the book itself or the scholars writing it, as it seems to me that it is a purely academic and scholarly work with of course the usual western presumptions underlying the enterprise. The historical-political issues are ongoing ones, which the book actually helps us to place in their proper perspective. The ongoing issues are, first, the geographical and historical origins and beginnings of Haṭhayoga, and, second, the place of Hinduism and Buddhism in relation to Haṭhayoga and each other. We will deal with the two subjects in the opposite order:

I. Haṭhayoga: Hindu or Buddhist?

II. The Geographical and Historical Beginnings of Haṭhayoga.

 

I. Haṭhayoga: Hindu or Buddhist?

This question, which would have been laughed at two thousand years ago (when Buddhism and Jainism were two of countless religious/philosophical systems originating in India, and having their internal conceptual differences with each other and each within itself) has become very important in the present day world of what Rajiv Malhotra correctly classified as the Breaking India forces, where carving out different Indian religions from the Hindu family of religions and setting them up as bitter rivals or adversaries of the main body of Hindu religions, while aligning them with foreign and anti-Indian religious forces, is the predominant politically correct order of the day. One has only to go through the mass of modern mass media, and academic papers and books, and the internet madhouse (a troll with a pseudo-Chinese Buddhist name, for example, seems to have made it his life's mission to continuously troll Koenraad Elst on this subject on twitter), to see how the Hindu-vs.-Buddhist game is regularly played out on a war footing. A study of this book shows the solid Hindu-Buddhist common heritage.

Schaeffer had pointed out in 2002 that this text is "part of a hybrid theory of yogic theory and practice" which "cannot be comfortably classified as Buddhist or non-Buddhist", and that it "embodies the shared traditions of praxis and teaching", shared between tantrik Buddhist and tantrik Shaiva sources (SCHAEFFER 2002:517-523). However, Mallinson insists that the text comes from an exclusively tantric Buddhist tradition and not from tantrik Shaiva ones.

The first view recognizes the common shared tradition, while the second insists that the text belongs to a purely Buddhist tradition: but, ironically, the second view of the text even more sharply underlines and emphasizes the truth that actually even the purest Buddhist traditions are inevitably common shared traditions, as we will see below.

"Features of the Amṛtasiddhi which identify it as Buddhist have been analysed in MALLINSON 2020a. These include the opening invocation of the goddess Chinnamastā; the primary elements numbering four (6.2); the use of specifically Buddhist terminology such as chandoha (1.16), kūṭāgāra (7.10), buddha (7.15), svādhiṣṭhānayoga (8.9 and 10.11), trivajra (8.21) and trikāya (29.2). To these may be added the following: mahāpuṇyānubhāvena (1.20), abhedya (7.26), śūnya/śūnyatā (8.2, 19.15), citta-saṃtāna (8.12), sarvajñā (8.16, 18.2, 20.4), sabrahmāṇḍarasātalāt (13.8), abhiṣeka (13.15), garvah (13.16), mahākāruṇika (18.1), niṣpanna (19.2), jñānasaṃbhṛti/jñānasaṃbhāra (6.9, 20.2-3, 30.6), the four kṣaṇas (19.15, 20.7, 25.1, 31.1; on these see page 18), nabhaḥsama (26.1), prabhāsvara (30.1), jina (30.14) and buddhabodhi (colophon verse 9); the yogācāra/cittamātra flavour of viveka 8; the triad of kāya, vāk and citta (passim); and the echoes of Bodhicāryāvatāra 1.19cd at Amṛtasiddhi 36.7" (Introduction, p.4, fn.4).

Note that all these words are purely Sanskrit words, exuding a purely Hindu milieu and environment. It is possible that the specific way in which they are used, or the special nuance to the words in their contexts in the text, are specifically Buddhist. But note that a different goddess (how many lay persons will know Chinnamastā as a specifically Buddhist Goddess, when there are literally thousands of Goddesses with similar names in the vast Hindu repertoire?) or a hinted different classification of categories (four primary elements, four kṣaṇas, etc) may at the most identify the particular sect or the specific philosophical school, maybe a Buddhist sect or school, but why should this place the text into an emphatically non-Hindu category, except that the present political compulsions of the anti-Hindu politics of the Breaking India forces require that a dichotomy be emphasized between Buddhist elements and other Hindu elements?

Note, just for example, the single most significant word in the above list, "buddha (7.15)". Like all the other words and philosophical categories given by Mallinson above as evidence of the Buddhist character of the text, this may indeed indicate — or perhaps it does indeed indicate — that this is a specifically Buddhist text. But then there are thousands of different sects and schools of philosophy within Hinduism which have their own words, personages and philosophical categories which would mark out their texts as belonging to their particular sects or schools of philosophy, without this indicating any kind of schism within, or opposition to, the larger Hindu identity. And a closer look at the whole of this particular verse in the text reveals the bigger picture. The full verse 7.15, as given by Mallinson, is as follows:

"Bindu is Buddha, Bindu is Śiva, Bindu is Viṣṇu, [Bindu is] Brahmā, Bindu is the God in all [beings], Bindu is the mirror of the three worlds (trailokyadarpaṇaḥ)" (p.121).

