**In Fall 2024, Arihanta Institute is delighted to have Corinna May Lhoir in Professor Christopher Jain Miller's "Jain Yoga" graduate seminar within the MA - Engaged Jain Studies program. Lhoir is a PhD student from the University of Hamburg who is currently working on a groundbreaking dissertation focusing on the translation of a medieval Jain yoga text, the Yogapradīpa. Throughout the semester, Lhoir will be sharing key insights from her study in the Jain Yoga seminar with Dr. Miller through a series of short articles.**

Semantic shifts of the term “yoga” in the 2nd and 1st millennium BCE

The term "yoga" has undergone significant semantic changes from its earliest usages in Vedic literature to its specialized meanings in various philosophical and religious traditions. To clarify these interpretations, they must be contextualized according to their historical and textual developments. In the Ṛg Veda (presumably originated in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE), "yoga" primarily denotes the act of "yoking" or "harnessing," referring to the physical act of attaching horses to a chariot (Chapple 2016).

In Otto Böhtlingk’s St. Petersburger Sanskrit-Wörterbuch, which not only explains the word's etymology but also cites the texts where different meanings appear, yoga is defined on pages 182-186. Böhtlingk affirms Chapple’s observation, confirming that the earliest use of yoga in the Ṛg Veda pertains to an external connection, meaning "yoking" or "harnessing," primarily found in this Vedic text. A later semantic shift towards "exertion," "effort," and "diligence" is noted by Böhtlingk with references to the Mahābhārata, and in sources like the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha, Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa, and Taittirīya Āraṇyaka, where yoga is redefined as "concentration of mental activity, focused cognition on a single point, meditation, contemplation," and later further systematized as a formal philosophical system attributed to Patañjali.

To further pinpoint the word's origins, Mayrhofer’s Etymologisches Wörterbuch provides additional clarity on the Indo-Aryan root yoj, translating it as "(...) to yoke, to harness, to join together, to connect," with the earliest attestation in the Ṛg Veda. The later development of yoga toward "harnessing" or "preparing" in the sense of "attention, concentration, contemplation" is explicitly outlined, particularly in connection with the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka, which dates to the late Vedic period, approximately between 800 and 500 BCE.

In summary, the term yoga initially referred to "yoking" or "harnessing" in the Ṛg Veda. Over time, this meaning evolved into the "exertion" of human effort, and eventually, by the time of the Taittirīya school, it became an internalized concept, signifying "concentration" and "contemplation" and therefore showed a shift towards internal spiritual practices.

One of the earliest and most prominent examples of this semantic shift can be found in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad (KaṭhU 6.11). This text, dating to the late Vedic period, contains a verse where yoga is defined as the firm control of the senses, signifying a transition from external physical exertion to an internal spiritual practice centered on contemplation and mental discipline. As Patrick Olivelle translates: "When senses are firmly reined in, that is Yoga, so people think. From distractions a man is then free, for Yoga is the coming-into-being, as well as the ceasing-to-be” (Olivelle 1998).

Paul Deussen offers a more interpretative translation: 

"Das ist es, was man nennt Yoga, der Sinne starke Fesselung, Doch ist man nicht dabei lässig: Yoga ist Schöpfung und Vergang ."  [1] (Deussen 1921). 
 

Translation:
 

“This is what one calls Yoga, the strong fettering of the senses, but one shall thereby not be lax: Yoga is the creation and dissolution.” 

The term sthira, meaning "stable" or "firm," highlights this sense of mental control, an element that Patañjali would later formalize in the Pātañjalayogaśāstra (2.46) with the phrase sthira-sukham-āsanam - "a seat/posture should be stable and comfortable." In this way, KaṭhU 6.11 marks a critical moment where yoga became associated with the concentrated, contemplative practices characteristic of the Upaniṣadic spiritual path (Lhoir 2021). 
 

Yoga in early Jain scriptures

In early Jain scriptures such as the Sūtrakṛtāṅga-sūtra (dated traditionally 4th century BCE according to Pratibha Pragya 2020) [2],"yoga" and related terms are linked to ethical conduct and mental discipline aimed at the purification of the soul and liberation from the cycle of rebirth (Pratibha Pragya 2020). This conception contrasts with the interpretation found later in orthodox traditions like that of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra (dated 4th century CE according to Maas 2020), where "yoga" now describes a systematic path involving a physical posture (āsana), breath control (prāṇāyāma), and culminating in meditative absorption (samādhi).

Pratibha Pragya points out that the practices associated with the term “yoga” in early Jain Scriptures “were included in the understanding of asceticism” (Prathibha Pragya 2020), and referred to “all the physical, vocal and mental activity of the embodied soul” (ibid.). Thus, the original character of the term yoga, as Böthlingk had described it in terms of a shift towards 'exertion,' 'effort,' and 'diligence,' was preserved much longer in Jain scriptures than in the orthodox texts of the same period, where, by the time of the early Upaniṣads, the semantic shift towards introspection and contemplation had already taken place.

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[1] Author’s translation into English.
[2] Johannes Bronkhorst estimates the origin of the Sūtrakṛtāṅga-sūtra, as follows, arguing it refers to the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness, and therefore cannot be dated before the middle of the second century BCE and “is perhaps more recent than that” (Bronkhorst 2000, Bronkhorst 2007).

PRIMARY SOURCES: 
KaṭhU (Deutsch) = Deussen, Paul: Sechzig Upanishad’s des Veda. 3rd Edition. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus 1921.

KaṭhU (Sanskrit, Englisch) = Olivelle, Patrick: The Early Upaniṣads. Annotated Text and Translation. New York: Oxford University Press 1998.

SECONDARY SOURCES:
Bronkhorst, Johannes. The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1986.

Bronkhorst, Johannes. "Abhidharma and Jainism." In Abhidharma and Indian Thought: Essays in Honor of Professor Doctor Junsho Kato on His Sixtieth Birthday, edited by Committee for the Felicitation of Professor Doctor Junsho Kato's Sixtieth Birthday, 598-581 ([13]-[30]). Nagoya: Shuju-sha, 2000.

Bronkhorst, Johannes. Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Chapple, Christopher Key, ed. Yoga in Jainism. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016.

Lhoir, Corinna. “Die Geburt des Yoga.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Hamburg, 2021.
 

Maas, Philipp André. "Pātañjalayogaśāstra." In Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online, edited by Knut A. Jacobsen, Helene Basu, Angelika Malinar, and Vasudha Narayanan. 2020. Consulted online on 04 January 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2212-5019_BEH_COM_1010071178.

Pratibha Pragya, Samani. “Yoga and Meditation in the Jain Tradition.” In The Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies, edited by Suzanne Newcombe and Karen O’Brien-Kop. Abington: Routledge, 2020.

If you are interested in applying or just want to learn more, register to attend our next MA Info Session on Friday, October 18, 2024 at 9 a.m. PDT.  

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