Will the real Sarasvatī River please stand up

 What happened to the Sarasvatī River of the Vedas? Was she a mighty river that dried up—or a sacred memory carried through migration and myth? In this post, I share a few reflections from my research for an upcoming book on yoga history and philosophy.

I’ve long been fascinated by the ancient history—and even prehistory—of India. This stems not only from being a die-hard Indophile, but also from a deep interest in the origins of yoga and the Dharmic traditions.

One of the more intriguing rabbit holes I’ve wandered down lately is the academic debate surrounding the Sarasvatī River. Mentioned often in the Vedic texts, Sarasvatī does not have an obvious match among today’s rivers. Curious to understand more, I went back to the Vedas themselves to see how Sarasvatī is described in the earliest layers of the literature.

Pic: Royalty free stock photo of a mighty, swift river (not the Sarasvati)

In the index of Sanskrit terms for the Griffith/Keith translation of the Vedas (compiled by Jon Fergus, 2017), Sarasvatī appears on 109 pages. With the aim of seeing for myself how she is portrayed, especially in the oldest hymns, I followed up every occurrence. This translation, though Victorian and perhaps biased, is the only version currently accessible to me.

Out of 112 references:

• 38 are in the Ṛg Veda (33.9%)

• 51 in the Yajurveda (45.5%)

• 3 in the Sāmaveda (2.7%)

• 20 in the Atharvaveda (17.9%)

Of these, only a small number clearly refer to Sarasvatī as a river—eight indisputable references in the Ṛg Veda.

In hymns where Sarasvatī is mentioned with Ilā and Bhāratī, she is one of the “kindred Rivers” (RV 3.4.8), “three Goddesses who bring us wealth” (RV 5.5.8). In RV 6.61.2, she “hath burst with her strong waves the ridges of the hills,” and in RV 7.36.6, she is “Mother of Floods,” a mighty and full-flowing stream.

Three hymns—Ṛg Veda 6.61, 7.95, and 7.96—clearly portray Sarasvatī as a formidable river:

“Divine Sarasvatī, terrible with her golden path, Foe-slayer … Whose limitless, unbroken flood, swift-moving with a rapid rush, Comes onward with tempestuous roar.”
—RV 6.61.7–13

“This Sarasvatī … the flood flows on, surpassing in majesty and might all other waters. Pure in her course from mountains to the ocean…”
—RV 7.95.1–2

“I sing a lofty song, for she is mightiest, most divine of Streams … So may Sarasvatī, auspicious, send good luck; she, rich in spoil, is never niggardly in thought.”
—RV 7.96.1–3

Here, we see the transformation of a river into a goddess—abundant, protective, powerful. She is more than just water: she is divine, life-giving, auspicious.

Later compositions, particularly in Maṇḍalas 1 and 10 of the Ṛg Veda, begin to shift emphasis. While Sindhu (the Indus) becomes the supreme river, Sarasvatī’s identity starts to dissolve into her divine aspect rather than her geographic one:

“Let the great streams come hither… Sindhu, Sarasvatī, and Sarayu with waves…”
—RV 10.64.9

“Favour ye this land, O Gaṅgā, Yamunā… and Sarasvatī…”
—RV 10.75.1–5

By the time of the Yajurveda and Sāmaveda, Sarasvatī appears primarily as the goddess of speech (Vāc), with only vague allusions to her watery nature. In the Atharvaveda, a fascinating hymn (AV 3.13) praises the rivers as goddesses and seems to acknowledge their unpredictability—perhaps even hinting at shifting courses or drying up.

“As ye flowed forth together with a roar … ye Rivers … hence have ye got the names of Streams.”
—AV 3.13

This growing abstraction reaches its conclusion in later literature. While the Mahābhārata still remembers Sarasvatī as a great river, it also describes her drying up—an important development that the Vedas themselves never mention. Edwin Bryant highlights this in The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture (2001).

So what happened to the mighty Sarasvatī?

Great excitement followed the discovery, via satellite imagery, of a paleo-channel—an ancient dried riverbed—to the east of the Indus. Today it’s known as the Ghaggar-Hakra: Ghaggar in India and Hakra in Pakistan. It may once have been fed by the Sutlej and Yamuna rivers, keeping it full and perennial.

Older theories suggested that the Sutlej and Yamuna changed course during the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), contributing to the decline of its cities. But more recent geological data indicate these rivers stopped feeding the Ghaggar-Hakra around the end of the Ice Age, 10,000 to 8,000 years ago. If this dry riverbed is indeed the Vedic Sarasvatī, it pushes the composition of the Ṛg Veda back into prehistory—before the rise of the urban Indus civilization (c. 3000 BCE).

This presents a problem. The Vedic texts seem to reflect a nomadic, pastoral culture—centered on horses, herding, and sacrificial fire rites—whereas the Indus Valley people were settled, agricultural, and engaged in long-distance trade. There’s no mention of cities in the early Vedic texts. While some scholars have tried to identify the two cultures as one, the internal evidence makes that difficult.

Rajesh Kocchar, in The Vedic People: Their History and Geography (2000), proposes another explanation: the Vedic people were migrating eastward, naming the rivers of their new homeland after the ones they had known and revered before—just as British settlers in Canada named a new river the Thames and built a city called London.

