Yoga of Synthesis in Kashmir Shaivam

Author(s): S S Toshkhani
Publisher: S S Toshkhani

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Trika yoga as six-limbed and is supported by Kshemarāja in this, there is a continued fidelity to Patañjali's eight-fold system” in it. Klii Whether or not the formal structure of Trika yoga is influenced by Patañjali's eight-limbed model, the fact remains that the two yoga systems are substantially different in their approaches and even in their conception of the yogāngas or limbs of yoga. A few things need to be at once noted in this context. One that despite similarity of terms related to some of the limbs, the meanings that Trika attaches to them and the processes it describes to define them are widely different. Secondly, the importance Trika yoga attaches to sattarka or right logic (discrimination between what is to be accepted and what discarded) in the scheme of the limbs and its division of yoga into two categories of artificial and natural with yoga having prānāyāma as a part being relegated to the category of artificial gives it an altogether different dimension. Even the definition of prānāyāma and its processes are dissimilar in the fourfold yoga system of Trika and the eight-limbed Patañjali's yoga. The concept of samādhi in the two systems also varies. Moreover, the shadānga or six-limbed scheme of Jayaratha has its roots in the long tradition of Tāntric yoga. It discards yama or restraint, niyama or discipline and āsana or bodily posture as yoga is meant for disciplining the mind. Besides, it stresses that these are tortuous for the body and unnecessarily cumbersome, and offers, therefore, a more convenient yet higher form of yoga. At the same time, it will be interesting to note that Patañjali's yogic process is completely subsumed under anavopāya in Trika yoga. What is more, as Dczkowski points out, Kshemarāja, one of Trika's main interpreters "rejects Patañjali's system because he believes it to be a form of yoga that can, at best, lead only to limited yogic attainments (mitasiddhi)" xliv
Keeping all this in view, one would be inclined to view as interesting the conclusion that Navjivan Rastogi arrives at after a prolonged discussion on the nature and formal structure of non-dual Kashmiri Shaiva yoga. Rastogi writes:
“... The intrinsic character of the Tântric current has lent a new framework, shape and thrust due to which Trika yoga represents a mixed form of Patañjala and Hatha yoga, acquiring along the way a
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