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

incorporation of power. Number of episodes from the mythology or Indian religious
folklore show us mortals to gods or reduced to ash through the covers of a great ascetic.
The Indo-Europeans knew about the technique and \ i ideology of the "magical heat"
because it still depended archaic spiritual horizon, like some Asian ethnic groups. But it
is mainly in India that have been developed, with an amplitude unknown elsewhere, the
practices of asceticism, and an extremely complex ideology has formed around the notion
of tapas. In other words, in the Indian soil is where the tradition ma -
4 Ymir Gajomard A. Christensen, honune Le premier et le premier roi dans lTiistoire
tegendaire des Iraniens, I (Uppsala, 1918), p. 14, 36, H. Giintert, Der Arisch WeUkimig
und HeUand (Halle, 1923), p. 348; Sven S. Hartman, Gayomart (Uppsala, 1953):
Cuchulainn, Batradz: G. Dumézil, Horace et les Curiaco (Paris 1942) p. 35, idem sur les
LSgendes Nartes (Paris 1930) p. 50, 179.
gica an archaism, and universal impact, co -
notional full expansion, unprecedented in any region of the earth. (See III, 3).
It is important to know how the caps were treated by the technique yogui.5 A preliminary
observation: this "flushing" ritual was not just reserved for ascetics and "ecstatic". The
soma sacrifice demanded of the officiant and his wife diksa compliance with, the rite of
consecration that included the evening ascetic, silent meditation, fasting, and also the
"heat", the lids and the ritual could take from a day Even a yr. However, the soma
sacrifice was one of the most important of the Vedic and Brahmanic India is like saying
that the caps were part of the religious experience of the Indian people in total. From
there seems to be that, theoretically, there was no solution of continuity between ritual
and the techniques and contemplative ASCE-tics: the difference between the officiant
and tapasvin was at first minimal. The continuity between ritual and asceticism is also
seen elsewhere: in the Christian world, monks and laity pray the same prayers and share
the same religious calendar, but vary the degree of their personal experiences. But it is
im-portant to stress the unity of the fundamental conceptions existed since the Vedic era,
to better understand the meaning of the subsequent Hindu synthesis, carried out mainly
by means of assimilation and homologation of religious values and even extra-extra-
Brahmanical Aryans.
However, the tapas, which is obtained by ensuring fast near the fire, and so on., Is also
obtained by the retention of respiration.
The retention of the respiration desempefiar start, especially since the time of the
Brahmana, a ritual role: to sing the Gaya-trastotra, do not breathe (Jaim.-Br. Ill, 3, 1;
Kausit. Br XXIII , 5). Recall the references to the respiration in the Atharva Veda (XV,
15-18). More accurate is the information of Baudhayana Dharma Sutra, IV, 1, 24,
according to which heat is produced magic rete-NienD the respiration. (The
MajjhimanikayaJ, 244, etc., Us-thing the same tradici6n). We shall see in what sense are
targeted all these indications: in order to devote himself to the sacrifice of soma,
5 The Yoga-Sutra refteren four times to the spiritual value of Tapas;
II, 1, 32, 43, VI, 1.
lids must practice and become "hot", being the "heat ma-gic" the sign par excellence of
the remoteness of the human condition, from the "profane". But the heat is effected by
means of discipline or the detention of respiration, which will allow one hand,
assimilation techniques to methods orthodox yogis, Brahmans, and secondly, to
assimilate the yogi tapasvin: in order we perceive the bold and homologation of the Vedic