Kocchar points out that the Avestan (ancient Iranian) name Haraxvaiti and the Sanskrit Sarasvatī are linguistically equivalent, allowing for known sound shifts. Similarly, Sindhu becomes Hindu in Old Persian. In this theory, the mighty Sarasvatī of the Vedic hymns may actually have been the Helmand River in Afghanistan—a river that ends not in an ocean, but in a lake system.

In Vedic Sanskrit, samudra—now meaning ocean—literally means “gathering together of waters.” So Sarasvatī’s destination may well have been a lake or marsh.

It’s a compelling theory. But it’s not universally accepted. Others insist that the Vedas were composed entirely in the Punjab, and reject any idea of migration.

So the question remains:
Was the Sarasvatī a river that dried up—or a memory carried eastward, mythologised and immortalised in verse?

Either way, she continues to flow powerfully—through poetry, ritual, and the cultural memory of a civilization that made her divine.

This research is part of the background work for The Long Braid, a book I’m currently writing on the history and philosophy of yoga. It explores the deep roots of yoga in Indian culture, examining both the textual traditions and the wider historical and philosophical context from which they emerged. The Sarasvatī River is just one strand in this long and intricate braid.

Mudrā and the many shades of grey

In a class recently I offered the mudrā where you put the thumbtips and the forefinger fingertips together and leave the other fingers extended. This mudrā is a favourite mudrā for the practice of meditation. I already knew that this mudrā is named differently by different people, and often the palms up and the palms down versions are given the opposite names by different sources.

I was originally taught this mudra as Chin Mudrā with the palms up, and Jñāna Mudrā with the palms down. These two mudrās are different in their energy. Stop reading now, close your eyes and try them out and see, before I offer my experience.

To me, palms down is internalizing, and palms up is externalizing. There is more receiving and openness in palms up, more surrender and inward turning when the palms are down. You might like to drop a comment and tell me what you found. When sitting down to meditation, we can choose which mudrā based on the support we need or the intention we set for the meditation.

In class that day I said that I was taught the names this way, but others teach them the other way, but then I added, it is only a name anyway, the essence of the mudrā remains the same, no matter what you call it.

Since that class I received communications from one member of the class that they were taught it the other way, and I was offered a mudra handbook by another, which did not mention the palms down version, and gave the palms up version in the alternative spelling of Jñāna as Gyan Mudrā. I grant that spelling might land an English speaker closer to the pronunciation of Jñāna, but I love to give things in the IAST standard for transliteration with diacritical marks, as I believe once it is learnt it is as robust as the scripts of India that leave no room for pronunciation doubt or fashion. So, you might note it is a long ā at the end of mudrā, not a short one!

I used to teach Yogic Physiology to yoga teacher trainees and that meant teaching mudrā and other material that related to the subtle body. Mudrā might involve making an attitude with a part of the physical body, but it creates changes in the subtle, or energy body. I taught what I had been taught, the best of my knowledge at that time, well researched on top of what had been directly taught to me from whatever resources I could find. Imagine my horror a little down the track when I found out that much of what I had been taught, and that I had found in books, and passed on, was a modern invention and not at all found in tradition! There I had been, innocently participating in the propagation of misinformation.

This little exchange about mudrā sent me back to the books and the research. I decided to look on my own bookshelf first. I have there one of the most influential books on mudrā in the contemporary era, Mudras: Yoga in your Hands by a Swiss yoga teacher named Gertrud Hirschi. She gives these mudrās and names them thus (spelling as per the book): “When your fingers point up to Heaven, it is called the Jnana Mudra; when your fingers point down to earth, it is called the Chin Mudra.” This book was first published in German in 1998, and the English translation first appeared in 2000. I have found it is always a good idea to enquire of a teacher about their lineage. I wondered where Hirschi got her information, but her bio notes on her own website do not tell of her lineage or who her teachers were.

To try and get to the traditional sources, starting with Indian sources might seem a good place. There is still a need for caution there too. There has been a bit of Stockholm Syndrome, otherwise known as the pizza effect, happening in the yoga world in India. This means that yoga spread to the west, collected some new interpretations which somehow found their way back into the way yoga is done back in India. Nevertheless, going to Indian sources seems like a good idea. What is on my shelf by Indian authors that spoke to the subject of mudrā?

Not much it turns out. First to hand is the classic, Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha by Swami Satyananda Saraswati published by Bihar Yoga first edition 1969. Here is what it said.

“Jnana and Chin Mudras

Jnana Mudra (psychic gesture of knowledge)

Assume a comfortable meditation posture.
Fold the index finger so that they touch the inside root of the thumbs. Straighten the other three fingers of each hand so that they are relaxed and slightly apart. Place the hands on the knees with the palms facing down.
Relax the hands and the arms.

Chin Mudra (psychic gesture of consciousness)

Chin mudra is performed in the same way as jnana mudra, except that the palms of both hands face upwards, with the backs of the hands resting on the knees.
Relax the hands and arms.

….

