Êëàññè÷åñêàÿ éîãà

Ñòðàíèöà: 1 ... 213214215216217218219

It is a known fact that, strictly speaking, the sutras as a form of religious-philosophical literature pose as a synoptic fixation of the system's nodular concepts in the form of aphorisms and do not make any one wholesome expression. Precisely such are Patanjali's sutras. They cannot be understood or interpreted of themselves and call for resorting to a wider version of the system, i. e., to the text (sastra, in traditional terminology). But it is doubtless that by the time of Vyasa's -commentaries, the school of samkhya-yoga had gone through a certain evolution of ideas, especially in the course of its polemics with Buddhism. We, therefore, should not overestimate the commentator's claimed loyalty to the original meaning of the sutras. Holding polemics with Buddhist philosophers — the abhidharmist or vijnanavadin — Vyasa strived to re-interpret the meaning of Patanjali's sutras in such a way as if the sutras' author knew apriori the contents of this polemics. It would be only logical to suggest that the commentator set out the meaning of Patanjali's text in accordance with the tradition which was synchronous with him, Vyasa.

This supposition has been put forward in various forms by most Indologists who went back to «yoga-sutras» and « Vyasabhasya» at va­rious times and with different purposes. They all noted that within the framework of scholarly cultural studies it is quite desirable to establish the original meaning of Patanjali's ideas without making them identical to Vyasa's interpretations. But at the same time the researchers ran against the historico-cultural fact of the samkhya-yoga school being based precisely on a combination of the two texts, those of «yoga-sutras» and «Vyasabhasya». So if we are to study this particular tradition as something whole and known in the history of Indian philosophy as Patanjaladarsana (Patanjali's system), then the matter of establishing the original meaning of the «yoga-sutras» may as well be abandoned.

This work sets itself the purpose of presenting Patanjaladarsana in its traditional function, trying to show in the first place what had become of Patanjali's ideas by the time the commentary was written. This appro­ach, however, inevitably presupposes the need of recourse to the problem of terminology. In Patanjali's text — and this fact should be emphasiz­ed — no clear terminological system is traced. The right of philosophical notions and terms are enjoyed by the metaphors whose literal translation would lead to a nonsensical situation and a monstrous «darkening» of the text. These metaphors pose as traditional codes to denote quite definite philosophical concepts. Any elaboration of these concepts, which would be synchronous to «yoga-sutras» is unknown, so the metaphors are filled with terminological contents only due to Vyasa's commentary where we discover their conceptual decoding. Thus the system becomes operational only in Vyasa's interpretation.

— 218 —
Ñòðàíèöà: 1 ... 213214215216217218219