It may come as a surprise to learn that a short section on the yogic road to nirvana is buried in one of the earliest Sanskrit medical treatises.
The Embodied Person or sarirasthana in the Compendium of Caraka or
Carakasamhita contains this tract, which is just thirty-nine lines long.
The Compendium is a medical encyclopedia that is said to be the first full work on traditional Indian medicine to survive.
Even more
remarkable is the discovery of multiple references to Buddhist meditation in
this yogic tract, as well as a previously undiscovered eightfold route leading
to the recall or awareness that is the key to nirvana.
Finally, Caraka's yoga tract probably definitely precedes Patanjali's well-known classical yoga system.
Let's take a look at each of these things one by one.
The body of medical theory and practice that was first
collected and synthesized in several great medical encyclopedias, including
especially the The Compendium of Caraka and The Compendium of Susruta or
Susrutasamhita, is the foundation of classical Indian medicine, Ayurveda, or "the
knowledge for long life."
However, early Sanskrit and Pali literature include indications of the development of this medicinal system.
The Mahabharata epic has the earliest mention of the Sanskrit word Ayurveda in Indian history.
The
epic also alludes to medicine as having eight components, a concept that has
grown so common in subsequent literature that the study of “eight components”
(astanga) is used interchangeably with medicine. Therapeutics, pediatrics,
possession, surgery, and toxicology are among the areas covered.
However, the oldest mention in Indian literature to a kind of medicine that is indisputably a predecessor of Ayurveda may be found in the teachings of the Buddha or fl. ca. 480–400 BCE, but these dates are still contested.
It was not yet termed Ayurveda, as far as we know, but the core
notions were the same as those that ultimately became the basis of Ayurveda.
The Pali Buddhist Canon, as we know it now, is thought to have been written
around 250 BCE and contains a pretty reliable account of what the Buddha
stated.
There is a narrative in the “Connected Sayings” or Samyutta Nikaya collection of Buddhist sermons about how the Buddha was approached by a monk named Sivako who questioned him if sickness is caused by poor karma, or evil acts committed in the past.
No, according to the Buddha, poor karma is only one part of the equation, and illness might be caused by any of eight reasons.
Bile, phlegm, wind, and their pathological combinations, as well as seasonal changes, the stress of uncommon activity, external action, and the ripening of evil karma, were among the variables he identified.
This is the
first time these medical categories and explanations have been integrated in a
systematic manner in historical Indian history.
The word "pathological mixture," or Pali sannipata, is particularly telling: it's an ayurvedic technical word that's as precise as a modern establishment doctor declaring "hemoglobin levels."
This word indicates that the
Buddha's list of illness causes was compiled in an environment where a corpus
of systematic technical medical knowledge existed.
And it was these same qualities that subsequently
constituted the foundation of ayurveda, or ancient Indian medicine. The
historical relationship between ascetic traditions like Buddhism and ayurveda
is significant. When was Caraka's Compendium published? This work's timeline is
convoluted. The text already says that it was written by three persons. Caraka
modified or pratisamskrta an early text by Agnivesa.
Drdhabala finished Caraka's work afterwards. In his History of Indian Medical Literature, Jan Meulenbeld has meticulously examined the important historical topics.
“Caraka cannot have lived later than roughly AD
150–200 and not much earlier than 100 BC,” Meulenbeld says after examining the
Nyaya, Vaisesika, and Buddhist elements found in Caraka's Compendium.
- What does this date have to do with the origins of classical yoga?
- Is Caraka's Compendium's yoga tract to be dated before or after Patanjali's classical yoga?
Philipp Maas of 2006 has provided a compelling reassessment
of the authorship, title, and date of the texts commonly known as the Yoga Stra
and the Vyasabhasya, but which collectively call themselves the
Patanjalayogasastra, or Patanjali's Teaching on Yoga, in his authoritative new
edition of the "Samadhi" chapter of Patanjali's work on yoga.
Maas presents three important claims based on meticulous
argumentation and evidence:
- 1. The Patanjalayogasastra text, consisting of the undivided Stra and its commentary, the Bhasya, is a single work attributed to a single author.
- 2. The author's name is Patanjali.
- 3. This unified work is thought to have been written about the year 400 CE. According to Maas, the first allusions to "Vedavyasa" as the author of a Bhasya are found in the writings of Vacaspatimisra or fl. approx. 975–1000, in his Tattvavaisaradi; and Ksemaraja or fl. approx. 950–1050, in his Svacchandatantroddyota.