Variation: Jnana and chin mudras are often performed with the tip of the thumb and index finger touching and forming a circle. Beginners may find this variation less secure for prolonged periods of meditation, as the thumb and index finger tend to separate more easily when body awareness is lost. Otherwise, this variation is as effective as the basic position.”

More is said, all of it informative, but I encourage you to get the book and read it.

The credentials of by Swami Satyananda Saraswati are impeccable as far as his yogic knowledge are concerned. He found his guru, Swami Sivananda Saraswati, at the age of twenty, and spent 13 years with him at his ashram in Rishikesh. Sivananda then sent him out to the world, and he wandered as a mendicant learning more yogic techniques and practices, for another six years before establishing the International Yoga Fellowship in 1962, and then in 1964, the Bihar School of Yoga. His influence extended internationally.

This well credentialled source who served a 19-year apprenticeship before beginning to teach, teaches Jñāna Mudrā with the palms down and Chin Mudrā with the palms up, and both with the finger into the base of the thumb, with the fingertip version as a variation. He teaches that the arm and hand should be relaxed.

The other Indian source on my bookshelf was B. K. S. Iyengar’s Light on Yoga, first published in 1966. Iyengar does not provide a section on mudrā but various mudrās turn up in his prāṇāyāma section. Here he is giving general instructions.

“The left arm is kept straight, the back of the wrist resting on the left knee. The forefinger is bent towards the thumb, its tip touching the tip of the thumb. This is the Jñāna Mudrā described later in the technique.

The right arm is bent at the elbow and the hand is kept on the nose to regulate the even flow of breath and to gauge its subtlety. This is felt through the tips of the ring and little fingers which control the left nostril and through the tip of the thumb which controls the right nostril. Details of the right hand position are discussed in the technique. In some methods of prāṇāyāma both the hands rest on the knees in Jñāna Mudrā.”

In 1934, at the age of 16 years, Iyengar had been sent to live with his brother-in-law, Sri Tiruvanamallai Krishnamacharya, in Mysore. Krishnamacharya, who is sometimes called the father of modern yoga, had suggested he could improve the sickly lad’s health. However, he neglected Iyengar at first, setting him to household chores instead, and stating he did not believe he would be any good at yoga. Krishnamacharya was under the patronage of the Maharaja of Mysore, who often arranged yoga demonstrations to show off the physical prowess of his pet yoga project subjects. When one of Krishnamacharya’s star pupils departed, he started to teach Iyengar. Iyengar himself says that he received only about two weeks of instruction from his brother-in-law in two years, but he was allowed to practice with the group and his practice proceeded. Three years after he came to live with his brother-in-law he was sent away to Pune to teach yoga. The style he developed was to become famous and very influential throughout the world. His apprenticeship was just three years.

When looking at texts one method I follow to see if the source is trustworthy is to look up something I feel I do know something about. I looked up “chakra” in the Iyengar book.

“Chakra means a nerve-centre, the fly-wheels in the machine, that is the human body. Bandha means fetter or bond. The chakras are the regions situated within the spinal column where the nāḍis cross each other. There are seven of them in the human body.”

It goes on but I am stopping there. The traditional sources, which lie in Tantra, not in Haṭha Yoga, are quite clear. The principle cakras (IAST) are not situated in the spinal column, but on the central channel, which lies to the anterior to the spinal column, rising straight from the middle of the perineum to and through the crown of the head. What is more, to say that there are seven cakras is to place a limitation that tradition does not hold. There are many cakra systems, with different numbers of cakras in use for the purpose of a specific practice. Mr Iyengar did not understand the cakras fully and was being influenced by sources that came from the west, theosophy, and Carl Jung, who discovered cakras through a westerner’s translation of one, late era, tantra text. I am afraid Mr Iyengar’s yoga credentials are thus called into question, especially when we are getting into the world of the subtle body. I know that is iconoclastic and bound to ruffle feathers, but still.

Having exhausted the sources of Indian teachers on my bookshelf I began to search the online bookstores to see what else was available and I found that most of those who dare to write about the subject are westerners, nobody had easily sourced biographical information that would tell me about their lineage, those who carry Indian names I was not too sure were in fact Indian, and to cut the long story short, I feel that I reached a dead end.

A dead end to what? The answer is to the age-old quest for the one truth. The same impetus perhaps that urged my students to share their sources of knowledge. But the only real truth here is that there is not one version of it. This brings me to something I realized a long time ago, and I have written about it before. It is true of all humans perhaps, but especially true of westerners I think, that we believe there must be one authoritative version of the truth. But there isn’t, and we just have to accept the shades of grey we are presented with.

Other names for the same or similar mudrā and other variations

Kaṇiṣṭha prāna nādi mudrā – Forefingertip touches thumbtip, palms down

Śrāddha prāna kriyā mudrā - Forefingertip touches thumbtip, palms up

Jñāna mudra – Forefingertip touches thumbtip, but then with hand turned palm to body and held at the heart

Prajñā prāna kriyā mudrā – Tip of forefinger to the base of the thumb (if tip of forefinger is at the middle thumb joint it is Medhā prāna kriyā mudrā)

Vitarka Yoga Mudrā – Right forefingertip touches thumbtip, and the extended fingers point to the sky, palm facing out. The left hand lies in lap, fingers together, palm up.

