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1 Sāṃkhya, Yoga, and Sāṃkhyayoga
Hariharānanda Āraṇya and the Kāpil Maṭh tradition refer to their teachings as Sāṃkhyayoga, Sāṃkhya, and Yoga. The honorary title given to Āraṇya by his disciples and devotees was Sāṃkhyayogācārya. Ācārya means a specialist in the field of one or more of the śāstras (Sanskrit textual traditions of knowledge). A learned guru may be called ācārya to emphasize his scholarly qualities (see Hara 1980; Jacobsen 2011b), and this was the case with Āraṇya. Sāṃkhyayogācārya denotes a specialist in Sāṃkhyayoga. The term Sāṃkhyayoga has a double meaning and often both meanings are implied when the term is used. First, Sāṃkhyayoga means the “yoga tradition of Sāṃkhya” and a Sāṃkhyayogin is a follower of that tradition. Second, Sāṃkhyayoga may refer to the unified tradition of the Sāṃkhya and Yoga systems of religious thought, and a Sāṃkhyayogin is a follower of this unified tradition. The Yoga system of religious thought (Yoga with a capital Y) is now often referred to in the research literature as Pātañjalayoga, but in the Kāpil Maṭh tradition, it is called Sāṃkhyayoga and simply Yoga. Sāṃkhya and Yoga (i.e., Pātañjalayoga, Sāṃkhyayoga) are two of the so-called six Brāhmaṇical systems of religious thought (darśanas). In the medieval philosophical digests (nibandhas), the concept of six darśanas, or six Brāhmaṇical systems of philosophy (Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedānta) became widespread.1 Each darśana was a philosophical system with a foundational text and a number of commentary texts. These six systems became conceived of as three pairs because of their similarities: Sāṃkhya-Yoga, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, and Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā. It is because of the similarity between the Sāṃkhya and Yoga systems of religious thought that they are often “simply referred to together as the tradition of Sāṃkhyayoga” (Larson 2008: 23). For the followers of Kāpil Maṭh, the Yoga system is the “yoga tradition of Sāṃkhya” and is therefore called Sāṃkhyayoga. The Sāṃkhya and Yoga systems of religious thought are considered a unified tradition and are thus also covered by the term Sāṃkhyayoga. The followers of Kāpil Maṭh regard Sāṃkhya as the theory part and Yoga as the practice part of a single tradition.
The terms sāṃkhya and yoga
The terms “sāṃkhya” and “yoga” are ancient Sanskrit words. The Sanskrit word sāṃkhya relates to numbers and enumeration but its technical meaning also refers to “reasoning,” “reasoning method,” and “the method of salvific knowledge” (Edgerton 1924). As the name of a philosophical system, the term sāṃkhya refers to the method of enumerating the contents of experience and the world (Jacobsen 2011b: 685; Larson 2008: 3).
The term “yoga” has a number of meanings and references in addition to being a name of one of the systems of religious thought, the Yoga darśana. The basic meaning of yoga is as a disciplined method for attaining a goal and refers to techniques of controlling the body and the mind, spiritual discipline. Yoga is used in combination with other words, for example hatḥayoga, mantrayoga, and layayoga, as well as sāṃkhyayoga, which refer to traditions specializing in particular techniques of yoga. Yoga can also be the name of the goal of yoga practice, such as in the statements “yoga means union” or “yoga means concentration (samādhi)” or “yoga means the cessation of the transformation of awareness.” In Indian history, yoga has been one of the main forms of spiritual practice,2 and it has been linked with a great variety of theologies and philosophies.
The terms sāṃkhya and yoga were found in ancient Indian texts long before they became names of the systems. In the most ancient texts, there was neither a Sāṃkhya nor a Yoga system of religious thought (Edgerton 1924: 1–46). In the Mahābhārata, which is the most important text for understanding the early use of the terms, the words sāṃkhya and yoga mostly refer to methods of salvation rather than systems of religious thought, and even as late as in the Bhagavadgītā chapters of the text, sāṃkhya and yoga most probably do not yet refer to systems but to ways of acquiring salvation. Sāṃkhya referred to “salvation by knowing,” which implies renunciation of action, whereas one of the meanings of yoga was salvation by performing disciplined unselfish activities (Edgerton 1924: 4). While this is the view of Indological scholarship, the Kāpil Maṭh tradition takes the terms sāṃkhya and yoga in the Mahābhārata and the Bhagavadgītā to sometimes refer to the Sāṃkhya and Yoga systems of religious thought.
