Jain Journal 2011 07

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 11

Sagarmal Jain: The impact of other Yoga-Systems on Hemacandra's Yoga Sastra
11
and Yoga-sūtra of Patañjali. Secondly while discussing the Dharmadhyāna Hemachandra mentions four types of it, such as piņdastha, padastha, Rūpastha and Rūpatita, along with five types of dharanās i.e. pārthivi, āgneyi, vāyavi (svasana), vārunī and tattvarūpavati of the pindastha dhyanā, Here it is to be noted that these four types of dhyānas and five types of dharanās are also available in Buddhist and Hindu Tantric Literature, but not in early Jaina-literature. Though Hemachandra in his Yogaśāstra generally deals with three jewels of Jainism i.e. right knowledge, right vision and right conduct, but among these three, he has given more stress on right conduct. While dealing with meditational methods he also elaborately discusses the pindastha, padastha, rūpastha and rūpatita dhāyan along with above mentioned five dharanas. But in this regard scholars are of the opinion that he borrowed these ideas either from Subhachandra's Jñānārņava, which is an earlier work to his Yogashastra of form Gheranda Samhita directly.
In short, these types of dhyana and dharana are either borrowed from Hindu Tantra or Hemachandra followed the Subhachandra concept of dhyana and dharana. We see that the impact of other systems of Yoga-sadhana can easily be seen on Hemachandra's JainaYoga. We can also see the impact of Patanjali's Yoga-sutra on Hemachndra's Yogashastra. In Jaina canonical works, we do not have any reference regarding practice of Pranayama. But Hemachandra in the fifth chapter of Yoga shastra mentions the various kinds of pranayamas in all sixty verses. Not only this he also mentions about three nadis i.e. Ida, pingala and shusumna. It is crystal clear that all this he barrowed from Patanjali's Yogasūtra, Gherandda-Samhitā, Skandapurāņa, Šivasamhita of Hindu tradition as well as from Amitagati's Shravakacara, Vasunandi's Sravakachara, Adipuran, Tattvanushasan of Nagasena and Paramatma-prakasha of Digambara of Digambara sect. Eighth chapter of Hemacandra's yoga-śāstra is devoted to padastha-dhyāna. This chapter fully concern with māntrika sādhanā. Though in this chapter Hemacandra has taken the help of