Dharmacakra Mudrā – With both hands, forefingertip touches thumbtip, hands are held at heart level, left palm turns towards the heart, the right hand palm down with thumb and forefinger touching the left middle finger.

Do you know of any more?

Surrender

There is no getting past it on the spiritual path. Eventually we have to surrender. Let go. Give up. 

What are we surrendering and what are we surrendering to? The mind wants answers to these questions, as if it will make a difference. (It won't. But let's look at it anyway.)

Patañjali points to surrender in the fifth niyama of the Yoga Sutra. Reading the fourth and the fifth niyamas together gives more.

II.44 svādhyāyad iṣṭa-devatā-samprayogaḥ

II.45 samādhi-siddhir īśvara-praṇidhānāt

44. From study [of scripture], a connection with one's deity of choice is established.

45. From submission to God comes the perfection of samādhi. (Bryant translations 2009)

In modern yoga schools, particularly in western culture, svādhyāya is often translated as "self study". It is not a wrong translation, it does mean that, but in practice, in the cultural context in which Patañjali was penning his sutras, it definitely meant scriptural study, which teach about the "self " in a spiritual sense. And in these two sutras it is quite clear that Patañjali is a theist. There IS a God, or Gods, since our "deity of choice" is to emerge from scriptural study (44), and then submission to that deity (īśvara) yields the fruits of yoga (45). So for Patañjali we are surrendering to our deity of choice. 

(Non-dual translator Swami Venkatesananda renders īśvara-praṇidhānā as "surrender to the indwelling omni-presence.)

What we are surrendering to is the larger than ego sense of self, call it god or universal Consciousness, Awareness, that which unfolds the entire universe into being and takes it all back again. That primordial hum or energy or om that is the fabric of the universe! But you cannot think this. No amount

The work to be done on the spiritual path is a process of stripping away all that we think we know about ourselves, all the stories we have about ourselves, and everything else. Stories are held in the ego's domain. And the ego is yet another story, the story of there being a separate me at all. 

The Tantric practice of deha śuddhi internalises this process in its ritual absorption. The body is visualised as having an internal fire into which the practitioner offers all those stories, knowing that all that is true will survive, but all that is untrue will perish. It is a purifying fire. (Learn this and other tantric practices from living teachers please, descriptions like this in blogs and books are not instructions!)

In other meditative work you can take a story, say a deeply rooted belief in one's innate inadequacy, and really hold it up for examination, not with the mind alone, but with the body: When you take this belief to be true, where and how do you feel it in the body? We do this in iRest where we are also encouraged to not only dialogue with a single belief but also to try on alternatives. What would be an alternative to this belief? Find a memory that would support that belief, or imagine an incident in your life which would support that belief, and feel that in your body. It doesn't take long before you find the deeply rooted belief loosening.

Here is the irony: ego is doing all this spirituality stuff to strip away our stories. In the end ego has to give up, so profoundly, it even gives up its attachment to its own existence story!

Surrender is saying yes, totally, to the truth, and nothing but the truth.

Surrender is a profound letting go. Letting go of all the stories you have about yourself and everything, every image or idea you have about yourself. I am good, I am worth it, I am not good enough, the lot.

See also my poem Surrender to the Beloved.

Embracing embodiment

 Let us bless
The imagination of the Earth.
That knew the early patience
To harness the mind of time,
Waited for the seas to warm, 
Ready to welcome the emergence
Of things dreaming of voyaging
Among the stillness of the land.

So begins John O'Donahue's "In Praise of the earth". I turn to it as I contemplate the bottom-most tattva on the Map of Meditation, earth element. Not lowly for all that it sits there at the bottom, Tattva 36 as numbered from the top down, but remember, it is number one on the return journey! 

(Read my previous post "The map of meditation")

No, not lowly, but the fullest expression of the amazing unfolding of the universe. When the element of earth is manifest, creation is complete.

Think about this. Embodiment, to have a body, is to inhabit earth element.  Only earth element contains the totality of everything, from Śiva Consciousness to the ultimate of creation. As embodied creatures we are that.

Sage Patanjali, in forming the sutras on Śauca, Purity, displays a distaste for the embodied state which was common in many Indian spiritual traditions.

By cleanliness, one [develops] distaste for one's body and the cessation of contact with others. (Yoga Sutra II:40, Bryant tr.)

The original commentator, Vyasa, whom many scholars now surmise was one and the same person as the author of the sutra, observes that the yogin realises that the body can never be clean, no matter how much it is washed, and therefore he no longer would wish to contact with other bodies which is bound to be more polluting.  Sex is off the agenda, for sure!

This attitude arises when you believe that you are somehow separate from the body, believing that it is just simply part of that "other", Prakṛti, when one is attempting to realise fully that one is pure spirit, Puruṣa.

In Advaita Vedanta also, the body is dismissed as not real, the real is Puruṣa, now called Ātman, which is none other than Brahman, Universal Consciousness. There is nothing else. So it too is body-denying, shunning the pleasure and experience of embodiment.

