The islamization of yoga in the amrtakunda translations

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 199-226

  Ernst, Carl W ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 12144269655     PISSN: 13561863     EISSN: 14740591     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1356186303003079     Document Type: Review

References (36)

1. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York, 1958), Lectures XVI-XVII, pp. 308-309
2. Martino Mario Moreno, 'Mistica musulmana e mistica indiana', Annali Lateranensi X (1949), pp. 103-219, esp. p. 198, and p. 210, where the case against influence is summarized
3. Emile Dermenghem, 'Yoga and Sufism: Ecstasy Techniques in Islam', in Forms and Techniques of Altruistic and Spiritual Growth, ed. Pitirim A. Sorokin (Boston, 1954), pp. 109-116, quoting p. 109
4. 2, vol. II, pp. 223-227
5. Likewise, Gardet succumbed to asserting "Indo-Iranian influence among the Mawlawiyya ('Whirling Dervishes') of Konya, and Indian through Turko-Mongol influence" for which he cites Simnani ("Dhikr". p. 224a)
6. Eric Sharp ('Comparative Religion', Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. III, pp. 578-580) links the term "influence" to evolutionistic schemes that rank religions, and he optimistically considers the term to be now "seldom used"
7. R. C. Zaehner, Mysticism, Sacred and Profane: An Inquiry into some Varieties of Praeternatural Experience (London, 1961), p. 160
8. A survey of contacts between Sufis and yogis is provided in Chapter Two of The Pool of Nectar. See also my article 'Chishti Meditation Techniques in the Later Mughal Period', in The Heritage of Sufism, vol. III, Late Classical Persianate Sufism (1501-1750): The Safavid and Mughal Period (Oxford, 1999), pp. 344-357
9. Alfred von Kremer, Culturgeschichtliche Streifzüge auf dem Gebietc des Islams (Leipzig, 1873)
10. citing R. Hartmann, 'Zur Frage nach der Herkunft und den Anfángen des Sûfitums', Der Islam (1915), pp. 31-70
11. The Way of a Pilgrim, and The Pilgrim Continues his Way, trans. R. M. French (San Francisco, 1991), p. 71. 18 von Kremer, p. 123
12. I have discussed this text in 'A Persian Text on Yoga: Pietro della Valle and The Kamarupa Seed Syllables', paper presented at Association for Asian Studies conference, (Honolulu, April 1996)
13. Textual references are to the MS in the Vatican library, described by Ettore Rosse, Elenco dei manoscritti persiani della biblioteca Vaticana, Studi e Testi, 136 (Vatican City, 1948), pp. 47-49
14. The text was first edited from 5 MSS by Yusuf Husain, 'Haud al-hayat, la version arabe de l'Amratkund', Journal Asiatique CCXIII (1928), pp. 291-344. Unfortunately this edition contains numerous errors and omissions. My forthcoming translation is based on a superior text established by comparison of 25 MSS. I plan to publish my diplomatic edition of the Arabic text separately
15. Osman Yahia, Histoire et classification de l'æuvre d'Ibn'Arabi, étude critique (2 vols., Damascus, 1964), vol. I, pp. 287-288, no. 230
16. Hellmut Ritter, ed., 'Al-Birunis Übersetzung des Yoga-sutra des Patañjali', Oriens IX (1956), pp. 165-200
17. Bruce B. Lawrence, "The Use of Hindu Religious Texts in al-Biruni's India with Special Reference to Patañjali's Yoga-Sutras', in The Scholar and the Saint: Studies in Commemoration of Abu'l Rayhan al-Biruni and Jalal al-Din al-Rumi, ed. Peter J. Chelkowski (New York, 1975), pp. 29-48, esp. p. 33. Doth al-Biruni's translation of Patan̄jali and his description of India exist in unique manuscripts, indicating a limited circulation
18. my translation is found in Religions of India in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr., Princeton Readings in Religions, 1 (Princeton, 1995), p. 517
19. For bibliographic references see S. A. A. Rizvi, 'Sufis and Nâtha Yogis in Mediaeval Northern India (XII to XVI Centuries)', p. 132
20. id., A History of Sufism in India, vol. I
21. Early Sufism and its History in India to 1600 A.D. (Delhi, 1978), p. 335
22. Gangohi's knowledge of yoga is fully discussed by Simon Digby in ''Abd Al-Quddus Gangohi (1456-1537 A.D.): The Personality and Attitudes of a Medieval Indian Sufi', Medieval India, A Miscellany III (1975), pp. 1-66
23. See my 'Sufism and Yoga according to Muhammad Ghawth', Sufi XXIX (Spring, 1996), pp. 9-13
24. Norman Calder, 'The Barahima: Literary Construct and Historical Reality', BSOAS LVII (1994), pp. 41-50, quoting p. 46
25. On the history of this motif in the West, see George Boas, 'Macrocosm and Microcosm', Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. Philip P. Wiener (5 vols., New York, 1973-74), vol. III, pp. 126-131
26. Rasa'il ikhwan al-safa', vol. II, pp. 466-467
27. Kalyani Mallik, Siddha-Siddhanta-Paddhati and Other Works of the Natha Yogis (Poona, 1954), p. 39
28. Rasa'il Ikhwan al-safa', vol. II, p. 425
29. Kenneth G. Zysk, 'The Science of Respiration and the Doctrine of the Bodily Winds in Ancient India', Journal of the American Oriental Society CXIII (1993), pp. 198-213
30. Bahr al-hayat, ch. 4, India Office Library MS, pp. 45-46
31. W. W. Karambelkar, 'Matsyendranatha and his Yogini Cult', Indian Historical Quarterly XXXI (1955), p. 367
32. Vidya Dehejia, Yogini Cult and Temples: A Tantric Tradition (New Delhi, 1986)
33. See Eliade, Yoga, p. 88, n
34. The Persian scholar Mulla Zayn al-Din of Lar, from whom Pietro della Valle obtained a manuscript of The Kamarupa Seed Syllables in 1622, belonged to a sect "which attributed intelligences to the sun, moon and stars, and venerated them as angels of a superior order who would intercede with God and seek his protection" (J. D. Gurney, 'Pietro della Valle: The Limits of Perception', BSOAS XLIX [1986], p. 113)
35. Robert E. Buswell, Jr., 'Introduction: Prolegomenon to the Study of Buddhist Apocryphal Scriptures', in Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha (Honolulu, 1990). Thanks to Charles Orzech of UNC-Greensboro for drawing this reference to my attention
36. François de Blois, Burzoy's Voyage to India and the Origin of the Booh of Kalilah wa Dimnah, (London, 1990)