“Now, an exposition of yoga!” Patañjali proclaims at the beginning of the Yoga Sūtras. It is ironic that Patañjali chose “now” (atha) as his first word, thereby situating his teaching in a singular historical and cultural moment because, for many of today’s readers, the Yoga Sūtras is a strangely timeless text, disconnected from any specificities of history or place. By exploring Patañjali’s “now” we will be better placed to tackle our next topic, Patañjali’s philosophical defense of his belief in an eternal, transcendent Self (puruṣa), in opposition to the Buddhist philosophers of his time who rejected this view. This will take us into some quite complicated philosophical terrain, but before doing so, it will be helpful for us to get a broader sense of the philosophical landscape in Patañjali’s time, and more specifically, the place of Buddhism within that landscape.
Historical overview
Many of the key ideas associated with the Indian religious and philosophical traditions were formed during the years spanning 700-200BCE. In 700BCE India there was no Buddhism, no Jainism and little of what we would now characterize as being typically Hindu. By the beginnings of the Common Era, however, not only had these three traditions emerged as distinct from each other, but each had spawned within itself a plurality of philosophical schools. By Patañjali’s time there were several distinct schools of Buddhism in India, and within the Upaniṣadic tradition (precursor to modern-day Hinduism) there were numerous philosophical schools, or darśanas, among them the Yoga Darśana.
The centuries following 700BCE were a time of great social change and intellectual speculation in India. At the beginning of this period, we see the rise of new cities in the Ganges valley. In conjunction with this, we also see the consolidation of small tribal groups into larger kingdoms. The new cities became the administrative and military centers for these larger political entities. This more cosmopolitan environment facilitated the exchange of intellectual ideas, and undoubtedly this social upheaval resulted in the growth of intellectual speculation that marks this period. From 700BCE on, these speculations are recorded in the Upanisads, texts that constitute the final portion of the Vedas, the sacred texts of Hinduism.
Although consistently speculative in their character, in the Upanisads we see the crystallization of a worldview that became the framework for almost all subsequent Indian philosophical and religious thought. This worldview can be grasped by understanding three key concepts: saṁsāra, karma and mokṣa. Saṁsāra refers to the idea that human existence is cyclical, consisting of endless cycles of death followed by rebirth. Karma is the belief that an individual’s actions, whether good or bad, generate the energy that drives the process of rebirth. The actions of a past life will have predictable causal repercussions, not just in this life, but also in subsequent lives. During this time, temporal existence was increasingly viewed as unsatisfactory and inevitably bound up with suffering, thereby making the idea of endless rebirths deeply problematic rather than a cause for celebration. The search for a way to be liberated (mokṣa) from this treadmill of suffering becomes one of the central motivating questions for Indian philosophers.
The Upaniṣads are not philosophical texts in a traditional analytical sense. The Upaniṣadic authors made extensive use of analogy and metaphor, rather than rational argumentation, to elucidate their views. One can locate in the Upanisads, however, an intellectual climate conducive to the development of later philosophical thought. They are largely dialogical in nature. Some of the discussions take place in the context of grand public debates hosted by kings in their royal courts, with valuable prizes of cattle awarded to the winner. Other discussions occur in more intimate settings—between father and son, husband and wife or small groups gathered in the forest around a teacher or guru. The teachers depicted in these dialogs are philosophically fearless, unafraid to go beyond traditional forms of knowledge in their dogged pursuit of answers to their questions about the nature and purpose of human existence. There is a mood of existential urgency in these texts, and we see women and non-priestly men engaged in philosophical discussions which were traditionally the provenance of male priests or Brahmins. The teachings and mood of the Upanisads are symptomatic of a society in transition.
In earlier Vedic times, religious life had centered around the performance of sacrificial rituals, performed by the Brahmins to bring worldly success for their patrons. Upaniṣadic thinkers began to look beyond these sacrificial rites, directing their interest towards the question of whether there was some deeper, underlying essence in the cosmos. Eventually they identified brahman as an all-pervading and unchanging principle underlying the manifest plurality of the created world. Perhaps the most important teaching of the Upaniṣads is that this cosmic order is mirrored in every human person. Just as there is an unchanging eternal essence underpinning the created world, so too is there an unchanging essence in human existence, a transpersonal Self labeled as ātman. Understanding ourselves in this way was key for spiritual liberation.
The presence of an unchanging Self within us opened the possibility of a release from the human predicament of endless birth and death, and hence endless suffering. The Upaniṣadic statement that ātman is brahman is one of the great sayings (mahāvākya) of the Upaniṣads and it led to the investigation of human experience. Where in human experience can we locate this ātman? A liberating knowledge of ātman required seekers to go beyond the sacrificial practices of the day. No longer could the human person be fully comprehended by ritual knowledge alone; nor could a merely theoretical knowledge of ātman liberate the individual from suffering.
In the Upaniṣads, therefore, we see a shift towards what today we would characterize as psychology. They explored human psychological and physiological states in their quest for the ātman, specifically exploring the three modes of human consciousness—waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Although impressed by the freedom and creative possibilities of dreaming, and the lack of ego and suffering of deep sleep, the Upaniṣadic thinkers eventually reached the conclusion that nothing in the domain of ordinary human experience qualifies as that state which brings us to a realization of ātman. They postulated the existence of an entirely different and transcendent state, a fourth (turīya) state of consciousness. This “mystical” fourth state goes beyond anything a normal individual would ordinarily experience, and thus we see the rationale for the development of ascetic and yogic practices. To achieve this liberating state of consciousness, an individual needs to engage in a set of practices developed specifically for that end. In the Kaṭha Upanisad, we see the term “yoga” introduced as a term for these practices.
