The Necessity for Three Professional Perspectives in the Interpretation of Sanskrit Philosophical Texts on Yoga

Abstract

The article critically discusses the available renderings of nine crucial terms of yoga philosophy (yogadarśana). New translations are proposed. Philological and textual considerations are considered to be inadequate to perform the task of a conceptual translation. One should delve into the philosophical thinking of the concepts proposed by the Indian classics. Moreover, in order to compre­hend some themes of the yoga tradition, it is necessary for a researcher to have a personal yoga experience in the sense of being engaged in an ontologically based project of transcendence. Still, it is the conceptual thinking that remains the central tool, but neither philology nor yogic experience. The most important term citta is interpreted phenomenologicaly as a sequence of meaningful inten­tional acts unfolding from the past on the basis of existing semiotic means, pri­marily spontaneously. The main goal of yoga, nirodha, is always “control”, but “suppression” only at its remote limit. Instead of the accepted renderings of the technical term bhūmi as a “level” or “plane”, it should be translated as “mode”, taking into account the procedural understanding of citta in yoga. For the first time, it is fully explained here why there are five of these modes. This is the author’s contribution to the philosophy of yoga as a corpus of texts. This knowledge undoubtedly belonged to in the tradition, but was a methodological secret. Modes of intentionality (citta) are as follows: (1) kṣipta “lost, aban­doned”: with content, controlled from outside; (2) mūḍha “dull”: without con­tent, controlled from outside; (3) vikṣipta “scattered”: partially controlled both from outside and from inside; (4) ekāgra “one-pointed”: with content, controlled from inside; (5) niruddha: having transcended any content, ultimately controlled.