Can there be clearer testimony that the Buddhist identity within the larger Hindu identity is being declared outright by the text?

The full text exudes a Hindu atmosphere, or, should one say, a Buddhist atmosphere mired deeply in a Hindu base. If the word abhiṣeka. which Mallinson above treats as a sign of the Buddhist character of the text is actually a prominent Vedic ritual word appearing from the other Samhitas and Brahmana texts onwards, it only shows the continuity from "Vedic" to "Buddhist" phraseology.

But an automatic tendency to miss such a continuity can lead to strange failures to understand the meanings. Thus, the very second of thirty-five chapters (immediately after the first chapter which is a kind of preamble to the text and deals with the human body and its constituents) extols the Goddess Sarasvati in eight verses (out of a total of 303 verses in the entire text) as the "Goddess of the Centre" of the human body. Verse 1 calls her madhyā (the Centre of the body). Verse 4 calls her mahāvidyā, the "Great Knowledge", which is hard even for the Gods to attain, and the Creator of all beings and the Destroyer of Ignorance. Verse 6 enumerates her various names, Avadhūtī , Suṣumnā and Sarasvatī. Verse 7 says all elements in the human body depend on her. Verse 8 tells us (Mallinson's translation): "She flows between Gaṅgā and Yamunā [….] After bathing in the confluence of those [three channels], the fortunate ones go to the ultimate destination" (p.112).

In short, every feature pertaining to Sarasvati in Hinduism is represented here: Sarasvati as the centre of the Vedic world, Sarasvati as the Goddess of Knowledge, Sarasvati as part of the triveṇi saṅgam where bathing at the confluence leads to liberation. Can anything be more Hindu?

But a failure to make this connection leads to a surprising comment from Mallinson. In his footnote to verse 4, he tells us: "mahāvidyā: the implication of this epithet for the central channel, which is found in all witnesses, is obscure to us. It may be a corruption of mahādivyā, "very divine" (we thank Csaba Kiss for this suggestion)" (p.111) [By "witnesses", he means the various recensions of the text].

But the implication of this would not be obscure and would be instantly recognized by anyone who is not consciously translating Buddhist texts with a predetermined disregard to common Hindu phrases: anyone knowing Hindu phraseology would immediately recognize mahāvidyā (and not the suggested mahādivyā) as a common epithet of Sarasvati the Goddess of Knowledge or Vidyā.

So yes, the oldest extant text on Haṭha Yoga is indeed an emphatically Buddhist text, but the more emphatically it can be called a specifically Buddhist text, the more emphatically it actually emphasizes the point that Buddhism is not something distinct and separate from (let alone inimical to) Hinduism, but essentially a part and parcel of the broader milieu that is Hinduism.

 

But, from the fact that the first systematically written extant text on Haṭha Yoga is a Buddhist text, can it be said that Haṭha Yoga is a specifically Buddhist invention or innovation as distinct from a system that was common to all Indian religions? The Haṭha Yoga series of which this book is a part certainly does not say so. In fact we are told: "Yoga is central to Indian religious practice and culture. From probable origin among heterodox ascetics in the first millennium BCE, it gradually became part of almost all of India's religious traditions [….] Some ascetic physical practices are as ancient as Yoga itself, while others appear to be innovations introduced at the beginning of the second millennium CE" (in the introduction to the series before the title page), which leaves it an open question as to which specific practices go back to the first millennium BCE and which were introduced at the beginning of the second millennium CE, since there is no exact documentation to draw this distinction.

Further:

1. The reference to heterodox ascetics in the first millennium BCE is confirmed by the Buddhist text Mahasaccaka Sutta, which describes, in a dialogue between the Buddha and a person named Saccaka "the son of Jain parents", various such heterodox ascetics (Pūraṇa Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesakambala, Pakudha Kaccāyana, Sañjaya Belaṭṭhiputta, and Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta) and the various physical and mental practices of these ascetics. As the text is a Buddhist text, it naturally describes the particular practices of these ascetics in extreme and disparaging if vague terms, and as inadequate to satisfy or give liberation in contrast with the practices of the Buddha, but it confirms at least that even at the time of the Buddha, there were various different physical and mental disciplines which were not specifically Buddhist or even Buddhist-approved, being practiced in India, which we would now classify by the term Haṭha Yoga.

2. The main issue, ignored by people who draw a sharp distinction between Yoga of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and what they would call "latter-day or modern Yoga" of the Haṭhayoga Pradīpika and modern practice, is that while the Yoga Sutras elaborate mainly on the philosophical aspects of Yoga, that is because the purpose behind Patanjali's text was to elaborate on these philosophical aspects, and so the physical aspects of Yoga are only touched upon lightly (and perhaps, as at present, actual learning from a guru was considered more advisable than setting out the details in writing). But the fact that these physical aspects not only existed but were a basic and intrinsic part of the practice of Yoga is not a matter of speculation or wishful thinking, since the text clearly states at the very outset that yama (restraint), niyama (discipline), āsana (body postures), prāṇāyāma (breath control), pratyāhāra (control over senses), dhāraṇā (keeping the mind steady), dhyāna (when mind is fixed on internal or external point) and samādhi (supra-conscious absorption into the true nature of self) are the eight limbs of Patanjali’s Yoga. This text is the primary text of one of the six Hindu darshanas (or official or orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy), and it is not even the initiator of this philosophy: it is known and recorded that the text (which western academics date from 200 BCE-200 CE, but then, even if we accept that date, it can only be the date when the final text was frozen or set down in writing, and not the date of its first composition) and the traditions associated with it assert that Patanjali is the culmination of a long line of predecessors.

