the name of Yoga.]

227

In the _Bhagavadgita_, we find that the word yoga has been
used not only in conformity with the root "_yuj-samadhau_" but
also with "_yujir yoge_" This has been the source of some confusion
to the readers of the _Bhagavadgita._ "Yogin" in the sense
of a person who has lost himself in meditation is there regarded
with extreme veneration. One of the main features of the use of
this word lies in this that the _Bhagavadgita_ tried to mark out a
middle path between the austere discipline of meditative abstraction
on the one hand and the course of duties of sacrificial action
of a Vedic worshipper in the life of a new type of Yogin (evidently
from _yujir yoge_) on the other, who should combine in himself the
best parts of the two paths, devote himself to his duties, and yet
abstract himself from all selfish motives associated with desires.

Kau@tilya in his _Arthas'astra_ when enumerating the philosophic
sciences of study names Sa@mkhya, Yoga, and Lokayata. The
oldest Buddhist sutras (e.g. the _Satipa@t@thana sutta_) are fully
familiar with the stages of Yoga concentration. We may thus
infer that self-concentration and Yoga had developed as a technical
method of mystic absorption some time before the Buddha.

As regards the connection of Yoga with Sa@mkhya, as we find
it in the _Yoga sutras_ of Patanjali, it is indeed difficult to come to
any definite conclusion. The science of breath had attracted
notice in many of the earlier Upani@sads, though there had not
probably developed any systematic form of pra@nayama (a system
of breath control) of the Yoga system. It is only when we
come to Maitraya@ni that we find that the Yoga method had attained
a systematic development. The other two Upani@sads in
which the Yoga ideas can be traced are the S'vetas'vatara and
the Ka@tha. It is indeed curious to notice that these three
Upani@sads of K@r@s@na Yajurveda, where we find reference to Yoga
methods, are the only ones where we find clear references also to
the Sa@mkhya tenets, though the Sa@mkhya and Yoga ideas do not
appear there as related to each other or associated as parts of
the same system. But there is a remarkable passage in the
Maitraya@ni in the conversation between S'akyayana and B@rhad
ratha where we find that the Sa@mkhya metaphysics was offered

228

in some quarters to explain the validity of the Yoga processes,
and it seems therefore that the association and grafting of the
Sa@mkhy