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4 Causality, False Linearity, and the Silent Yogin’s Presence in the Yogasūtra
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65 4 Causality, False Linearity, and the Silent Yogin’s Presence in the Yogas¥tra Beginnings are tense, paradoxical, pregnant. There is an outburst of meaning, but also—often—a strong sense of containment and self-reference. Certain desires find expression there, attesting to wishes to discharge, communicate, break a silence, and also to present oneself. Such are the energies which lie at the threshold. Thus an opening statement is not only a first encounter with an audience; it is often consciousness of oneself created and introduced. Sometimes, indeed, a prefatory text is a metastatement, almost paradoxical in its self-referential nature. Thus too in the Yogas¥tra. In YS 1.1 Patañjali identifies himself as a scholar who discusses yoga: “Now the exposition of yoga” (atha yogånußåsanam ). On the one hand, the author commits himself by the use of the word “exposition” (anußåsana) to the role of an exponent who, essentially, repeats, reorganizes, reintegrates and reexplains a body of existing knowledge. On the other hand, Patañjali also pronounces a certain beginning: now, then (atha). None of the commentators fails to note the importance of this opening sutra; many pay special attention to the word atha, which appears to break a previous state of silence, charged by a desire (intention) to speak. Thus, for example, Våcaspati Mißra refers to the “body of knowledge desired to be commenced” (pråripsitasya ßåstrasya).1 Pandit Usharbudh Arya devotes eight pages to discussing the meaning of this very first of Patañjali’s words—atha (“now”). He quotes the commentators who say: “The words o¢ and atha came from the Creator’s throat/in the beginning of the creation; hence both these words are auspicious.”2 Tradition contemplates the tension between the sense of beginning or commencement (suggested by the word atha) and the sense of continuity (implied by the word anußåsana). Thus the classical commentators emphasize two aspects of Patañjali’s enterprise: Patañjali is authoritative, but the Yogas¥tra is a treatise, a text. Moreover, most of the commentators share the basic presupposition that the Yogas¥tra is a text derived from texts. In this 66 Silence Unheard context, Vyåsa introduces the notion of a well-established body of knowledge (ßåstra): “The discourse on yoga here begun is a ßåstra which should be known” (yogånußåsana¢ ßåstram adihk®ta¢ veditavyam). Våcaspati Mißra, the ninth-century archcommentator and Classical Scholar of Indian philosophy, is naturally interested in issues of authority and authorship . He is known as an authoritative exponent of each of the classical philosophies (darßana).3 In his commentary on YS 1.1 he elaborates on the issue of Patañjali’s originality and type of personal involvement (authorship) in the exposition (anußåsana) of yoga. He ponders how, if the teaching of yoga is known to exist already, Patañjali can have any authority or make any contribution . “Hiraªyagarbha and no other of ancient days is he who gave utterance (våkta) to yoga. How can it be said that Patañjali gives utterance to the authoritative book on yoga?” Våcaspati answers such questions, apparently raised by a virtual opponent (p¥rva-pak™in), saying: “In reply the author of the sutra says ‘the exposition’ (anußåsana); exposition in the sense of expounding something previously expounded.”4 Since, as suggested above, YS 1.1 is the only meta-sutra in the Yogas¥tra, it is no accident that the identity of Patañjali—philosopher, compiler, yogin— is most emphatically discussed in ancient as well as in contemporary literature in relation to YS 1.1. Modern commentators concede that the very first sutra is important with respect to Patañjali’s intellectual character, authority, and the nature of his work. While in agreement on these as measures of significance, they disagree in their assessment of Patañjali in all three respects . I. K. Taimni thinks that Patañjali was an accomplished yogin: From the masterly manner in which he has expounded the subject of Yoga in the Yoga-S¥tras it is obvious that he was a Yogi of a very high order who had personal knowledge of all aspects of Yoga including its practical techniques.5 Personal knowledge is less evident (and less important) to Hariharananda Aranya, who is more committed to the conventional sense of anußåsana: The science of Yoga delineated in these S¥tras has been based on the instructions...