The View of Non-dual Śaiva Tantra is different. There is nothing in your experience of the embodied state that is not a valid place to explore your Essence Nature. Right - down - to - earth!

Further lines of the O'Donohue poem are pertinent:

Let us thank the Earth
That offers ground for home
And holds our feet firm
To walk in space open
To infinite galaxies.

And:

Let us remember within us
The ancient clay,
Holding the memory of seasons,
The passion of the wind,
The fluency of water,
The warmth of fire,
the quiver touch of the sun
And shadowed sureness of the moon.

We thank and praise the whole of experience as anything at all can  and does illuminate the whole of Consciousness which is the author of everything.

So we take the body, and experience it fully. We let go of the concepts we might have about it and simply experience it.  It is sensation. Sometimes loud, sometimes soft. Sometimes it sings, sometimes it cries, but we do not judge, it simply is.  What is your experience of the body, without any thought about it? When we are fully experiencing the whole of what is here by fully entering into the felt sense of the body we are embracing the entirety of all 36 tattvas at once. 

If we divorce ourselves from that full felt experience, we do not fully embrace all of what is here. This not only creates a schism in ourselves where we are unable to fully process feelings and emotions but it also says, I cannot be awakened to the whole of my truth until I can be rid of this body.  And this tradition says, no, you can be awakened in an embodied form. Accept and embrace everything.

So being fully embodied, fully embracing the felt sense of the body with all that it presents, helps us to become more psychologically integrated but also helps us towards our spiritual awakening. Whoopee, let’s fully sense our body.

The Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra has many practices that invite us to be fully embodied, with the promise that this may be the experience that catapults us to Awakening, such as when receiving a body piercing, fully enter into the pain; when embracing a friend not seen for a long time sense into that embrace; swinging on a swing, through the soothing motion one knows the Divine.

Yoga Nidra always includes a rotation of awareness around the body. It springs from the practice of nyasa, a ritual of touching parts of the body in a rotation together with the intonation of specific mantras. The literal touching and the mantra are replaced by mentally touching named parts of the body with attention and then moving it on to the next point.

In iRest® this is a fully developed experiencing of the body as sensation, letting go of cognition and simply experiencing as sensation.

Movement practice such as asana, can be practiced as an athletic exercise, true, as in a vigorous vinyasa, however all asana practice is an opportunity to practice being fully embodied, sensing into the full sensation of the body, moving a bit more slowly perhaps to be more fully present. Somatics was not designed as an Awakening sadhana, but it is so mindful it too offers such an opportunity.  All our movement practices, with the right approach, can be "Embodiment practice", an opportunity to  connect to all the elements, right down to Earth.

Do not forget the simple act of living as an opportunity too. Walk barefoot and feel the earth, the grass, the sand, the rock, beneath the feet and between the toes. Put your hands in the dirt by gardening. 

What will you do to embrace yourself as Earth element today?

The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft en route to the Moon at a distance of about 29,000 kilometres (18,000 mi). It shows Africa, Antarctica, and the Arabian Peninsula.

A map of meditation

The map and the territory

Alfred Korzybski famously said "the map is not the territory". Too true. I can stare at a map of Barcelona for hours, but I still have not had the experience of Barcelona. But a map is a truly useful thing and the yogis of yore have handed down a few that are still serviceable today as we journey the unknown territory of the spiritual journey. It is an irony that we must journey to the ends of the earth to find the goal is already right here! Then again, that is already marked on the maps.

By Unknown author - https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1940-0713-0-79, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12813191

Just like the maps of physical geography there are different kinds ... street/road maps, topographical maps, street view, and so on. There are maps of the energetic body and maps of the Self as layers.

And then there is the map of meditation, or the Tattvas map, which is described in the Śiva Sūtra, but has its origins in the Samkhya school of philosophy.  

The beauty of this map is that we can number the elements, from one on, from either end, depending which you regard as your starting point and which is the destination.

Tattvas in Samkhya

The philosophical school of Samkhya, which is closely related to the philosophical school of "Yoga" ...  we can call it classical, or Patanjalian Yoga to distinguish it from the many other "yogas" that have developed over time ... describes the tattvas as far as one named Puruṣa. It is 25 if counting from the bottom. 

The Samkhyan school is dualistic, but non-theistic as there is no god. 

There is Prakṛti, often translated as "Nature", which evolves out into everything in the material world, down to the basic elements. The first step in the evolution into everything is the blossoming of Buddhi (Discrimination), the sense of an "I", me, of being separate, and the mind of sense processing and attention. Then there are five organs of knowledge, the organs of sensing, ears, skin, eyes, tongue and nose. Following on are the actions, pairs of "organs" and actions actually, mouth and speaking, hands and grasping, feet and ambulating, genitals and procreating, and bowels and eliminating. Then there are the seses themselves, sound, touch, appearance, flavour and odour. And finally, or primarily depending on which direction you are looking, are the elements, space, wind, fire, water and earth. So out of 25 tattvas, Prakṛti constitutes 24 of them!

And then there is Puruṣa, which you might call Soul, or "Individual Consciousness". 

Both are real. Puruṣa’s mistake is misidentifying as Prakṛti. The invitation is to put distance between you (as Puruṣa) and Prakṛti. 

