Mircea Eliade YOGA IMMORTALITY AND ... - Brihaspati.net

girls, and those cosmogo-chain theogonies occur in the very heart of discipleship: it is
through pictures as he discovers the universal-ity vacui. Similar exercises are found in
medieval Jaina gnosis, as also the Jain dyana suffered the influence of Tantrism.
Sakalakiiti (fifteenth century), in his treatise Tattvarthasaradipaka, recom-mends the
following meditation: the yogi imagine a vast ocean of milk, calm, without waves in the
ocean Jambudvipa large as a lotus with a thousand petals and bright as the gold, with a
pericarp of the size of a mountain of gold. He imagined himself sitting on a throne placed
in the center of the pericarp, serene, without hatred or desire, ready to veneer your
enemy, that is karma. This is the first Dharana. Next, the yogi should imagine a glowing
lotus of sixteen petals, located in his navel. In the petals are written the four members,
with am and ah and the great mantra Arhan shines amid the pericarp. Then imagine a
cloud of smoke rising from the point r of the word Arhan, after some sparks and
eventually sprout a flame that will extend more and more until it burns the lotus of the
heart, which is the pro -
2 Sadhanamala, ed. B. Bhattacharyra, I, p. 173 and ff. On the tantric iconography, see
Note VI, 2.
karman eight pipeline, and for that reason has eight petals. This exercise is part of the
second meditation, Dharana agmxji call. Follow the maruti Dharana, during which the
yogi "visualization arena" a violent storm scattered the ashes of the lotus. Des-well,
imagine the falling rain and washed the ashes covering his body (the fourth is Dharana,
Varuni). Finally, you must imagine yourself to God found free of the seven elements,
seated on his throne, as bright as the moon and loved by dioses.3
The attvarthasaradipaka also contains recipes for various dhyana in relation to a / liturgy
tantric mental structure: Imagine a lotus placed in certain parts of the body, variable
quantities of petals dad who has written a letter or mystical syllable. £ 1 sadhaka Jain also
used mantra, while murmuring that "shows" written in the lotus of his body (Bhandarkar,
op. Cit, pp. 111-112), tantric yoga practices, moreover, are recorded much earlier in
the Jain literature. The Jnarnarnava of Subhadra (circa 200 of the Christian era) go-ing
contains chapters on yoga, runs long on asana, pranayama, the mandala, the four Dhyana
and Dharana just summarized according to the Tattvarthasaradipaka. As in Buddhism and
Hinduism, Jainism was a time in the tantric trend, though without its mystical
implications of sexuality, but po-demos without, however, greater interest by the
techniques as siddhi-faceted and that were among the most archaic Indian tradition,
adopted by the Jains (see Note VI, 3).
In relation to the iconography must remember the "pro -
projections ritual "of the deities in the different regions of the body, practice this quite old
but revalued and enriched by Tantrism." projected "to the gods playing various parts of
the body, takes place, in other words, a body homologation with the Tantric pantheon in
order to "awaken" the sacred forces dormant in the flesh. We distinguish various species
of Nyasa, according to their degree of internalization (see, among others,
Mahanirvanatantra, III, 40, etc..) because often happens that "introduce" the deities and
their symbols in the various organs of the body, a pure act of meditation. The treaty
pequefio Has -
3 R. G. Bhandarkar, Report on the search for Sanskrit manuscripts during the year 1883-
1884 (Bombay, 1887), p. 110 and ff.