घेरण्ड संहिता (महर्षि घेरण्ड - सप्ताङ्ग हठयोग सटीक)

INTRODUCTION xi
to bodily purification and in the number of purificatory
practices it describes. The chapters on asanas and mudras
are similarly unparalleled in the number of practices taught.
The difference between asanas and mudras is not made clear
by Gheranda—several of the mudras seem to be no more
than asanas. We are told in the first chapter that asanas
lead to strength and mudras to steadiness. In other texts,
however, the purpose of mudras is said to be the awakening
of Kundalini. In five of the twenty-five mudras listed this
aim is made explicit, but awakening of the Goddess is also
given as one of the fruits of pranayama in verse 5.57.
A further unique aspect of this book lies in its position-
ing of the chapter on pratyahara before that on pranayama.
In the classical system, the last six limbs are successively
more subtle, moving from the physical realm to the mental.
Pranayama is, of course, a more physical practice than pra-
tyahara, but here the Bhramari pranayama is said to lead to
samadhi; indeed, it is one of the six varieties of Raja Yoga or
samadhi given in the final chapter. This may account for the
position of the chapter on pranayama. Most of the rest of the
chapter is similar to other texts, apart from the teaching of
the Ajapa Gayatri, the mantra constantly but involuntarily
repeated by all living beings. The sounds of the in- and out-
breaths are said to be sa and ham, whose implicit combina-
tion is the Vedantic dictum so'ham, “I am that.”
The chapter on dhyana teaches three successively more
subtle visualizations, starting with a gross dhyana of the
yogi’s guru on a beautiful island, followed by a luminous
dhyana, visualization of a light between the eyebrows, and a

xii INTRODUCTION
subtle dhyana, visualization of Kundalini. In the final chapter
Gheranda teaches six very different ways to samadhi. Three
mudras, Shambhavi, Khechari, and Yoni, lead to three
types of samadhi: dhyana, bliss through rasa (“taste” or
“sensation”), and laya (resorption into the Ultimate Reality
by means of Kundalini’s rise up the Sushumna, or central
channel). Bhramari pranayama, as noted above, leads to
samadhi through nada, the inner sound. The Murccha,
or “trance” pranayama also leads to samadhi. Finally, we
are told that samadhi can arise through bhakti, “devotion,”
and this is another feature that sets this book apart from all
other texts on Hatha Yoga.
Nothing is known about Gheranda and Chanda. The
name Gheranda is not found anywhere else in Sanskrit lit-
erature. Like many other works on Hatha Yoga, the work is
framed as a dialogue, suggesting that it has been overheard
and then written down. Thus the identity of the author (or
whoever overheard Gheranda) is not revealed. Chanda’s
full name, Chandakapali, means “fierce skullbearer.” The
epithet kapali, “skullbearer,” immediately brings to mind
the sect of the Kapalikas, skull-bearing followers of Shiva
infamous for antinomian practices. Kapali and Kapalika
are both mentioned as past masters of Hatha Yoga in the
list given in verses 1.4-8 of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. (In
fact, some manuscripts of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika prefix
the name Kapali with Chanda, rather than Khanda, the
more common reading.) However, as we shall see below, the
practices taught in this book are tame compared to some of
those taught in other works on Hatha Yoga, and Gheranda