Because Prakṛti is the material part, this school has a tendency to be body denying, world denying, ascetic, renunciate.

Classical Yoga differs from Samkhya mainly in being theistic, that is by allowing a deity, a supreme consciousness. 

Another perspective - Advaita Vedanta

Samkhyan philosophy is evident very early in the Vedic literature, but in the Upaniṣads another "school" is birthed, that of Vedanta, meaning the "end of the Veda". Vedanta divides into further versions, but here we will look at Advaita Vedanta, or "non-dual vedanta".

So, Advaita Vedanta, says, no, there is only One. That one is Puruṣa, but they tend to change the language – Atman. And there is the super one, Brahman, but Atman and brahman are the same. All that Prakṛti, that doesn’t exist at all, only Maya, interpreted as ILUSION, makes Atman think it is and to identify with it. Again, this is world denying, ascetic. Get out of the world, become a monk, stay away from women, and meditate, and you will realise that you are Brahman (big S self). Advaita Vedanta tends to be transcendentalist, the great silent stillness (Void, Śunya) is the goal. 

(I should make a little qualification here, this was how Advaita Vedanta was originally argued. In modern times it seems to have taken a step towards the kind of non-dualism that is proposed in the tantric versions.)

"But wait, there's more", says Non-dual Śaiva Tantra!

Non-dual Śaiva Tantra says, but wait there’s more. You missed something. Maya is not Illusion, but concealment and contraction. Through Maya, the Divine is able to manifest the world from itself, as an expression of itself. The powers of the Divine are brought into a contracted form, and then embodiment happens. In fact, then the whole universe happens.

So the map devised by Samkhya still stands, but above it are the limited powers that make everything below possible - we have location and dimension, causality and localisation; sequential time unfolds; desire and craving become an expression of the contraction of perfection; we have knowledge, but on a limited scale compared to omniscience; we can act, we have agency, but not omnipotence.

Maya, the agent of contraction to make it all possible, stands between the limited and the unlimited powers of the Divine. As we follow our map we are now beyond those limitations, tasting those powers: the power of Acting, the power of Knowing, and the power of Willing. 

There are two more powers (plus one). They are the power of Consciousness and the power of Bliss, and they are innate in the next two tattvas as we climb this map, as Śiva and Śakti respectively.  And the plus one? That is off the map and is complete freedom.

Śiva is transcendence, the still point, Śakti is immanence, the flowing energy of everything. Yet they are not really two.  Just as the centre of the wheel and the rim are not two but still one wheel, the centre the still point around which the rim and the rest of the wheel, revolves, but still one wheel, so too these principles of Śiva and Śakti. Tradition would place them side by side but numbering down Śiva would be 1 and Śakti 2, however this numbering is in no way indicating precedence. Śiva and Śakti are equal and could just as easily be interchanged.

This has now built 36 tattvas, or principles of reality and maps the path into manifestation and the path back up the map by which we find our way home. Beyond these 36 is the unenumerable, the Heart, Śiva-Śakti in perfect union.

Reference: Please read Tantra Illuminated by Christopher Wallis to understand more about all things Tantra, especially non-dual Śaiva Tantra.

The third limb

Head into most modern yoga classes and what you will meet is a lot of āsana and the merest smattering of other yoga practices such as prāṇāyāma, meditation and so on.

In his Yoga Sutras, Patañjali delineates eight limbs of yoga. (Naughty aside: Thus yoga is either an octopus or an arachnid.) Modern scholars have pointed out that the Yoga Sutras did not have much of a following in earlier times, but were revived in the modern era. They are now required reading in nearly all reputable modern postural yoga teacher trainings. The irony is that while such trainings emphasise the postures of yoga, the Yoga Sutras say very little. Indeed, I have often heard it pointed out that Patañjali is only referring to establishing a comfortable posture for sitting.

The more I learn though, the more I question anything I have ever been told, read or believed.

Most translations of the Yoga Sutras are just that, a translation of the pithy verses of condensed Sanskrit, usually accompanied by a commentary by the translator. These are the translations that we usually look at in our yoga teacher trainings.

I was intrigued, therefore, to read "A Concise Histiography of Classical Yoga Philosophy" (2013) by Phillip Maas, in which a case is made that the original commentary, attributed to Vyāsa, is actually also by the same author as the Yoga Sutras, and that we should be treating the sutras and the commentary as one work, we could call the Pātañjala Yogaśāstra. In fact very early authors do just that, as early as 650CE. Maas's argument has convinced other scholars as well.

Unfortunately, English translations of the sutras plus commentary are hard to find. The Edwin Bryant translation of the sutras (2009) does cite the Vyāsa commentary a lot but the only version I have found that gives an actual translation is Yoga Philosophy of Patañjali by Swāmi Hariharānanda Āraṇya tr P.N. Mukerji (1983). So I turned to it to see what Vyāsa/Patañjali says of the most famous of the four sutras on āsana, II:46, sthira-sukham āsanam - The posture should be steady and comfortable.

Actually, that is Bryant's translation, much better than Hariharānanda/Mukerji's rather awkward "Motionless and Agreeable form (of staying) is Āsana (Yogic Posture)".