The Sāṃkhya system of religious thought
The Sāṃkhya system of religious thought is a Sanskrit textual tradition, which has the Sāṃkhyakārikā (“Verses on Sāṃkhya”) of Īśvarakṛṣṇa (c. 350–400) as its authoritative foundational text and a tradition of commentaries on that text. Two other important Sāṃkhya texts are the Tattvasāmasa and the Sāṃkhyasūtra, and commentaries on them.3 Most likely one or more Sāṃkhya texts preceded the Sāṃkhyakārikā, but none have survived. The Sāṃkhya system of religious thought is associated with a series of key concepts in the Hindu tradition, such as puruṣa, prakṛti, guṇa, sattva, rajas, tamas, buddhi, tattva, pariṇāma, tanmātra, and kaivalya. The Sāṃkhya system of religious thought is based on a fundamental dualism between matter ( prakṛti) and contentless consciousness ( puruṣa). Prakṛti and puruṣa are, in reality, independent principles. Puruṣa is the observer (draṣṭṛ), the witness consciousness and prakṛti the observed content (dṛśya). Because of an imbalance in prakṛti, the observer and the content, subject and object appear as if interdependent, as if one. We therefore identify with the content (the mind, body, and external world) displayed to puruṣa as if it were part of us, when in reality it is not, but part of prakṛti and not our self. The Sāṃkhya system provides a method for analyzing the world, and this analysis leads ultimately to the realization of the separateness of prakṛti and puruṣa. The realization of their separateness leads to kaivalya, salvific liberation and the end of suffering (duḥkha), according to the doctrines of Sāṃkhya. The world is analyzed in terms of 25 tattvas ( principles). These are the five gross elements (mahābhūtas), the five subtle elements (tanmātras), the five action capacities (karmendriyas), the five sense capacities (jñānendriyas), the mind (manas), the ego (ahaṃkāra), the intellect (buddhi), the material principle ( prakṛti), and the consciousness principle ( puruṣa). The main purpose of the enumeration in Sāṃkhya seems to be to provide guidance for the attainment of salvific knowledge. In the enumeration of the principles, prakṛti and puruṣa are not the first principles but the last. They are sometimes referred to as caturviṃśati tattva (twenty-fourth principle) and pañcaviṃśati tattva (twenty-fifth principle). This seems to indicate that it is their realization for the purpose of kaivalya that is central and not a mapping of a cosmogony. Sāṃkhya is a teaching that deals with salvific liberation (mokṣa), and the purpose is a practical one: the realization of ultimate reality – that is, the realization of the principle that is beyond change. Matter is made up of three constituents, sattva, rajas, and tamas,4 but they are in imbalance, and it is this imbalance that causes perpetual change and suffering. Because of the similarity of consciousness and the purest part of matter called intellect (buddhi), which is the part made up mostly of sattva, we mistakenly identify ourselves with matter – i.e., with body and mind – which undergoes change. This incorrect identification is the ultimate cause of the experience of suffering (duḥkha), according to Sāṃkhya. Sāṃkhya tells us that the mind and body are objects for the witness consciousness. This witness consciousness (sākṣin) is unchanging and contentless, and the absolute subject which can never become an object. By means of the correct knowledge of the tattvas, the separation of consciousness from the objects of consciousness is attained and the unchangeable contentless puruṣa principle is realized, and the manifestations of prakṛti are dissolved. Prakṛti is singular, as it is the material foundation of the objects of the puruṣas, and it is consciousness that is plural according to Sāṃkhya.
