, repeats mantras and surrenders to God the fruit of all
his works and, feeling no more concern for them, is at peace. Though the
Yoga Sutras are theistic, theism is accessory rather than essential to
their teaching. They are not a theological treatise but the manual of an
ancient discipline which recognizes devotional feelings as one means to
its end. The method would remain almost intact if the part relating to
the deity were omitted, as in the Sankhya. God is not for the Yoga
Sutras, as he is for many Indian and European mystics, the one reality,
the whence and whither of the soul and world.

Eight branches of practice[663] are enumerated, namely:--

1. Yama or restraint, that is abstinence from killing, lying, stealing,
incontinence, and from receiving gifts. It is almost equivalent to the
five great precepts of Buddhism.

2. Niyama or observance, defined as purification, contentment,
mortification, recitation and devotion to the Lord.

Purification is treated at great length in the later treatises on
Hatha-yoga under the name of Shat-karma or sixfold work. It comprises
not only ordinary ablutions but cleansing of the internal organs by such
methods as taking in water by the nostrils and discharging it by the
mouth. The object of these practices which, though they assume queer
forms, rest on sound therapeutic principles, is to remove adventitious
matter from the system and to reduce the gross elements of the
body[664].

3. Asanam or posture is defined as a continuous and pleasant attitude.
It is difficult to see how the latter adjective applies to many of the
postures recommended, for considerable training is necessary to make
them even tolerable. But the object clearly is to prescribe an attitude
which can be maintained continuously without creating the distracting
feeling of physical discomfort and in this matter European and oriental
limbs feel differently. All the postures contemplated are different ways
of sitting cross-legged. Later works revel in enumerations of them and
also recognize others called Mudra. This word is specially applied to a
gesture of the hand but is sometimes used in a less restricted sense.
Thus there is a celebrated Mudra called Khechari, in which the tongue is
reversed and pressed into the throat while the sight is directed to a
point between the eyebrows. This is said to induce the cataleptic trance
in which Yogis can be buried alive.

4. Pranayama or regulation of the breath. Whe