Here, in full, is the translation of the Vyāsa commentary:

They are as follows: - Padmāsana, Virāsana, Bhadrāsana, Svastikāsana, Dandāsana, Soprāśraya, Paraṅka, Krauñcha (heron)-niṣadana, Hasti (elephant) niṣadana, Uṣṭra (camel)- niṣadana, Sama-saṁsthāna. When these postures can be held comfortably, they are called (Yogic) Āsanas.

Bryant also notes that Vyāsa knew of more postures since he put etc. at the end of his list, an etc not included by Hariharānanda.

Padmāsana is the lotus pose that we know today, feet on the opposite thighs. Virāsana however is what we might call half lotus.

Bhadrāsana seems to be what we now call Baddhakonāsana.

Svastikāsana is called the same today, auspicious pose, toes tucked in.

Dandāsana also has not changed over the millenia but did have the stipulation that the feet be firmly together.

Soprāśraya may hearten you. It means support pose. a yoga-paṭṭika is to be used, only we are not too sure what that is, but for sure it is some kind of prop, perhaps a board or stool, or maybe a band, as in the statue below, which is from the 18th century, but it is not unsual to see such figures using a yoga strap as support, in temple carvings from even earlier periods.

Paraṅka is the same as śavāsana, lying down with arms by the side. 

Bryant says that the ancient commentators recommended studying the relevent creature's seated position to learn Krauñcha-niṣadana, Hasti-niṣadana, and Uṣṭra-niṣadana, and I could not say if that is the same as current day poses. 

Sama-saṁsthāna or level pose is standing, or what we might call Tadāsana or Samasthitiḥ.

The ancient commentators (after Vyāsa) are clear that the postures are to be held without motion with the posture straight, torso neck and head in alignment. So no vinyasa here, or just a one minute hold!

So, interest definitely engaged I proceed to the second of the four sutras on āsana. II:47 prayatna-śaithilyānanta-samāpattibhyām and Bryant's translation - [Such posture should be attained] by the relaxation of effort and by absorption in the infinite. And Vyāsa's commentary:

By relaxation of the body Āsana is perfected; this stops shaking of the limbs (which is an obstacle to Samādhi). Or, a mind fixed on the infinite brings about perfection (Siddhi) of the Āsana.

Bryant summarises the commentaries saying: "The essential idea is that by the practice of āsana, the body should be so relaxed that the yogī ceases to be conscious of it at all, and the mind can be thus directed toward meditation without any bodily distraction."

So, despite the inclusion of a few more than expected postures, the idea is still to hold them long, hold them still and relax into them until you can do it with no effort. Then meditate.

The third sutra on āsana, II:48 tato dvandvānabhighātaḥ - From this one is not afflicted by the dualities of the opposites. (Bryant).

When perfection in Āsana is attained, the devotee is not affected by the opposite conditions like heat and cold etc.

The point here is that the body disappears in the practitioner's perception, becomes the void, says Hariharānanda.

So if you thought finding more postures than expected made the Yoga Sutras more relevant to modern postural yoga, be disabused. We are all full of body positivity in our modern yoga rooms, but Patanjali was having none of that. Remember what he said about the first of the niyamas, Śauca, purity? II:40 śaucāt svānga-jugupsā parair asaṁsargaḥ - By cleanliness, one [develops] distaste for one's body and the cessation of contact with others. (Bryant). No, he hasn't had a change of heart between sutras 40 and 48!

There is one more sutra in the section on āsana, posture. II:49 tasmin sati śvāsa-praśvāsayor gati-vicchedaḥ prāṇāyāmaḥ - When that [āsana] is accomplished, prāṇāyāmaḥ, breath control, [follows]. This consists of the regulation of the incoming and outgoing breath. (Bryant)

So, there we have it, a link verse, leaving āsana and moving onto the next limb. Though Bryant does note the grammatical construction that tells us that there is a sequential progress through the limbs, and the accomplishing of the mastery of posture should be underway before progressing to breath-control.

In summary, we can still say that what Patañjali/Vyāsa has to say about āsana is still worlds away from modern postural practice. But what an interesting journey of discovery it has been.

Recognising the true teacher

Today I am moved to write on a rather tricky matter. Our world of yoga, like the rest of the world I suppose, has the capacity for people to cross the line between what is appropriate and what is not. 

In a yoga class we should be able to feel safe. Yoga as a practice of body/mind/spirit integration cannot be effective if we do not feel safe. Learning does not take place if we do not feel safe. Yet there are many ways we may not feel safe, and may not be safe in a yoga class.

Ahimsa - non-harming

In the classical yoga of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the principle of Ahimsa, non-harming, is the first yama of the five ethical practices that comprise the first limb of yoga. If yoga is truly adhereing to this principle, we would be safe in yoga classes. 

Ahimsa encompasses not only not harming others but also not harming ourselves. In the contect of not hurting ourselves in yoga classes, I believe we may lose some of our agency due to the culture of the class.

Safe from physical injury

In modern postural yoga, physical adjustments have become a norm. Highly respected pioneers of modern postural yoga paved the way for extreme force being applied to bodies to achieve an idealised position perceived as the correct way to do a pose. When yoga becomes gymnastics, when it shifts into the realm of competitive sport, when it becomes ambitious, misjudgement can come in, clear discrimination can dissolve.