Authors such as Madhava and the fifteenth-century
Sarvadarsanasamgraha frequently allude to Patanjali's Yogasastra, his
Samkhyapravacana, or his Yoga Stra, and to Vyasa as the author of the Bhasya,
beginning in the eleventh century.
However, Vacaspati, the first of these revisionist authors,
mentions Patanjali as the author of a section of the Bhasya elsewhere. Vacaspati
seems to be unsure whether stra and bhasya were written by the same author. In
reality, early authors such as sridhara in his approx. 991 CE Nyayakandali,
Abhinavagupta in his ca. 950 CE Abhinavabharati, and others shared this
viewpoint.
The oldest form of the work's title in manuscript chapter colophons, according to Maas, was possibly Patanjalayogasastra-samkhyapravacana, or "Patanjali's Samkhya Teaching that is the Treatise on Yoga."
Maas contends, based on this and internal
textual considerations, that Patanjali took yoga components from previous
sources and added his own explanatory sections to create the cohesive book that
has been regarded as the work of two persons from around 1100 CE.
The excerpts were called stras and attributed to Patanjali,
whilst the explanations and additional notes were called bhasyas and attributed
to Vyasa, which means "editor" in Sanskrit. Maas acknowledges that
the chronology of the Patanjalayogasastra is a matter of conjecture, but points
to likely citations by Magha or in his 600–800 CE sisupalavadha, Vrsabhadeva or
fl. ca. 650 CE, and Gaudapada or in his ca. 500 CE commentary on Isvarakrsna's
Samkhyakarikas.
According to Maas, the Patanjalayogasastra was recognized as
an authoritative expression of yoga philosophy by the beginning of the sixth
century. It would have taken a long time for such a reputation to develop.
Patanjali's apparent connection with Vasubandhu's Vijnanavada doctrine in the fourth century, as argued by Woods or 1914, is the earliest plausible date for the Patanjalayogasastra. According to Maas, the Patanjalayogasastra was composed sometime between 325 and 425 CE.
Whatever the
nuances of the arguments, it is beyond a reasonable doubt that the Compendium
of Caraka predates the Patanjalayogasastra, that the yoga tract in the
Compendium is older than Patanjali's yoga system, and that it promotes a yoga
system that is more closely related to Vaisesika philosophy than Patanjali's
Samkhya.
Yoga Tract of Caraka Caraka initially presents yoga as both spiritual emancipation and the means of reaching it in the yoga on the genesis and structure of the human person, the sarirasthana.
The Vaisesikastra is
quoted directly in verses 138–39. Caraka follows with a description of the
supernatural abilities that yoga practitioners gain as a result of their
self-discipline and focus capacity. This is consistent with Patanjali's
teaching on siddhis, as well as typical notions about the outcome of yoga
practice in Indian literature.
The descriptions in the Buddhist canonical book, the
Samannaphalasutta of the Digha Nikaya, when describing the monk who has
accomplished the four meditations or Pali jhana, are among the earliest roots
of the belief that meditation confers magical capabilities.
The following are the powers that come from being
integrated, or samahita:
- 1. kayavasa, or the ability to duplicate oneself, disappear, fly through walls, and even touch the sun or moon
- 2.divine hearing knowledge, or dibbasotanana
- 3.cetopariyanana (mind-reading)
- 4.pubbenivasanussatinana (remembering previous lifetimes)
- 5.divine sight, also known as dibbacakkhu
- 6.understanding of asavakkhaya, or the removal of negative forces.
Many of the essential concepts used in this list of six powers are the same as those used in Caraka's yoga tract when describing the eight capabilities that yoga practice may bring about. Caraka frames a new eightfold practice leading to remembrance, or Skt. smrti, and places remembrance at the very core of yogic practice, which is very fascinating.
Recollection,
according to Caraka, leads to yoga, which leads to the attainment of
supernatural abilities and ultimate emancipation.
The terminology and conception of this passage in the
medical literature fits it clearly within the Buddhist mindfulness meditation
tradition, or Pali satipatthana, which is also known as vipassana. In the
Buddhist tradition, the Pali term sati or Sanskrit smrti can signify memory in
two separate connotations, as Gyatso in 1992 has shown.
