"The Nāth yogis, with their roots in the tantric milieu of medieval North India, are the instigators of haṭha yoga. Their ultimate goal is the transmutation of sexual fluids into the elixir of immortality. The masters of this yoga are siddhas, the possessors of siddhis, the occult powers that culminate in deification. Scholars have noticed the importance of the occult and magic among the Nāths, but these categories are rarely given appropriate theoretical considerations. The academic study of esotericism, conversely, directly engages the occult but often restricts itself to Western traditions. This study argues that there are advantages in applying the conceptual vocabulary and theoretical conclusions of esoteric studies to the scholarship on tantra and yoga. The model of esotericism is applied to the Nāth yogis through a threefold thematic division of the subject matter: their understanding of body and sexuality, speech and rhetoric, and mind and ideology. Yoga is comparable to magic understood as a quest for power, based on the cultivated imagination and the principle of unions. The study concludes by suggesting that esotericism should be seen as a cross-cultural phenomenon. "

"This essay was prompted by the question of how Haṭhayoga, literally ‘the Yoga of force’, acquired its name. Many Indian and Western scholars have understood the ‘force’ of Haṭhayoga to refer to the effort required to practice it. Inherent in this understanding is the assumption that Haṭhayoga techniques such as prāṇāyāma (breath control) are strenuous and may even cause pain. Others eschew the notion of force altogether and favor the so-called “esoteric” definition of Haṭhayoga (i.e., the union of the sun (ha) and moon (ṭha) in the body). This essay examines these interpretations in light of definitions of haṭhayoga and the adverbial uses of haṭha (i.e., haṭhāt, haṭhena) in Sanskrit Yoga texts that predate the fifteenth-century Haṭhapradīpikā. Implicit in the question posed above is the historical question of when the term haṭhayoga arose. There is evidence that it was used in Buddhist tantras, while it remained conspicuously absent from Śaiva tantras until late works such as the Rudrayāmalottaratantra. This is surprising given that the Śaiva tantras are replete with much of the terminology of the Haṭhayoga corpus. In the medieval Vedānta and Yoga literature (written after the eleventh century), haṭhayoga first appeared almost always in conjunction with rājayoga, which, as a system of Yoga, was based more on tantric Yoga rather than Pātañjalayoga. The rivalry between Rāja and Haṭhayoga, which was expressed most vehemently in the second chapter of a text known as the Amanaskayoga (eleventh to twelfth century), was based on the contention that Rājayoga was the superior Yoga because its methods were effortless and most efficacious, whereas Haṭhayoga required exertion and was superfluous. However, the rivalry was reconciled by other medieval Yoga texts, such as the Dattātreyayogaśāstra (twelfth to thirteenth century), into a hierarchy of four Yogas (i.e., Mantra, Laya, Haṭha, and Rājayoga), and a few centuries later Svātmārāma dismantled this hierarchy, in his Haṭhapradīpikā, by melding previous Haṭha and Rājayoga systems together and by asserting that Haṭha and Rājayoga are dependent upon one another. By doing so, he created a complete system of Yoga and called it Haṭhayoga."

In its classical formulation as found in Svātmārāma’s Haṭhapradīpikā, haṭhayoga is a Śaiva appropriation of an older extra-Vedic soteriological method. But this appropriation was not accompanied by an imposition of Śaiva philosophy. In general, the texts of haṭhayoga reveal, if not a disdain for, at least an insouciance towards metaphysics. Yoga is a soteriology that works regardless of the yogin’s philosophy. But the various texts that were used to compile the Haṭhapradīpikā (a table identifying these borrowings is given at the end of the article) were not composed in metaphysical vacua. Analysis of their allusions to doctrine shows that the texts from which Svātmārāma borrowed most were products of a Vedantic milieu - bearing testament to Vedānta’s newfound interest in yoga as a complement to jñāna - but that many others were Śaiva non-dual works. Because of the lack of importance given to the niceties of philosophy in haṭhayogic works, these two non-dualities were able to combine happily and thus the Śaiva tenets incorporated within haṭhayoga survived the demise of Śaivism as part of what was to become in the medieval period the dominant soteriological method in scholarly religious discourse in India.

The ninth chapter of the Haṃsavilāsa of the Gujarati Śaiva author Haṃsamiṭṭhu (born 1738 ad) argues that Pātañjalayoga, conceived of as a conflation of Aṣṭāṅgayoga and Haṭhayoga, cannot be valid soteriology. Pātañjalayoga is presented as a paradoxical and painful attempt to achieve quiescence by forcibly eliminating karma. Haṃsamiṭṭhu, conversely, views ‘euphoria’ (ullāsa) as a prerequisite for liberation, and therefore advocates a painless method of Rājayoga. This is taught as a Śaiva form of the Rāsalīlā involving transgressive substances and behaviour. A frame story establishes Haṃsamiṭṭhu’s authority to teach such practices by revealing his secret identity as Haṃsa, a favored companion of Śiva who incarnates for a single life to promulgate esoteric teachings. The purity of this Rāsalīlā is defended by challenging the validity of a conventional morality that seeks to portray it as abhorrent.

James Mallinson

History of Religions

2007 •

Shaman Hatley

Encyclopedia of Indian Religions (Springer, 2015)

Shaman Hatley

2002 •

John Noyce

James Mallinson

Jagga Singh

Veronique BOUILLIER

Veronique BOUILLIER

Veronique BOUILLIER

Davide Sada

Adrián Muñoz,David N Lorenzen

In: David N. Lorenzen and Adrián Muñoz (eds.), Yogi Heroes and Poets: Histories and Legends of the Nāths

2011 •

Lubomír Ondračka

James Mallinson

James Mallinson

Christof Zotter

Christof Zotter

Übungswissen in Religion und Philosophie: Produktion, Weitergabe, Wandel. red. / Almut-Barbara Renger; Alexandra Stellmacher. Vol. 1 1. udg. Münster : LIT Verlag, 2017.

2017 •

BWernicke Olesen,Silje Lyngar Einarsen

Jeremiah Losty

Kenn Døngart

Con una traduzione dei canti hindī in collaborazione con Shukdev Singh, Edizioni Dell'Orso, Alessandria, pp. 1-424

2017 •

Pinuccia Caracchi

Seth Powell

Seth Powell

Asian Literature and Translation

2017 •

Dominik Wujastyk

Veronique BOUILLIER

The Esoteric Quarterly

2015 •

vijay srinath kanchi

Journal of the History of Science in South Asia

2018 •

Jason Birch

Journal of Yoga Studies

2018 •

Seth Powell

Hinduism and Tribal Religions (Encyclopedia of Indian Religions), Edited by Jain Pankaj, Rita Sherma, and Madhu Khanna.

2018 •

Keith E Cantú

Seth Powell

Nils Jacob Liersch

Daniela Bevilacqua

2018 •

Philipp A Maas,Karl Baier

James Mallinson

Religions

2019 •

James Mallinson

Columbia University Press

2019 •

Patton Burchett

International Journal of Hindu Studies 24 (1/2020), pp. 61-86

Jarosław Zapart

CrossAsia eBooks

2019 •

Nadia Cattoni,Maya Burger

Amelia Wood

Journal of Indian Philosophy

2019 •

Jason Birch

Thesis submitted to the Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute (Deemed University), Pune, for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology

2019 •

Vijay Sarde