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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well rounded tribute to Larson, December 11, 2005
This review is from: Theory And Practice of Yoga: Essays in Honour of Gerald James Larson (Studies in the History of Religions, 110.) (Hardcover)
Theory And Practice of Yoga: Essays in Honour of Gerald James Larson edited by Knut A. Jacobsen (Studies in the History of Religions, 110: Brill Academic) This collection of original essays provides fascinating insights into yoga as a historical and pluralistic phenomenon flourishing in a variety of religious and philosophical contexts. They cover a wide variety of traditions and topics related to Yoga: Classical Yoga, Samkhya, Tantric Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, the Guru, Indic Islamic traditions of Yoga, Yoga and asceticism in contemporary India, and the reception of Yoga in the West.
The essays are written by eighteen professors in the field of the history of religions, most of them former graduate students of Gerald James Larson, Larson is Rabindranath Tagore Professor Emeritus, Indiana University, Bloomington, Professor Emeritus, Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, an internationally acclaimed scholar on the history of religions and philosophies of India, and one of the world's foremost authorities on the Samkhya and Yoga traditions. The publication is in honour of him.
The essays of this book have been written by students and close associates of Gerald James Larson, an internationally acclaimed scholar of the history of religions and the philosophies of India, and one of' the world's foremost authorities on the Samkhya and Yoga tradi¬tions. Larson combines the high standards of indological rigorous scholarship with the creative and innovative thinking characteristic of the best work in Religious Studies. This festschrift honors him as a teacher and a scholar. As professor in the Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara (1970 199:1, and as Rabindranath Tagore Professor of' Indian Cultures and Civilizations and director of' the India Studies Program, Indiana University. Bloomington, (1995 2003), Larson trained a number of graduate stu¬dents in Indian philosophy and the religions and languages of India. Most of them have become university professors and have made significant contributions to the study of' the religions and cultures of India. Larson conveyed to his students his enthusiasm and high stan¬dards for scholarship, which became the ideals they, tried to emulate and an inspiration to excellence.
Larson has contributed considerably to the historical and philo¬sophical understanding of the Samkhya and Yoga systems of reli¬gious thought. He has made the philosophy of- Samkhya and Yoga available to scholars not only in North America, but in Europe and India as well, through teaching and books Larson's interpretation of' Indian philosophy has strongly influenced all his students, also his view that the classical Samkhya and Yoga systems of' religious thought have to he taken seriously as a basis for contemporary constructions of' philosophy. Larson always emphasizes that with respect to a text of the Indian religious and philosophical traditions one must ask two questions: What did the text mean then? And what does the text mean now? He also strongly advocates the application of insights from ancient India to engage contemporary issues in theology, philosophy and science.Samkhya influenced a large number of Indian systems of knowl¬edge. Its influence is so strong that it has been claimed (by Gopinath Kaviraj in conversation with Larson) that Samkhya is not just one of India's philosophical systems, but is the philosophy of India.' Larson has contributed also to the study of several of the traditions most strongly influenced by Samkhya-Yoga such as Kashmir Shaivism and the Indian systems of medicine. This wider interest is reflected in the content of this book. While many of the essays are about Samkhya-Yoga, three essays are about yoga in Kashmir Saivism, many are about yoga in medieval and modern India, and one essay is about Indian traditions of interpretation of the body. Larson has also con¬tributed to the understanding of the Indian traditions of visual art and one essay is devoted to this topic.
Larson emphasizes critical scholarship. But yoga is not only a schol¬arly enterprise: indeed it has become a global phenomenon attract¬ing millions. The modern phenomenon of yoga is a function of inno¬vation and transformation as well as the global religious market. In addition, the strong dominance of Vedanta in modern India, espe¬cially among those whose interest in meditation is combined with some fluency in the English language, has often led to interpreta¬tions of Yoga as a form of Vedanta, and identification of yoga with the Vedantic goal of union. Larson trained his students in the clas¬sical traditions as a solid basis for investigating a whole array of tra¬ditions including the modern transformations of yoga. One of the main tasks of the academic study of yoga is to look beyond the pre¬sentations of the yoga traditions colored by contemporary Western systems of physical training, health and healing and the Neo-Vedantic environment and instead evaluate yoga as a historical and pluralis¬tic phenomenon flourishing in a variety of religious and philosoph¬ical contexts. The essays of this book contribute to this task.
