Download The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali A Biography Lives of Great Religious Books David Gordon White Daren Magee 9780691197074 Books

Product details Series Lives of Great Religious Books (Book 43) Paperback 296 pages Publisher Princeton University Press; Reprint edition (September 10, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 0691197075

The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali A Biography Lives of Great Religious Books David Gordon White Daren Magee 9780691197074 Books Reviews

• Was Patanjali a real person or a half-human, half-snake god? Was the Yoga Sutra a "classical" text? Where have our translations come from?
  
  These and many other questions are explored in this biography of the Yoga Sutra. Firstly, Patanjali (first century BCE or fourth century CE) is the name of the mysterious author-compiler of the Yoga Sutra. In twelfth century Tamil traditions, Patancali is the name of a half-man half-snake incarnation of the great serpent-god, Ananta. Later scholars, identified this mythic Tamil Patancali with the Sanskrit Patanjali of the Yoga Sutra. Was the author of the Sutra a human, Patanjali?
  
  What is the Yoga Sutra? Literally, they are 196 opaque stanzas written in Sanskrit. What we read are not the original.
  
  "Big Yoga--the corporate yoga subculture--has elevated the Yoga Sutra to a status it never knew, even during its seventh- to twelfth-century heyday" writes White in his Preface.
  
  What we actually get are interpretations of commentaries about the Yoga Sutra. Rutgers University professor Edwin Bryant, a scholar of Hinduism, is quoted "When we speak of the philosophy of Patanjali we really mean (or should mean) is the understanding of Patanjali according to Vyasa It is Vyasa who determined what Patanjali's abstruse sutras meant, and all the subsequent commentators elaborated on Vyasa..."
  
  The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali A Biography is a chronicle of the Sutra's principle commentators to-date including Vyasa, Hegel, Blavatsky, Vivekananda, Krishnamacharya and others. White, our author-biographer, presents a chapter on each commentator that weaves together an overarching and fascinating biography of the Yoga Sutra. Our author concludes with Yoga Sutra 2.0, that is, what may be next, along with some "alternative theories" about how the Sutras may have been "taken over" or co opted by translators or commentators to promote their own agendas--including a provocative theory that the Sutra was originally a Buddhist work that was reinterpreted into a Hindu text.
  
  Critical scholars, like David Gordon White, could grind the Yoga Sutra down into analytical powder for ever, and not be able to provide definitive answers (kind of like biblical scholarship). Readers attached to their myths about yoga or snake-gods may not appreciate White's critical research. This book is for serious students, historians, and scholars of yoga. Yet, this book is easy to read for the non-technical, non-academic reader who has keen interest in yoga. White concludes that the Yoga Sutra has little in common with the original version. Highly recommended book.
• Although a worthwhile read and closely researched work on the written legacy of the yoga sutra, White's approach seems to lack an integrated understanding. For example he seems unable to grasp that the necessary distinction between purusha and prakriti can also be understood as their absolute unity. He shows little deep exploration of the oral tradition and the way it has and still does impact on the teaching of the yoga sutra, relying on written records as his source. For me this made the work frustrating to read at times but also challenging in a positive way. I would recommend it for students of yoga.
• The "Yoga Sutra" of Patanjali, written between the second and fourth centuries CE, is considered to be the classic yoga text. There are numerous translations and editions that include also the main commentaries written in the last 16 centuries. This excellent book is part of a new series called Lives of Great Religious Books, and Professor White presents a critical biographical account of this masterwork through the years; each one of its 16 chapters is a gaudy historical tableau. The author has the best credentials to deal with such a difficult subject, as he is the J. F. Rowny Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of various stimulant works, including "The Alchemical Body Siddha Traditions in Medieval India" (1996), "Kiss of the Yogini. `Tantric Sex' in its South Asian Context," (2003), "Sinister Yogis" (2009); he is also the editor of "Yoga in Practice" (2012).
  
  The book uses a clear and crisp language and many of the statements are provocative and controversial. Such an approach is explained by his declaration that "the task of the religious studies scholar is not only to make the strange seem familiar, but also to make the familiar seem strange ... our goal is both to reorient and to disorient" (this quote comes from his article "Yoga, Brief History of an Idea," included in his book "Yoga in Practice," mentioned above). Prof. White highlights the impenetrability of the "Yoga Sutra" as the text was composed in a cryptic language, intended to be used for easy memorization and for oral transmission and he reminds us that the 195 aphorisms which contain around 1,200 words, have only four verbs.
  
  His main thesis is that the generalized idea that the "Yoga Sutra" is part of a long unbroken tradition initiated long time before Patanjali, which has been linking gurus, students, commentators and copyists from those early times to the present, is incorrect. Prof. White puts into question many things, including the relevance and irrelevance of the Sutra for modern yoga, and the identity of Patanjali as the author and Vyasa as the main commentator. He raises the issue that the Sutra could be the result of mixing the first three chapters, which have a Buddhist tone, with a fourth chapter that provides a Hindu expression. He develops the idea that the "Sutra" was ignored in India for centuries and that it was rediscovered by the British Orientalists in the 18th century and that the work acquired its modern reputation after it was recognized a masterpiece by Vivekananda a century later and then became part of the marketing of the "Modern Postural Yoga" boom. He traces the links between the "Sutra" and the rise and fall of the Theosophical movement. One of the most debatable chapters has the title "The Strange Case of T. M. Krishnamacharya;" Krishnamacharya (1888-1989) is considered the father of modern yoga. After long well-documented detours, using a long list of notes and references, many of which are accessible only online, Prof White simply concludes his deconstructive analysis indicating that the yoga that we practice today, particularly in the US, is completely different from the yoga of past India.
  
  One of the critics of this book is the yoga teacher and co-founder of "Yoga Community Toronto," Matthew Remski, who wrote a very challenging review comparing Prof. White's biography with the story in the film "The Red Violin," where the final message is that what really counts is the recognition of the power of great music (this article can be seen at the site http//matthewremski.com/wordpress/the-yoga-sutras-and-the-red-violin-a-review-of-david-gordon-whites-new-book). In a similar vein, we may conclude that whatever is the real story, the "Yoga Sutra" remains a great source of inspiration.
• This book turned out to be an eye opening surprise. I had been reading a number of different commentaries on the Yoga Sutras (of which this is not) and I stumbled upon this book. It is a book about the history of the text itself through out its long history. This book is a great read for anyone looking to deepen their understanding on where the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali have come from and their recent prominence on the world stage.
• Great book. However, if you are unfamiliar with the non-dual religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc..) you with have to concentrate, read it again and you will figure it out. Otherwise, great, ancient book, source.
  Chuck
• this is very interesting book I recommend it for anyone with strong general interest in history of ideas and religion