3. Finally, as pointed out earlier, though not noted in the book by Mallinson, the earliest actual artistic depictions of people in Yoga positions is found as far back as the Vedic-Harappan Civilization in the northwest, long before the Buddhist era, where the presence of innumerable small figurines of people in Yogic asanas is no secret (and can be checked on the internet).

 

Another important point to be noted about this text is that it is a flourishing Buddhist text from Maharashtra from the 11th century CE, a period long after the date of Adi Shankaracharya (whatever that date is taken to be: I will not enter into that controversy here), and it still shows a marvelous intrinsic harmony between "Hinduism" and "Buddhism" — something which goes against the popular narrative (popular among both political Buddhists and orthodox Hindus) that Adi Shankaracharya traveled all over India in order to defeat Buddhism in debates and that he was responsible for Buddhism becoming almost extinct in India as a popular religion. It was not Hinduism or any Hindu king, sage or sect, which wiped out Buddhism from India, but, as Dr. Ambedkar very emphatically asserts in his books on the subject, it was iconoclastic Islam which wiped out Buddhism from all the Indian areas where it was flourishing. It's savage march eastwards was brought to a halt from moving further east into Buddhist areas in northern Asia only because it met the formidable forces of Genghis Khan who brought their steamroller to a grinding halt and paid the warriors of Islam back in their own coins with interest.

This narrative, in any case, ignores the fact that in ancient India every school of philosophy and every religious sect entered into philosophical debates with every other school and sect in a manner which followers of Abrahamic religions will fail to understand: without rancor and violence. The most famous episode among Adi Shankaracharya's debates was the one with Mandana Mishra, the exponent of the Vedic philosophical system of Pūrva Mīmāṁsā . And in later times, there were similar spirited debates between the followers of Advaita and Dvaita philosophies, both being two variants of what is called Vedānta or Uttara Mīmāṁsā. And there was no rigidity in practice, whatever the beliefs: it is significant that Adi Shankaracharya was the composer of the very "dvaita" composition Bhaja Govindam. The Buddhist text Amṛtasiddhi is one more example of the amicable and harmonious relations between different Indian=Hindu sects or schools of philosophy.

 

II. The Geographical and Historical Beginnings of Haṭhayoga

The testimony for Haṭha Yoga goes far back into time:

1. Before the year 2002, when this important 11th century CE work on Haṭhayoga was brought to the attention of the academic world by Schaeffer, it was generally claimed by most academicians that the Haṭha Yoga of physical practices was a much more recent phenomenon as compared to the philosophical Yoga enshrined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali — as recent as the 15th century CE. The academic discovery of the Amṛtasiddhi by Schaeffer, and its systematic translation by Mallinson, already takes the date back to the 11th century CE for the compilation of the text itself.

2. The origins of Haṭha Yoga practices are recorded in the second half of the 1st millennium BCE in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which record the basic divisions of Yoga such as yama (restraint), niyama (discipline), āsana (body postures), prāṇāyāma (breath control), pratyāhāra (control over senses), dhāraṇā (keeping the mind steady), dhyāna (when mind is fixed on internal or external point) and samādhi (supra-conscious absorption into the true nature of self).

3. Earlier indirect textual references testifying to the existence of different physical and mental disciplines and practices go back into the period of the Buddha, in the first half of the 1st millennium BCE.

4. Finally, actual figurines depicting yogāsanas go far back into time, into the period of the Vedic-Harappan civilization (roughly 3500-1900 BCE).

 

Geographically, also, the all-India sweep of Haṭha Yoga in its different forms is independently testified from different parts of Hindu India:

1. The Haṭhayoga Pradīpika was probably a northern text, but the Amṛtasiddhi was a text of the South or Deccan: Mallinson specifies (p.3) that it was written in the area of present-day Maharashtra with echoes in Telugu texts from further South.

2. Most of the translations and recensions of the text are found in Tibetan, to the north of the Himalayas (p.3).

3. The "heterodox ascetics in the first millennium BCE", who were known for a wide variety of physical and mental practices and exercises, were in eastern India, in and around Bihar.

4. The oldest representations of yogic āsanas are found in the northwest, in the Harappan areas of present-day Pakistan, and later depictions of yogic āsanas are found in temples and pictorial art not only all over India but even in southeast Asia.

 

It is unfortunate that all this, i.e. the ancient, all-India and Hindu provenance of Haṭha Yoga, has to be explained and elaborated at length as if it is not indisputably obvious; but the fact that it becomes necessary to do so is testimony to the abysmal level to which present-day politics in India as well as in the western academic world, dominated by forces which want to Break India, has sunk.