| Craig Jensen 2004-11-08, 11:09 am |
| The actual word "yoga" surfaced around 1500 B.C.E., just as the
Harappan civilization began to decline. The Harrapans' rather rapid
demise was helped along, some scholars believe, by an invasion of
Aryan barbarians. These nomadic invaders had no use for the
sophisticated urban civilization the Harappans had built and took
little time destroying it. They brought with them Brahmanism, a
complex religious tradition based on sacrifice and ritual that formed
the basis of modern-day Hinduism, and introduced the concept of yoga.
The sacred scriptures of Brahmanism, known as the Vedas, contain a
mixture of incantations and instructions in both poetry and prose. The
first three books, Rig Veda, Sama Veda, and Yajur Veda, were used
exclusively by the priestly class of Brahmins; a later, fourth book
called Atharva Veda provided householders with spells and incantations
for everyday living
Scholars have a hard time pinpointing the inception of the Vedas, but
they generally agree that the scriptures date back at least 3,500
years. The word yoga has its first mention in the Rig Veda, the oldest
of the sacred texts. This Vedic book, a collection of hymns or
mantras, defines yoga as "yoking" or "discipline," but offers no
accompanying systematic practice. The term yoga turns up again in the
Atharva Veda, most particularly in the fifteenth book (Vratya Kanda).
Again it refers only to a means of harnessing or yoking. But this time
it's the breath that needs controlling. The Vratya Kanda introduces a
group of men, the vratyas, quite possibly fertility priests, who
worshipped Rudra, the god of the wind. Considered horrible outcasts by
traditional Brahmins, these vratyas composed and performed songs and
melodies. They found they could sing their songs a lot better—and
probably hold the notes longer—if they practiced what they called
pranayama, a type of breath control.
This, then, is the very beginning of yoga as we know it, the first
mention of a physical action as part of a discipline or practice.
Roughly 800 years will pass before history yields more information on
yoga's development.
Little more than a noun and a nascent discipline in the Vedas, yoga
played a more prominent role in the Upanishads, the sacred revelations
of ancient Hinduism. The earliest of these teachings date back to at
least 800 to 500 B.C.E. The word Upanishads combines the verb "shad,"
which means to sit, with "upa" meaning near, and "ni" meaning down,
which suggests that the only way a student could learn the truths
hidden in these revelations was to sit at the foot of his guru or
teacher. The Upanishads contained little that we would call yoga asana
practice. Instead, yoga referred in a more general way to a discipline
used or path taken to achieve liberation from suffering. Two yoga
disciplines in particular gained prominence during this time: karma
yoga, the path of action or ritual, and jnana yoga, the path of
knowledge or intense study of scripture. Both paths led to liberation
or enlightenment.
The secret teachings of the Upanishads differ in important ways from
their Vedic parent texts. The Vedas taught the fine art of
sacrifice—external offerings to the gods in exchange for a peaceful
and fruitful life. This form of karma yoga included specific rituals
and sacrifices humans had to perform in order to appease the gods and
be free from suffering. The Upanishads also espoused sacrifice as a
means to liberation, but chose an internal, more mystical expression
of that sacrifice.
Gurus taught that the Self or ego (not an animal or crops) must be
sacrificed in order to attain liberation. The means to do that, these
revelations showed, came not through action or ritual, but through
knowledge and wisdom (jnana yoga).
The Upanishads, as a whole, concentrated on these basic truths:
• Your true essence (the Self with a capital "S") is the same as
the essence of the universe, or brahman. That essence—what we might
think of as the soul—is called Atman.
• Everyone is subject to birth, death, and rebirth. o Your
actions in this lifetime determine the nature of your rebirth (the
doctrine of karma). This understanding of karma says that if you
perform good deeds throughout your life, you'll be reborn into the
womb of a woman from a high caste; if you do evil, you're likely to
find yourself in the lowly womb of a pig, or a dog, or, perhaps worse,
an outcast.
• You can reverse the effects of bad karma through specific
spiritual practices (i.e., internal sacrifices) like meditation and
renunciation. Renunciation allows you to offer up the fruits of your
actions and to renounce any actions fueled by desire or passion. In
much later Upanishads, yoga became known as the path of renunciation
(samnyasa).
http://www.yogajournal.com/history/vedas1.html
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