Abstract of Contents:
Introduction: Yoga Traditions by Knut A. Jacobsen
Person, Purity, and Power in the Yogasutra by Lloyd W. Pfleuger: God talk in Classical Yoga is full of surprises. The curious notion of isvara `the Lord' in Patanjali Yogasutra, only explicitly mentioned in five sutra-s, is a cornerstone of the Yogasutra worldview. This notion, when read independently of the traditional commentaries, reveals a rather impersonal and strikingly powerless deity, essentially not pure conscious¬ness, quite in keeping with the constraints of' classical Samkhya-Yoga thinking. This view of isvara is only reinforced by the trouble tradi¬tional commentaries, influenced by the rising current of bhakti, take to reverse it by reading in all the traditional personality and power of a more puranic conception of god. But prakrti abhors a vacuum: If isvara lacks in power and personality in the YS itself, the unstated and hidden deity of the YS is the successful yogis who is lavished with supernormal powers (vibhuti-s/siddhi-s) about which both ancient and modern com¬mentaries have little to say. Yet the powers and supernormal perfections of the yogin are invested with more sutra-s than any other single topic in the Yogasutra. Ultimately the real deity of' the Yogasutra, standing in the background of the experiential system, is the yogic guru, potent and immanent, protecting, guiding, assuring, and inspiring the aspirant.
Revisiting the Jivanmukti Question in Samkhya in the Context of the Samkhyasutra by I S. Rukmani: Samkhya argues for a state of liberation while still embodied (jivanmukti), as is evidenced the Samkhyakarika. But the Samkhyakarika does not dwell on this concept clearly and strongly and thus it left a lot of room for later commentators to borrow vocabulary from both the Yoga and Advaita Vedanta schools to explain this state. This led gradually to a dilution of the concept itself If the time of the Samkhyapravacanasutra. This paper deals with the way the change took place and how even¬tually the very concept of jivanmukti as advocated by the Samkhyakarika
got entangled in a web of verbiage the later Samkhyapravacanasutra and iii the commentaries on it, that resulted in Samkhya's inability to sustain the Samkhyakarika definition of jivanmukti itself.
Being a Witness: Cross-Examining the Notion of Self in Sankara's Upadesasahasri, Isvarakrsna's Samkhyakarika, and Patanjali's Yogasutra by Richa Pauranik Clements:
This study compares the notion of Self in three independent treatises belonging to the three most influential schools of `Hindu' philosophy: Sankara's Upadesasahasri (Advaita Vedanta), Isvarakrsna's Samkhyakarika (Samkhya), and Patanjali's Yogasutra (Yoga). Behind their different metaphysics non-dualistic, dualistic, and dualistic with an element of theism --lie striking conceptual and linguistic similarities in the writings on causality (parinamavada and satkaryavada), the functioning of an indi¬vidual's inner sense (antahkarana) and its modifications ( vrtti-s or pratyaya-s), and the pure witness-consciousness (saksitva) of Self. Radical Oneness of the Self is the spiritual goal common to all three schools, and none considers God's existence essential or even necessary to achieving it. The only difference is in the interpretation of the oneness of Self, viewed as an integrated Atman-Brahman by Advaita Vedanta, and as disintegrated isolation of individual purusa-s by Samkhya-Yoga. In either case, the Self remains a witness.
`It Ain't Necessarily So' by Nandini Iyer: This article argues that the opposition between Samkhya-Yoga and Vedanta is not all irrevocable either/or dichotomy. The claim that it is necessary to choose one and only one system need not he accepted, and this is so also with regard to their apparently irreconcilable meta-physical and ontological truth-claims. Both Samkhya-Yoga and Vedanta have their theoretical strengths and weaknesses. Each has its advan¬tages and provides useful starting points in, and connecting links with the everyday world of the ordinary person. Each offers it relatively coherent and insightful view or explanatory system dealing with mat¬ters of ultimate concern, and each attempts to answer the questions that inevitably arise for any individual engaged in a spiritual quest. The article concludes that in the final analysis, we cannot expect any conceptual metaphysical system to be able to express the Absolute Truth or reveal to us the infinite mysteries of the ineffable, indescrib¬able Ultimate Reality.
The Samkhya-Yoga Influence on Srivaisnava Philosophy with Special Reference to the Pancaratra System by P. Pratap Kumar: One of the advantages of studying various Indian...
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