Yoga ̄ng ̇ ̄anuÓsÓth ̄an ̄ad a ́suddhi-kÓsaye jñana-d ̄ ̄ıptir ̄a viveka-khyathe ̄ Óh.
By practice of the components of Yoga, which destroy impurity,
higher knowing shines forth, reaching up to discriminative knowing.
YS 2:28Yama-niyamasana-pr ̄ a ̄Ónay ̄ ̄ama-praty ̄ah ̄ara-dhara ̄ Ón ̄a-dhyana-sam ̄ adhayo’ ̄
ÓsÓt ̄ava ̇ng ̄ani.
Yoga’s eight components are: moral self-restraints, moral obser-
vances, posture, regulation of breath, withdrawal of the senses, concen-
tration, meditation, and meditative trance.
YS 2:29In an analysis of the four-fold division of the Yoga- ́s ̄astra, the Åyurvedic
medical science, and the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, A. Wezler dis-
cusses the term arogya ̄ , ‘health’ (a‘not,’ rogya‘broken,’ from √ruj, ‘to
break’). Wezler notes that ̄arogyaconnotes restorationto a condition free
of disease, presupposing an original state of health.^92 In this vein, Halb-
fass suggests that an important bridge between medical and soteriologi-
cal ‘health’ in the Indian traditions is:
... an appeal to the idea of a “return” in a non-temporal sense, a redis-
covery and retrieval of an identity and an inherent, underlying perfec-
tion that has always been there, and that has to be freed from obscura-
tion, confusion, and disturbance.^93
His analysis of Sanskrit terms for health indicates that self-identity is
central to a concept of health that bridges medical theory and soteriology.
Svasthya ̄ , ‘abiding in oneself’ connotes:
... “coinciding with oneself,” being in one’s true, natural state, free
from obstruction; it is a state of health and balance as well as of identity
and true self-understanding, “being oneself” in a physical as well as a
cognitive sense.^94
Halbfass observes that in the Indian conception of liberation, met-
aphysics ultimately transcends medicine,^95 and that the ‘health’ that
Yoga offers “transcends all merely physical healing.’’^96 This interpreta-
tion accords with the view of healing expressed in theS ̄amkhya-kÓ ̄arik ̄a,
the text providing much of Yoga’s metaphysical foundation. Medicine
does not relieve suffering with certainty and finality, “therefore, one
should entertain a desire for knowledge of those means, other than
these evident means, which finally and completely remove misery”
(SKB 1.1).
classical yoga as a religious therapeutic 133