18/02/2024
Dr Jason Birch writes:
“The meaning of the term amaraugha is multivalent. The author of the Amaraugha (14) states that amaraugha has the name Rājayoga, which is the highest of the four yogas taught in the text. In Amaraugha 3, Rājayoga is defined as a meditative state free from mental activity (cittavṛttirahita), a statement that is redolent of the definition of yoga as samādhi in Pātañjalayogaśāstra 1–2 (yogaḥ samādhiḥ [...] yogaś cittavṛttinirodhaḥ). The meaning of rājayoga as both the best yoga (literally, ‘the yoga that is king [of all yogas]’) and a non-dual meditative state was clearly expressed in another Śaiva work, called the Amanaska, that probably predates the Amaraugha by a century or so. Therefore, Śaiva communities appear to have known the import of Rājayoga by the time the Amaraugha was composed, and the equivalence of amaraugha with Rājayoga is the most obvious meaning behind the name of the text. This meaning of amaraugha was accepted by Svātmārāma, who included it in a list of synonyms of the term rājayoga in the Haṭhapradīpikā.
In an important passage of the Amaraugha (13–14), where the internal processes leading up to the union of Śiva and Śakti are described, the author appears to use the term amaraugha in the sense of a divine stream of teachings, a connotation that is similar to that of the term divyaugha (‘the divine stream’) in earlier Kaula scriptures (Birch 2019: 970). This is related to the more literal meaning of amaraugha as ‘a stream (ogha) of immortals (amara),’ which can be understood as referring to the lineage of immortal siddhas that began with Matsyendranātha and Gorakṣanātha, the putative pioneers of Haṭhayoga and founders of the ascetic order known in more recent times as the Nātha sampradāya.“
An excerpt from “THE AMARAUGHA AND AMARAUGHAPRABODHA OF GORAKṢANĀTHA:
THE GENESIS OF HAṬHA AND RĀJAYOGA”.