Buddhism and the Buddha
The life of Siddhārtha Gautama (c. fifth century BCE), as he was known prior to his awakening, embodies all the changes happening in India at that time. He was born among the Śākya people in the northern edge of the Ganges, the locus of North Indian civilization at that time, and was probably part of the ruling elite. He was not, however, a Brahmin.
Traditional accounts of his life are a key component of Buddhist teaching, since his life exemplifies the problem of human suffering and provides a template for how to bring an end to suffering. According to tradition, Siddhārtha had been raised in a palace where great care was taken to shield him from the grim realities of human existence—that we sicken, grow old and die. When Siddhārtha was born, his father, Śuddhodana, was told that his son would become either a great political leader or a great spiritual teacher. Śuddhodana’s unusual childrearing policy of raising Siddhārtha in protective custody was his attempt to swing the odds in favor of the political career that he favored for his son. He believed that by shielding his son from life’s suffering, he would be less likely to pursue a spiritual path. Siddhārtha eventually tired of his idyllic, contrived existence, and yearned to see the world beyond the palace walls. He was allowed to leave the protective custody of the palace for a carefully stage-managed sightseeing trip, but things did not go as planned. Despite attempts to clear his itinerary of any distressing sights, for the first time in his life, Siddhārtha encountered old age, sickness and death.
Upon learning that this occurred, not by chance, but in the normal progression of a human life, Siddhārtha was astounded to see that people were able to go about their daily lives unperturbed by their inevitable fate. This pivotal moment in Siddhārtha’s life is known as his first awakening, and it infused his life with an urgent mission: to find a cure for the suffering endemic to human existence. Alhough it is unlikely that the Buddha lived in protective custody during his early years, the narrative is constructed in such a way as to highlight the shocking nature of human existence —as readers we too should “wake up” to the reality of our existence.
At this point in his life, Siddhārtha renounced his worldly existence and became a spiritual seeker. As a renunciant he must have studied with teachers much like those depicted in the Upanisads. He became well versed in the teachings and techniques of these new teachers, but ultimately challenged and rejected their solution and took it upon himself to find the solution to suffering. According to tradition, Siddhārtha’s enlightenment occurred throughout the course of one night as he sat under a bodhi tree. As the sun rose, he came to understand both the cause of and the cure for suffering. From this time on, he is known as “the Buddha,” or “the Awakened One.”
Patañjali and the Buddha
By Patañjali’s lifetime, Buddhism was widespread throughout the Indian subcontinent, flourishing most notably under the great patron of Buddhism, King Aśoka. Under Aśoka’s rule, the Indian subcontinent was united to a degree not seen again until colonial times. Buddhism offered its followers a systematic philosophy and a coherent set of practices to follow, known as the Noble Eightfold Path. In the Yoga Sūtras, Patañjali set himself the task of giving an alternative vision of spiritual liberation, along with a set of practices to achieve it. “Now” signals his feeling that the time was ripe for him to do so.
Despite their significant philosophical differences, Patañjali shared many of the Buddha’s views. Both subscribed to a belief in rebirth and the laws of karma. Like the Buddha, Patañjali viewed philosophy’s goals to be therapeutic, to ameliorate human suffering. Both structured their philosophy around the fourfold model of healing given in the medical tradition of Āyurveda:
(i) diagnosis of the nature of the illness
(ii) determination of its cause
(iii) determination of a cure
(iv) treatment
The Four Noble Truths, a centerpiece of Buddhist teaching, are based on this fourfold model. Patañjali, in the second pāda of the Yoga Sūtras, presents his version of this fourfold model of healing (See II.15-26). Both share the diagnosis that what ails us is an omnipresent suffering pervading human existence. Both see our suffering as arising from our own delusions about the nature of our existence, and it is the removal of this delusion that will effect a cure. The Buddha teaches the Noble Eightfold Path (aṣtāṅga mārga) as his prescribed treatment, and Patañjali gives us the eight limbs of yoga (aṣṭāṅga yoga). Both paths consist of a combination of ethical and contemplative practices.
Despite this shared background, there were real philosophical differences between the Buddha and Patañjali, which Patañjali addresses in his last pāda. For Patañjali, spiritual liberation is attained when we align ourselves with that which is unchanging in us, rather than with some transient ego self. The ātman of the Upaniṣads is named as the Seer or puruṣa in Patañjali’s philosophy. At the heart of the Buddha’s philosophy is the idea that liberation from suffering comes when we accept that everything which exists is impermanent, no exception. It is our craving (tṛṣṇā) for permanence that leads us into suffering. While samādhi states are valued in Buddhism for the tranquility they give us, Buddhist philosophers view them as impermanent states of human consciousness, rather than an experience of an eternal Self.
The challenge for Buddhist philosophers is to show how, in the absence of an unchanging element to human existence, we can explain phenomena such as memory, our sense of personal identity throughout our lives, and maintain conceptions of moral accountability for past actions. Patañjali’s belief in an unchanging Self (ātman/puruṣa) was a key element in his philosophy, and it was important to him to address the Buddhist view that there is no unchanging Self (an-ātman). Next month we will look at some of his arguments against the Buddhist position.
Joy Laine taught philosophy at Macalester College for over thirty years and teaches Iyengar Yoga around the Twin Cities.
Bibliography and Further Resources
Michael Carrithers, Buddha: A Very Short Introduction. OUP, 2001.
Patrick Olivelle, Upaniṣads. Oxford World Classics, 2007.
BBC Radio 4, In Our Time: The Buddha panel discussion with Melvyn Bragg on the life of the Buddha. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548br
