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Since that time, Purus ִa, the sacrificial man, has become a yogin” (Biardeau and Malamoud 1976, 108). These, the words of Madeleine Biardeau, summarize the arguments of the preceding section. In the epic and Puranic canon, Kr ִs ִn ִa and Śiva, the sole deities who are cast as yogins, are specifically called yogins when their bodies are being identified with, or are shown to be coterminous with, the entire universe. In both the BhG and the KūP, the great gods Vis ִn ִu and Śiva are said to practice yoga precisely when they are in the process of internalizing all external phenomena by either manifesting the entire universe within their cosmic bodies or by swallowing all, as the doomsday sun at the end of an eon, until they are left standing alone. We have also seen that both gods are called Masters of Yoga in this role, and that the universal display of both of these gods is termed their “masterful yoga” (yogam aiśvaram). One of the names by which the Puranic Śiva is best known is Maheśvara, the “Great Master,” a name taken to be synonymous with Mahādeva, the “Great Divinity.” In the context of early yoga theory, the term īśvara was not a synonym for the term deva. Rather, it denotes a person who has, through his practice , attained “mastery” (aiśvarya). A synonym, in the Pāśupata system, for siddhi (“supernatural enjoyment”) (Bisschop 2005, 552), aiśvarya, like the term īśvara of which it is the abstract form, is a technical term specific to yoga as it was theorized in these, the earliest theoretical sources on yoga.44 One of these is the two hundred eighty-ninth chapter of the MBh’s twelfth book, which is contained in the epic’s 200–400 CE Moks ִadharma-parvan. This source states the matter as follows: The empowered yogin becomes radiant with glory and very powerful, like the sun at the end of time, which desiccates the entire universe . . . Yogins who are without restraints [and] endowed with the power of yoga (yogabal ānvitāh ִ) are [so many] masters (īśvarāh ִ), who enter into [the bodies of] the Prajāpatis, the sages, the gods, and the great beings. Yama, the raging Terminator (Antaka), and death of terrible prowess: none of these masters (īśate) the yogin who is possessed of immeasurable splendor. . . . A yogin can lay hold of several thousand selves, and having obtained [their] power, he can walk the earth with all of them. He can obtain [for himself] the [realms of the] sense objects. Otherwise, he can undertake terrible austerities , or, again, he can draw those [sense objects] back together [into himself ], like the sun [does] its rays of light. (MBh 12.289.21, 24–27) This epic passage is, I would argue, the original theoretical topos of this usage, with the term īśvara (master) specifically denoting a practitioner of yoga who has attained mastery (aiśvarya) through his practice (MBh 12.228.14, 21). The forms that that mastery takes include the power to take over the bodies of other creatures, 88 DAVID GORDON WHITE as well as the power of the sun to draw back into oneself all of the matter and energy in the universe, and thereby remain the “last man standing” in a universe that has been fully internalized. In both scenarios, the body of the yogin-as-īśvara becomes possessed of the same power of expansiveness or magnificence (mahattva) as those of the yogeśvaras, Kr ִs ִn ִa and Śiva. Such is the explicit conclusion, and the narrative climax of MBh 12.289: When his self-magnifying self (mahān ātmā) and the magni-ficent (mahān) [universe] have fused into one another, a yogin may enter [into] women, men and the assemblies of Gandharvas, the quarters of the sky, the hosts of Yaks ִas, the mountains and the serpents, and the clouds together with the forests and all the rivers, and the terrible oceans and all the mountain peaks, and the ancestors and serpents and all the divinities, [and] verily the immaculate overlord of men together with the stars, and the greatly massive firmness [i.e., the earth element], and the whole [circle of] splendor [i.e., the fire element], and [the goddess] Siddhi, the spouse of Varun ִa [i.e., the water element], and supreme Nature [together with] pristine pure being, massive passion and evil darkness (sattva, rājas, tamas), and the six high-minded sons...

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