The Yogabīja (Sanskrit: योगबीज, "Seed of Yoga" [1] ) is an early Haṭha yoga text, from around the 14th century. [2] It was the first text to propose the derivation of haṭha from the Sanskrit words for sun and moon, with multiple esoteric interpretations.
The Yogabīja describes a fourfold system for attaining liberation (moksha), spanning Mantra Yoga, Laya Yoga, Haṭha Yoga, and Rāja Yoga. It specifically denies that liberation is possible simply by knowledge or jñāna; instead, it argues that the yogin needs both knowledge and yoga, and that liberation results in the yogin becoming an immortal jivanmukti, invisible but alive. [3] The text shares that concept, and others such as that Rāja Yoga is the union of bindu and rajas (semen and uterine fluid), and some verses with the ancient Yogaśikhā Upaniṣad . [4] [5] In turn, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika incorporates around 18 verses from the Yogabīja. [6]
The teaching is presented as a dialogue between the goddess Devī (Parvati) and the god Īśvara (Shiva); the text begins śrī devy uvāca: ("Respected Devī said:"). [7]
It is one of the few early Haṭha yoga texts to describe the mudras. Their purpose, along with breath retention, is to make the Kundalini rise. [8] It teaches the three bandhas and śakticālanīmudrā ("stimulating Sarasvatī") for the purpose of awakening Kundalinī. [9] [1]
On mantras, the Yogabīja mentions the involuntary so 'ham , the sounds made by breathing in and out; the phrase, from the Upaniṣads, means "I am that" in Sanskrit. [10]
The text states (verses 80–86) that controlling the breath with pranayama controls the mind (and is the only way of doing so), and that this leads to liberation. [11]
It describes Laya Yoga as the "dissolution of the mind", leading to steadiness of breath and the highest happiness, svātmānanda, "bliss in one's own self" (verses 150–151). Mallinson comments that so defined, Laya Yoga is hardly distinguishable from Rāja Yoga, the practice of samādhi . [12]
The Yogabīja formalises the distinction between supernatural powers ( siddhis ) that arise unintentionally (akalpita) and those that are deliberately sought (kalpita) by means such as herbs, rituals, and mantras; it considers the latter powers inferior. [13]
The Yogabīja is the source of the esoteric etymology of "Haṭha", deriving the term from ha, the sun, and ṭha, the moon, stating that Haṭha yoga is the union (yoga) of the two. The "sun" and "moon" here do not however denote the heavenly bodies, but have several alternative esoteric interpretations, which the Indologist James Mallinson explains as: [8]
The Yogabīja states that yoga unites all dualities: [14]
The union of apāna and prāṇa, one's own rajas and semen, the sun and moon, the individual soul and supreme soul, and in the same way the union of all dualities, is called yoga. Yogabīja, 89–90 [14]
Yoga is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as practiced in the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions.
Kundalini yoga is a spiritual practice in the yogic and tantric traditions of Hinduism, centered on awakening the kundalini energy. This energy, often symbolized as a serpent coiled at the root chakra at the base of the spine, is guided upward through the chakras until it reaches the crown chakra at the top of the head. This leads to the blissful state of samadhi, symbolizing the union of Shiva and Shakti. Most yoga schools use pranayama, meditation, and moral code observation to raise the kundalini.
In yoga, Ayurveda, and Indian martial arts, prana permeates reality on all levels including inanimate objects. In Hindu literature, prāṇa is sometimes described as originating from the Sun and connecting the elements.
Hatha yoga is a branch of yoga that uses physical techniques to try to preserve and channel vital force or energy. The Sanskrit word हठ haṭha literally means "force", alluding to a system of physical techniques. Some hatha yoga style techniques can be traced back at least to the 1st-century CE, in texts such as the Hindu Sanskrit epics and Buddhism's Pali canon. The oldest dated text so far found to describe hatha yoga, the 11th-century Amṛtasiddhi, comes from a tantric Buddhist milieu. The oldest texts to use the terminology of hatha are also Vajrayana Buddhist. Hindu hatha yoga texts appear from the 11th century onward.
In Sanskrit texts, Rāja yoga was both the goal of yoga and a method to attain it. The term also became a modern name for the practice of yoga in the 19th-century when Swami Vivekananda gave his interpretation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali in his book Raja Yoga. Since then, Rāja yoga has variously been called aṣṭāṅga yoga, royal yoga, royal union, sahaja marg, and classical yoga.
The Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā is a classic fifteenth-century Sanskrit manual on haṭha yoga, written by Svātmārāma, who connects the teaching's lineage to Matsyendranath of the Nathas. It is among the most influential surviving texts on haṭha yoga, being one of the three classic texts alongside the Gheranda Samhita and the Shiva Samhita.