The ambition to be "best"

The visual representations of yoga on magazine covers and on yoga memes almost always depicts postures with considerable wow factor. "Good yoga" is identified as being able to bring the body's joints into extreme flexions and extensions, and to be able to hold the body's weight on the hands or even on on one hand.

Many yoga classes perpetuate this idea. When a yoga teacher has bought into that ideal, and perhaps has a body type that is capable of getting into some of the postures, has perhaps trained in a system that lauds such postural work, then the culture of the class is to work the body to achieve the ideal. I've been there, in my youth, the idea of sitting in lotus posture seemed so important, that I worked my legs quite forcefully trying to achieve it. What did I get from it? Injuries in my ankles, and in my sacroiliac joint. 

So with an ambitious culture, students are encouraged to self harm.

Injury caused by adjustments

Have you ever received an adjustment in a yoga class that injured you? I have. I was doing my teacher training at the time, which made what happened even more shocking. The teacher who made the adjustment was a recent graduate of the same training, so I have a fair idea of the principles under which she was trained. In that training I was hearing messages about asking for permission before touching, about the unique structures of the human body and how one size never fits all. In this class, the teacher approached and without asking permission, pushed my pelvis to force "alignment" according to her ideas about what that should look like. I hurt for a week. To my horror, she showed up as an unannounced teacher in another studio I attended, ran the same lesson plan and tried to do it again! 

Now I refused that adjustment the second time because I saw it coming. I had quite a while to prepare myself to say no. I was also empowered by what I was learning in my teacher training. I knew that it was not OK, and that I had the right to say no. The problem was, the first time, I had no opportunity to give or withhold consent.

Informed consent

Informed consent implies two things. Firstly, that the person understands what is being consented to and secondly, that given that understanding, clearly says yes, feely and unpressured.

In the case I have related above, the first time, when the adjustment was made, it came out of the blue. We were asked to line up with our backs to the wall, place our feet in a particular position, and do triangle pose, with our lower hand right down to the ankle. The teacher then went around and pushed everyone's pelvis against the wall. I was first. I was not asked if I wanted an adjustment and I was certainly not told what that adjustment would be. There were at least twenty people in that class, and the teacher progressed around the room doing the same adjustment on everyone. You could argue that after the first few, if people were paying attention, they would have known what was coming. But nobody was then asked if they wanted to receive the adjustment. There was no culture established in that class that people were permitted to choose not to receive the adjustment. 

On the second occasion, it just so happened that I was last. I watched as the same scenario played out around the room, and when she got to me I refused. Even though I knew my right to refuse and was determined that I should, I spent her whole round summoning my courage to do so and I stated my refusal with more force than the situation demanded because of my nervousness and stress. Afterwards I felt embarressed. I still remember it. Refusing the teacher's adjustment when I was not asked for permission, the stress involved, was not something I could easily forget.

I have also seen a scenario play out in a workshop. The teacher asked for a volunteer, but did not say exactly what was going to be done. I felt uncomfortable when I saw the teacher walking on the volunteer. I wondered about the volunteer's informed consent, but I did not speak up. I wish I had.

When things become inappropriate or even abusive

In the scenario above not only was there a potential physical harm in the "adjustment" and a lack of informed consent, the area of the body was a very personal place. The walking was on the groin. Additonally the teacher was male, and the volunteer, female.

Think for a moment. If you had known this would be the "adjustment" would you have consented?

The peer pressure and class culture can make it hard to say no, and can even persuade you to participate. If I felt uncomfortable with the first volunteer and her experience, I was amazed at the number of additional volunteers who queued up for the adjustment. 

What a strategy - get the first person to receive an inappropriate manipulation by a total lack of informed consent, thus normalising it, and then they will queue.

And we need to navigate that. It is not easy. It is not easy as a student, if a teacher you respect begins to behave in a way towards you that makes you uncomfortable. It is not easy in a teaching fraternity to call the behaviour we may suspect we are witnessing.

First step - Being safe with ourselves

It is an important lesson to learn on the yoga path, that we should be able to feel safe with ourselves. I will perhaps write a whole blog post about this another day. However, without the ability to feel safe with ourselves our ability to open to the truth of who we really are might be hampered by fear. In the context of not doing ourselves harm we must always keep any promises we make to ourselves.

Empowering yourself and others

In conclusion, we owe it to ourselves and to all others to be brave. Brave to say no, and brave to call it out when we see it. Doing so will empower us all. And if any feeling of "oh oh!" arises, trust it, don't suppress it. Step back from the situation, say, to yourself and everyone else, this does not feel right. This is truly courageous, and it helps to have planned it ahead. 

How to recognise the true teacher? 

You will not feel afraid. You will feel empowered, never knocked down, encouraged to independence, not dependence. The true teacher will stir your quest to learn, but never claim to be the sole source of the answers. 

Photo credits: Images of yoga adjustments are from the blog yogamarie.weebly.com and mariehallagerandersen.weebly.com/ and were accessed on 2 December 20.