The Yoga system of religious thought
Yoga is the name of the system that has the Pātañjalayogaśāstra (“the authoritative text on yoga authored by Patañjali”) as its foundational text. Its author, Patañjali, is thought to have lived around 325–425 CE. The Pātañjalayogaśāstra consists of the Yogasūtra and an auto-commentary called the Yogabhāṣya or the Vyāsabhāṣya. The Yoga system is mostly in agreement with the dualist teaching of Sāṃkhya, but provides a meditation vocabulary that describes methods for purifying the mind so that it becomes more and more sāttvika (dominance by sattva guṇa [lightness]), which ultimately leads to vivekakhyāti, discernment between puruṣa and prakṛti. In the Yogasūtra, Patañjali describes this state as “the cessation of the transformation of awareness” (yogaś cittavṛttinirodhaḥ; Yogasūtra 1.2), which is a state in which “the seer abides in itself” (tadā dṛṣṭuḥ svarūpe ’vasthānam; Yogasūtra 1.3). Attainment of this state is the goal of Yoga. Pātañjalayogaśāstra – that is, Vyāsabhāṣya – on Yogasūtra 1.1 seems to define yoga as samādhi (yogaḥ samādhiḥ). Pātañjalayogaśāstra distinguishes between saṃprajñātasamādhi (concentration with content) and asaṃprajñātasamādhi (concentration without content), but both are considered yoga. The goal of meditation practice is the realization of the puruṣa principle as separate from prakṛti – that is, separating the non-self from the self and dissolving the manifestations of prakṛti into prakṛti, which is attained in asaṃprajñātasamādhi, a state when all changes of awareness have ceased (cittavṛttinirodhaḥ). Once attained, the period of cessation can gradually be prolonged. According to the Pātañjalayogaśāstra traditions, when the transformation of awareness ceases, the real identity of the human being is realized. The goal is, similar to Sāṃkhya, the realization of the contentlessness of the principle of consciousness, puruṣa, and its total separateness from the material principle, prakṛti. As in Sāṃkhya, prakṛti is singular and is the object of the experiences of all non-liberated puruṣas. It is consciousness that is plural. In spite of the similarities between Sāṃkhya and Yoga, one major difference between the Sāṃkhya system and the Yoga system is the difference in the vocabulary of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra and the Sāṃkhyakārikā. The Yoga system of religious thought is associated with a series of key concepts of the South Asian meditation traditions, primarily from the Buddhist traditions, which are absent in the Sāṃkhya texts.
Fundamental concepts of Yoga include the five activities of normal awareness (cittavṛttis) and the five stages of awareness (bhūmi). The five vṛttis are knowledge ( pramāṇa), error (viparyaya), verbal construction (vikalpa), sleep (nidrā), and memory (smṛti), and the cessation of all these needs to be attained through practice (abhyāsa) and dispassion (vairāgya). The stages of awareness are distracted (kṣipta), sluggish (mūḍha), partially distracted (vikṣipta), one-pointed (ekāgra), and suppressed (niruddha). One-pointed awareness (ekāgra) is called concentration with content (saṃprajñātasamādhi). Suppressed awareness (niruddha) is concentration without content (asaṃprajñātasamādhi). It destroys afflictions (kleśas), provides release from karma, and is the goal of yoga. The Yoga system of religious thought for the first time merged Buddhist meditation terminology, such as dhāraṇā (fixation), dhyāna (meditation), samādhi (concentration), nirodha (cessation), samāpatti (engrossment), āśaya (trace), smṛti (memory), vāsanā (imprint), avasthā (condition), dharmamegha (a final stage of samādhi), ṛtambharā (“truth bearing,” a stage in samādhi), bhūmi (stage of awareness), samāpatti (engrossment of the mind on the object of meditation), and so on, with the Brāhmaṇical tradition (see Larson 1999; Poussin 1936–37). The author of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra created a synthesis of Buddhist meditation terminology with the Sāṃkhya teaching of the tattvas and the discernment of the distinction between puruṣa and prakṛti (Larson 1999; Larson 2008). This vocabulary might have been common to several philosophies of meditation in ancient India and entered the Brāhmaṇical tradition in that way, but the Pātañjalayogaśāstra probably points more directly to a Buddhist influence. The author of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra seems to have had a favorable view of some aspects of Buddhist meditation. Mallinson and Singleton, pondering the influence of Buddhism on the Pātañjalayogaśāstra, assert directly th...
