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This book examines the life of a nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Tamil yogin named Sri Sabhapati Swami (¿r¿ Sabh¿pati Sv¿m¿ or Cap¿pati Cuv¿mikä, ca. 1828-1923/4) and his unique English, Tamil, Hindi, and Bengali literature on a Sanskrit-based system of yogic meditation known as the "R¿jayoga for ¿iva" (Tamil: civar¿jay¿kam, Sanskrit: ¿ivar¿jayoga), the full experience of which is compared to being like a "tree universally spread."
Sommario
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- From Hidden Roots to Outer Blossoms
- A Treelike "Translocalization" of Yoga
- The Chapters and Methodology of This Book
- Chapter 1. Hagiographies and Old Diary Leaves
- Extant Sources for Sabhapati's Life
- Sabhapati's Childhood
- A Quest for Religious Truth
- A Visionary Experience in Velachery
- A Southbound Quest
- Lectures and a Himalayan Flight
- A Splash on the Lahore Scene
- Shrish Chandra Basu and the Theosophical "Founders"
- John Campbell Oman and "Sadhuism"
- A Vision of Agastya Once in Fifty Years
- Sabhapati in Bombay
- Agastya and the Konnur Meditation Hall
- South Indians to the Fore
- Om Prakash Swamigal
- Konnur Ramalinga Swamigal
- Sabhapati Swami's Death and Disappearance
- Chapter 2. A Vast Forest of Printed Words
- Textual Stemmata of Sabhapati's Works
- The Alpha Stemma
- Three Original Editions of vry
- cpsps as Alpha Stemma
- Detailed Contents of the Alpha Stemma
- Bengali and German Translations
- William Estep's Esoteric Cosmic Yogi Science
- The Beta and Gamma Stemmata
- Contextualizing Sabhapati's Vernacular Works
- cpsps as Beta and Gamma Stemmata
- ctcspv and the Gamma Stemma
- ryb and the Beta Stemma
- Pamphlets for Konnur Meditation Hall
- Sabhapati's Literature in Telugu
- Sabhapati's Tamil Work mcvts
- Chapter 3. Seeds of a Cosmological Religion
- Sabhapati's Two Gurus
- Chidambara Swamigal and "Instructive Truth"
- Shivajnana Bodha and the Tamil Siddhas
- An Embodied Cosmos
- Shiva as "Infinite Spirit"
- A Cosmogonic Separation of "Faculties"
- "Illustration by Examples"
- The Tree Universally Spread
- Emancipation and Transmigration
- Household of the Body's Truth (dehatattva)
- Connections with Tamil Saiva Discourse
- Views on Other Religions and Movements
- Sabhapati and Buddhism
- Sabhapati and Christianity
- Sabhapati and Islam
- Sabhapati and Zoroastrianism, or "Parsism"
- Sabhapati and "Samajees"
- Sabhapati and the "Theosophical Societies"
- Sabhapati and Atheism
- Chapter 4. Breathing into ¿ivar¿jayoga
- Three Branches of Yoga
- Hatha Yoga or "Yoga of Force"
- Hähar¿jayoga or "Royal Yoga of Force"
- ¿ivar¿jayoga or "Royal Yoga for Shiva"
- ¿ivar¿jayoga: From Purification to Nonbeing
- Chapter 5. Singing Mantras and Visualizing Flowers
- Lyrical Compositions and Musical Poems
- Incantation of Tones and Mantras
- Sabhapati's Visual Diagrams
- Changing Visual Representations
- Svar¿pa and Yoga
- Chapter 6. Dissecting the Nature of ¿ivar¿jayoga
- Spiritual and Physical Phenomena
- The Pure Ethers
- A Naturalistic Cosmology of Yoga
- Chapter 7. Magical Fruits of Occult Yoga
- Sabhapati and Theosophy
- Franz Hartmann and Sabhapati in German Translation
- Sabhapati and "Thelemic Magick"
- William Estep and "Super Mind Science"
- Epilogue: Parts of a Universal Tree
- Appendix 1. A Translation of t2 (in mcvts)
- Excerpt of t2 (English Translation)
- Excerpt of t2 (Original Tamil)
- Appendix 2. Lexicon of Common Terms and Variants
- Appendix 3. A Passage from vry on the "Pole" of ¿ivar¿jayoga
- References
- Index
Info autore
Keith Edward Cantú is a Research Affiliate at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School and a Visiting Assistant Professor at St. Lawrence University. He has previously held roles as a postdoctoral Visiting Fellow at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, in the DFG-funded project "CAS-E: Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective," Assistant Professor (Postdoc/Research Associate) at the Jagiellonian University, and was also a teaching assistant at University of California, Santa Barbara, where he received his doctoral degree in 2021. His previous publications include the chapter "Sri Sabhapati Swami: Forgotten Yogi of Western Esotericism" and (as co-editor) City of Mirrors: Songs of Lālan Sāi, published with OUP's South Asia Series in 2017.
Riassunto
This book examines the life of a nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Tamil yogin named Sri Sabhapati Swami (Śrī Sabhāpati Svāmī or Capāpati Cuvāmikaḷ, ca. 1828-1923/4) and his unique English, Tamil, Hindi, and Bengali literature on a Sanskrit-based system of yogic meditation known as the "Rājayoga for Śiva" (Tamil: civarājayōkam, Sanskrit: śivarājayoga), the full experience of which is compared to being like a "tree universally spread." Its practice was based on a unique synthesis of Tamil Vīraśaiva and Siddhar cosmologies in the colonial period, and the yogic literature in which it is found was designed to have universal appeal across boundaries of caste, gender, and sectarian affiliation. His works, all of which are here analyzed together for the first time, are an important record in the history of yoga, print culture, and art history due to his vividly-illustrated and numbered diagrams on the yogic body with its subtle physiology.
This book opens with a biographical account of Sabhapati, his editor Shrish Chandra Basu, and his students as gleaned from textual sources and the author's ethnographic field work. Sabhapati's literature in various languages is then analyzed, followed by a comprehensive exposition of his Śaiva cosmology and religious theories. Sabhapati's system of Śivarājayoga and its subtle physiology is then treated in detail, followed by an analysis of Sabhapati's aesthetic integration of aural sound and visual diagrams and an evaluation of the role of "science" in the swami's literature. Sabhapati also appealed to global authors and occultists outside of South Asia, so special attention is additionally given to his encounter with the founders of the Theosophical Society and the integration of his techniques into the thelemic "Magick" of Aleister Crowley, the German translation of Bavarian theosophical novelist Franz Hartmann, and the American publication of New Thought entrepreneur William Estep. To these are appended a never-before-translated Tamil hagiography of Sabhapati's life, a lexicon in table-form that compiles some archaic variants and Roman transliterations of technical terms used in his work, and a critically-edited passage on an innovative technique of Śivarājayoga that included visualizing the yogic central channel as a lithic "pole."
Testo aggiuntivo
The book will be of much use to anyone interested in yogic studies, the history of modern Western esotericism, Tamil religion, and colonial Hinduism.