Nāḍī is a term for the channels through which, in traditional Indian medicine and spiritual theory, the energies such as prana of the physical body, the subtle body and the causal body are said to flow. Within this philosophical framework, the nadis are said to connect at special points of intensity, the chakras. All nadis are said to originate from one of two centres; the heart and the kanda, the latter being an egg-shaped bulb in the pelvic area, just below the navel. The three principal nadis run from the base of the spine to the head, and are the ida on the left, the sushumna in the centre, and the pingala on the right. Ultimately the goal is to unblock these nadis to bring liberation.
Khecarī mudrā is a hatha yoga practice carried out by curling the tip of the tongue back into the mouth until it reaches above the soft palate and into the nasal cavity. The tongue is made long enough to do this with many months of daily tongue stretching and, in some versions of the practice, by gradually severing the frenulum of the tongue with a sharp implement over a period of months.
The Yogatattva Upanishad, also called as Yogatattvopanishad (योगतत्त्वोपनिषत्), is an important Upanishad within Hinduism. A Sanskrit text, it is one of eleven Yoga Upanishads attached to the Atharvaveda, and one of twenty Yoga Upanishads in the four Vedas. It is listed at number 41 in the serial order of the Muktika enumerated by Rama to Hanuman in the modern era anthology of 108 Upanishads. It is, as an Upanishad, a part of the corpus of Vedanta literature collection that present the philosophical concepts of Hinduism.
A bandha is a kriyā in Hatha Yoga, being a kind of internal mudra described as a "body lock," to lock the vital energy into the body. Bandha literally means bond, fetter, or "catching hold of".
The Yoga-kundalini Upanishad, also called Yogakundali Upanishad, is a minor Upanishad of Hinduism. The Sanskrit text is one of the 20 Yoga Upanishads and is one of 32 Upanishads attached to the Krishna Yajurveda. In the Muktika canon, narrated by Rama to Hanuman, it is listed at number 86 in the anthology of 108 Upanishads.
The Yogachudamani Upanishad is one of the minor Upanishads of Hinduism composed in Sanskrit, and is called the "Crown Jewel of Yoga". Attached to the Samaveda, it is one of twenty Yoga Upanishads in the four Vedas.
The Joga Pradīpikā is a hatha yoga text by Ramanandi Jayatarama written in 1737 in a mixture of Hindi, Braj Bhasa, Khari Boli and forms close to Sanskrit. It presents 6 cleansing methods, 84 asanas, 24 mudras and 8 kumbhakas. The text is illustrated in an 1830 manuscript with 84 paintings of asanas, prepared about a hundred years after the text.
Vajroli mudra, the Vajroli Seal, is a practice in Hatha yoga which requires the yogi to preserve his semen, either by learning not to release it, or if released by drawing it up through his urethra from the vagina of "a woman devoted to the practice of yoga".
The Amṛtasiddhi, written in a Buddhist environment in about the 11th century, is the earliest substantial text on what became haṭha yoga, though it does not mention the term. The work describes the role of bindu in the yogic body, and how to control it using the Mahamudra so as to achieve immortality (Amṛta). The implied model is that bindu is constantly lost from its store in the head, leading to death, but that it can be preserved by means of yogic practices. The text has Buddhist features, and makes use of metaphors from alchemy.
The Vivekamārtaṇḍa is an early Hatha yoga text, the first to combine tantric and ascetic yoga. Attributed to Goraknath, it was probably written in the 13th century. It emphasises mudras as the most important practice. The name means "Sun of Discernment". It teaches khecarīmudrā, mahāmudrā, viparītakaraṇī and the three bandhas. It teaches six chakras and the raising of Kundalinī by means of "fire yoga" (vahniyogena).
The Amaraugha and the Amaraugha Prabodha are recensions of a 12th century Sanskrit text on haṭha yoga, attributed to Gorakṣanātha. The Amaraugha Prabodha is the later recension, with the addition of verses from other texts and assorted other materials. The text's physical practices imply a Buddhist origin for haṭha yoga.
The Dattātreyayogaśāstra, a Vaisnava text probably composed in the 13th century CE, is the earliest text which provides a systematized form of Haṭha yoga under that name, and the earliest to place its yoga techniques under the name Haṭha.
The Khechari Vidya, an early tantric text on Hatha yoga written around the 14th century, teaches only khecarīmudrā, one of several yogic seals or mudras, and is a major source for that method. This was meant to give the yogin access to stores of amrita in the body, and to raise Kundalinī via the six chakras.
The Gorakṣaśataka is an early text on Haṭha yoga text from the 11th-12th century, attributed to the sage Gorakṣa. It was the first to teach a technique for raising Kundalini called "the stimulation of Sarasvati", along with elaborate pranayama, breath control. It was written for an audience of ascetics.
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