INTRODUCTION xiii
appears to have been a follower of Vishnu, so we cannot
claim Kapalika origins for the text. Perhaps Chanda’s
epithet is simply a way of establishing a connection between
the text and the lineage of the Mahasiddhas mentioned in
the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.
There are also no records of the place and date of com-
position of the text, but there are indications that it is a
relatively late work on Hatha Yoga from northeast India.
The majority of its manuscripts are found in the north and
east of India, and, of those which are dated, the oldest was
copied in Bengal in 1802 C.E. As far as I am aware, it was
never cited by medieval commentators in their works on
Hatha Yoga. Doctrinal discontinuities also set it apart from
the rest of the Hatha Yogic corpus. Tantric influences have
been toned down considerably. See, for example, the descrip-
tion of Vajrolimudra in verse 3.39: in all other manuals of
Hatha Yoga this name is given to a technique in which the
yogi or yogini resorbs commingled sexual fluids through
the urethra; here it is a simple physical posture. The author
attributes the teachings of Hatha Yoga to Shiva, but verses
5.77 and 7.18 suggest that he was a devotee of Vishnu. Fur-
thermore, several verses indicate that the text was compiled
by a vedantin, in particular verse 7.4: “I am Brahman and
nothing else. I am Brahman alone and do not suffer. My
form is truth, consciousness, and bliss. I am eternally free.
I abide in my own nature.”²
²Despite the author’s sectarian affiliation, he has no particular doctrinal axe to
grind and often tells the aspiring yogi to fill in the details of his visualizations
and practices in the manner instructed by his guru.

xiv INTRODUCTION
The early texts of Hatha Yoga showed no trace of
Vedanta; their doctrinal framework was Tantric. As Hatha
Yoga and its proponents, the Nathas, gained in popular-
ity and patronage, the religious orthodox, amongst whom
Vedanta had become the predominant ideology, had to sit
up and take notice. As they had done with other heterodox
movements that threatened their hegemony (e.g., renunci-
ation and vegetarianism) they claimed Hatha Yoga as their
own. This process culminated in the eighteenth century
with the compilation of several new Upanishads and the
rewriting of some older ones; these are now known collec-
tively as the Yoga Upanishads. The unknown compiler(s)
used verses from established works on Hatha Yoga to create
the texts. The Vedantic and Vaishnava leanings in this book,
combined with its use of verses from established works on
Hatha Yoga, suggest that it probably resulted from a similar
process. In the light of this, as well as the fact that errors in
the manuscript of 1802 c.e. imply an established manuscript
tradition, the absence of citations in seventeenth-century
commentaries, and the location of most of its manuscripts
in Bengal, we may hazard a guess that the Gheranda Samhita
was composed in Bengal around 1700 c.e.
The Sanskrit text presented here is based on the edition
of Swami Digambarji and Dr. M. L. Gharote, first published
at Lonavala, Maharashtra, in 1978, for which they collated
fourteen manuscripts and five printed books, including the
Adyar Library edition of 1933, which formed the foundation
of their edition. The best known edition of the text is that
of Chandra Vasu, which was first published in 1915. It was

INTRODUCTION xv
based on two earlier Bengali editions which appear to have
relied on a very small number of manuscripts. The Adyar
Library edition is much more thorough and omits several
spurious verses found in Vasu's edition. I consulted three
manuscripts (two in the library in Jodhpur's Mehrangarh
Fort and one in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) that were not
collated for the Lonavala edition, but they were very similar
to manuscripts that had been used so I decided that there
was no point in editing the text myself. I have made emen-
dations or adopted alternative readings in a few places, but
in general the text is the same as the Lonavala edition.³ The
Sanskrit is of the variety that medieval commentators on
Tantric and Yogic works generously called "aisha," which
literally means "coming from Shiva." In other words, it is
often ungrammatical.
Some verses have been borrowed from other works,
in particular the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and the Goraksha
Samhita. The section on the five dharanas (elemental
visualizations) in verses 3.59-63 sheds light on the text's
composition and development. It has clearly been taken
directly from the Goraksha Samhita, verses 155-59, but is
incoherent and ungrammatical in all the Gheranda Samhita
manuscripts. In the Goraksha Samhita each element has a
³These critical editions are mentioned in the introduction and footnotes. The
first work has been referred to as the Goraksha Samhita.
Nowotny, Fausta. Das Gorakṣaśataka. Dokumente der Geistesgeschichte 3. Köln:
K. A. Nowotny, 1976.
Digambarji, Swami, and Dr. M. L. Gharote, eds. Gheraṇḍasaṃhitā. Lonāvalā: Kaival-
yadhāma Śrīman Mādhav Yoga Mandir Samiti, 1978.
Mallik, Kalyani. The Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati and Other Works of Nātha Yogīs.
Poona: Oriental Book House, 1954.