घेरण्ड संहिता (महर्षि घेरण्ड - सप्ताङ्ग हठयोग सटीक)

Introduction
THE BOOK you are about to read, a manual of Yoga taught by
Gheranda to Chanda, is the most encyclopedic of all the root
texts of Hatha Yoga. At the beginning of the book, Chanda
asks Gheranda to tell him about the Yoga of the body, which
is the cause of knowledge of the Ultimate Reality. Gheranda
assents and the book is thus called the Gheranda Samhita, or
“The Collection [of Verses] of Gheranda.”
It sets itself apart from other books on Hatha Yoga in
two notable ways. Firstly, it calls its Yoga “ghata Yoga” or
“ghatastha Yoga” and not Hatha Yoga. The usual meaning
of ghata is “pot,” but here it refers to the body, or rather
the person, since the techniques taught by Gheranda work
on both the body and the mind. Secondly, it is unique in
teaching a sevenfold path to perfection of the person. A few
Hatha Yoga texts replicate Patanjali’s classical description of
Yoga as ashtanga, or “eight limbed,” but there are numerous
other classifications. For example, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika’s
four chapters correspond to the four stages of its Yoga, while
the Goraksha Samhita, echoing several earlier Tantric texts,
describes its Yoga as six limbed.
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