The Amaraugha and the Amaraugha Prabodha (Sanskrit: à ¤ à ¤®à ¤°à ¥Âà ¤Â, à ¤ à ¤®à ¤°à ¥Âà ¤Âà ¤ªà ¥Âà ¤°à ¤¬à ¥Âà ¤§) are recensions of a 12th century Sanskrit text on haá¹Âha yoga, attributed to Goraká¹£anÃÂtha. The Amaraugha Prabodha is the later recension, with the addition of verses from other texts and assorted other materials. The text's physical practices imply a Buddhist origin for haá¹Âha yoga.
The Amaraugha is a 12th century à Âaivite Sanskrit text on haá¹Âha yoga, attributed to Gorakshanath. It was most likely written by someone in a siddha lineage who held the belief that the teaching of the four yogas stemmed from Gorakshanath. It was composed in South India, probably at Kadri, Mangalore in Karnataka, since the text invokes the sage Siddhabuddha of Kadri, a disciple of the Buddhist and Hindu saint and yogi MatsyendranÃÂtha. The text's Shaivite point of view is demonstrated by mentions of the god à Âiva, also named à Âambhu, and the à Âivaliá¹ ga.
Jason Birch comments that the Amaraugha seems to have modified a Buddhist method to create a technique "for moving kuá¹Âá¸Âalinë and attaining a à Âaiva form of RÃÂjayoga." If it was indeed written at Kadri, just at the time when Buddhist groups were switching to à Âaivism, he writes, then the text captures the moment that both haá¹Âha and rÃÂja yoga take shape as à Âaiva and VajrayÃÂna siddha traditions collide. In the process, the physical technique has survived basically unchanged, whereas the theory underlying it within esoteric Buddhism was dropped. This left early haá¹Âha and rÃÂja yoga rather simple in doctrine, unlike Buddhism.
The Amaraugha is closely related to the 11th century Amritasiddhi, a Vajrayana tantric Buddhist work, describing the same physical yoga practices, but adding Shaivite philosophy, subsuming haá¹Âha yoga under rÃÂja yoga, and reducing the use of Vajrayana terms. The Amaraugha is the earliest text that combines haá¹Âha yoga with rÃÂja yoga. Birch considers it likely that rather than being based on the doctrinally more complex Amritasiddhi, and for some reason cutting down on the theory it provides, both works may derive from some earlier source.
The Amaraugha was used by SvÃÂtmÃÂrÃÂma when he wrote the 15th century Haá¹Âha Yoga Pradipika. SvÃÂtmÃÂrÃÂma borrowed twenty-two and a half verses from the Amaraugha, constituting almost everything it has to say about haá¹Âha yoga. He supplemented these old practices with many additional practices including yoga postures or asanas, the six purifications or shatkarmas, the eight retentions of the breath or kumbhakas, and ten body seals or bandhas.
The text of the Amaraugha defines haá¹Âha yoga as the type of yogaâÂÂas distinct from laya yoga, mantra yoga, and rÃÂja yogaâÂÂwhich manipulates the breath and the bindu. Birch notes that much of the content is shared between the two recensions, Amaraugha and Amaraughaprabodha, but that the latter adds an assortment of materials including verses from other texts.
Verse 3 defines RÃÂjayoga in terms reminiscent of the definition of yoga in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.
The method of reaching the state of meditative absorption, samÃÂdhi, is essentially by retaining the generative fluid, semen- or bindu. Among early Shaivite haá¹Âha yoga texts, celibacy and the semen-preserving practice of Vajroli mudra are described only in the Shiva Samhita; its practice is omitted from the Amaraugha, the Yogabëja, and the YogatÃÂrÃÂvalë. The Amaraugha says that Vajroli is attained, presumably with samÃÂdhi, when the mind has become pure and the sushumna nadi, the central channel of the subtle body, has been unblocked to allow breath to flow freely. The VivekamÃÂrtaá¹Âá¸Âa and the Goraká¹£aà Âataka, both of which describe haá¹Âha yoga techniques in detail, do not mention Vajroli mudra.
Birch comments that the Amaraughas haá¹Âha yoga indicates a change from the older view that its method consisted of forcing generative fluids upwards, to getting kuá¹Âá¸Âalinë to move. James Mallinson and Mark Singleton note that the two models are not just different but incompatible, something that does not prevent the Haá¹Âha Yoga Pradëpikàfrom including accounts of both of them. 13th or 14th century texts influenced by the Amaraugha, including the Yogabëja, the YogatÃÂrÃÂvalë, and the Goraká¹£aà Âataka, take the kuá¹Âá¸Âalinë model further.