To begin with, it defines memory as the basic recall of events from a previous period of time, the mental process necessary to answer queries like “what did I eat for breakfast?”
In a second definition, it refers
to the expansion of one's awareness, or sensory knowledge of the current
moment.
This is the kind of vigilant self-recollection that people
have during unique or startling times in their lives, or as a result of serious
meditation practice. Such moments of reflection or awareness can often lead to
long-term recollections of the first type, known as "flashbulb
recollections."
The Sanskrit smrti-upasthana relates to the Pali compound
phrase sati-patthana, which refers to the meditational practice that leads to
remembrance or mindfulness.
And in verse 146, Caraka's text employs these exact terms to
characterize the one moral and spiritual activity that leads to all the others.
They are the result of "staying in the remembrance of reality," or
tattva-smrter upasthanat in Sanskrit. Caraka inverts the cause-effect
relationship in the next line, 147: it is the practice of the qualities
enumerated in 143–44 that leads to recall.
Finally, in verse 147, the ultimate objective of remembering
is identified with liberation from suffering, Sanskrit duhkha, which is also
the basic teaching of Buddhism. In verses 152 and 153, the idea of suffering
and impermanence is reintroduced in Buddhist terms.
Caraka's usage of these Buddhist meditational and doctrinal
keywords demonstrates unequivocally that his yoga tract is an adaptation of
extremely old ascetic material, mostly from Buddhism.
Given this, the note at the conclusion of verse 149, which
aligns remembrance with the ordinary-language definition of memory, i.e.,
recalling earlier experience, is all the more startling.
This statement might be seen as an afterthought by an author
unfamiliar with the Buddhist idea of recall or mindfulness that underpins this
tract. Because memory is at the heart of Caraka's yoga approach, the eightfold
way to remembrance outlined in verses 148 and 149 is particularly intriguing.
This looks to be an early “eightfold path” whose origins and
meaning are unknown and require additional investigation. It has no clear
connections to other early kinds of yogic route, such as the Maitrayaniya
Upanisad's sixfold route or Patanjali's Patanjalayogasastra's eightfold route.
Caraka's eight steps to mindfulness begin with the
development of perception and discrimination.
Although the same word implies, as it frequently does,
"thought" at the conclusion of verse 141, the fifth step might signify
an attachment to sattva in the sense of the Samkhya guna of purity.
The sixth phase, practice, can allude to mindfulness
training, but it may also relate to memory in the traditional sense.
The seventh phase, yoga of knowing, reminds me of the
Bhagavadgita's famed teachings on this subject, where real gnosis leads to
nirvana. Caraka's Compendium, on the other hand, demonstrates no knowledge of
the Gita.
The final step, "what is heard again," is a little
strange in syntax because it isn't quite a procedural step in a path. It was,
however, plainly intended to be the eighth "step." It implies
memorizing once more, rather than awareness in the Buddhist sense. Verse 151
closes with a fresh set of inquiries.
The Samkhya school's philosophers are often said to be those
who "count" or "reckon" or samkhyathe twenty-five tattvas
or evolutes of the universe's genesis. Caraka, on the other hand, has the
Samkhyas counting dharmas rather than tattvas in verse 151.
This clearly supports the usage of the term dharma, or Pali dhamma, in the sense of "entity," "basic phenomenon," or even more neutrally "thing," and may even imply the Buddhist Abhidharma literature's enumerative and descriptive features. Verse 153, which is a direct equivalent of Samkhyakarika 64, maintains the Samkhya link.
Caraka's yoga tract is an early and deeply syncretic treatise on the yoga path.
Its desire to synthesis across philosophical divisions is seen by its
quotations from Vaisesika and Samkhya treatises.
The Buddhist technical jargon, as well as the text's emphasis on mindfulness as the most crucial yogic practice leading to freedom, hit us the most.
This shows that Caraka included an old yoga practice based on
Buddhist smrti cultivation practices into his medicinal work. Caraka's yoga
tract was well-received among the Sanskrit literary community.
It was reproduced by the author of the Yajnavalkyasmrti in the fourth or fifth century, and from there into still another text, the Visnusmrti.
As a result, its ideas attracted a large audience outside of the
medical community.
You may also want to read more about Ayurveda and Holistic Healing here.
You may also want to read more about Yoga here.
You may also want to read more about Mindfulness Meditation and Healing here.