Yoga
In addition to the disciplines of the householder and the correct preparation
and eating of foods, room was left open for more stringent disciplines,
especially those in which the male might engage after his sons had grown.
Even in one’s lifetime, household rituals came to be perceived as a form of
“sacrifice” continuing the Vedic metaphor, albeit without a massive sacrificial
complex. The technique known as yogaserved as the sacrifice par excellence.
Derived from the term yuj(yoke),yogahad been used in the later
Upanis.adsas a generic term for the techniques to attain moks.a(liberation).
Sometime around the middle of the second century BCE, the Yogasu ̄ tras,
ascribed to a sage called Patañjali, were written. Herein we find the spelling
out of the ways in which the body could be homologized to the cosmos
and became “sacred space.” It was a form of ritual; indeed it was sacrifice;
in fact the Bhagavadgı ̄ta ̄’s discussion of yogic techniques began with a refer-
ence to the myth of the primal sacrifice. Meditation was tapas, inner heat
- the sacrificial system was internalized: the yogin’s backbone was the
hiran.yagarbha;cakras(circles) rendered the body congruent to the universe.
Some forms of yogawere clearly borrowed from Jainism and Buddhism.
Such was the case with the system known as laya yoga(ethical yoga) and here
two forms of ethical behavior were prescribed: yama(restraint) was the
path of refraining from activities believed to be injurious (hence, the practice
of celibacy, non-stealing, and others); on the other hand, niyamawas an ethic
of commission – taking appropriate action that prepared the person for
further exercises. Hat.ha yogawas the term given for the use of the body
ritually. This included, most particularly, hundreds of a ̄ sanas– postures
designed to enhance the body–cosmos equation. The lotus posture, for
example, was intended to place the seeker at the “beginning of the universe”
where the lotus was first thought to have arisen. Pra ̄n.ayamaor breath control
included techniques thought to purify the mythical channels which permit
the flow of the five breaths of which Upanis.adic sages had spoken. Finally,
there were developed stages of yogawhich were focused in the mind and
known as ra ̄ ja yoga(the “king” of yogas). These stages and techniques
includedpratya ̄ha ̄ra(control of the senses); dha ̄ran.a(focusing on a symbolic
object – for example, an icon, the navel); dhya ̄na(the term from which
Chan, Zen, and Thien came, names for schools of Buddhism in China,
Japan, and Vietnam respectively) was the capacity to meditate or approach
insight in a way that transcended any object or word. It was “wordless
contemplation” and the penultimate stage to the attainment of transcendent
consciousness (sama ̄ dhi), the final stage the seeker would attain.^28
No doubt this system had its roots in the Upanis.adic setting where
asceticism and the forest life took high priority. Yet yogacontinued as a viable
68 The Urban Period