RUMYANA TOLEVA r_toleva@b-trust.org
SAMYAMA ON THE KŪRMANĀḌĪ IN PATAÑJALI’S YOGA SŪTRA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE TEACHINGS OF THE KŪRMA PURĀṆA
The paper examines the deep contemplative practice (samyama) on the Kūrmanāḍī (the “tortoise” nāḍī), as described in the Vibhūtipāda of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra (3,31), presenting it as a method for gaining physical, emotional, and psychic stability. It explores how commentators of Yoga-Sūtra differ in locatingthe “tortoise”nāḍī, variously describing it as a subtle energetic “point” or “channel” situated in different parts of the body, including an attempt to articulate the author’s own view on its possible location and to outline the precise yogic method for performing this meditative practise. This attempt draws on the suggestions offered by Patañjali’s commentators while expanded the discussion into the wider context of the Kūrma-Purāṇa’s teaching, traditionally attributed to Viṣṇu in its “tortoise” incarnation. In particular, it examines the Purāṇa’s background concept for “churning the ocean” of the human consciousness as a path to spiritual liberation within embodied existence. This process requires the cultivation of firm physical and psychic stability through the complex method of saṃkhyā–yoga, integrating various yogic techniques with the pursuit of the true liberating knowledge concerning the nature of the Universe and the spiritual unity underlying all material forms. This key philosophical concept forms the theoretical foundation of Viṣṇu’s teaching in his “tortoise” form and is transmitted during the very process of the “churning of the ocean”. It is explained to the sages (who have attained the highest degree of psychic stability and uphold the moral values of the eternal dharma) at the beginning of the first part of the Kūrma-Purāṇa, and later in its second section, the Īśvara-Gītā thought by Śiva. The central message of the Kūrma-Purāṇa, which also resonates with Vedantic philosophy, is that all “embodied” material forms (included even the manifestations of Viṣṇu, Śiva or other deities) are, in their eternal spiritual immanent essence (Ātman) identical with their “unembodied” transcendent counterpart (Brahman). In search of the essence of the Patañjali’s sūtra 3,31, the philosophical concepts of the Kūrma Purāṇa are compared to the Patanjali’s foundational idea for applying the theoretical and practical yogic methodology (yoga as a process) as a means for achievement of the spiritual liberation (yoga as a transcendent result) in the material samsaric world itself. This liberation becomes possible through cultivating the physical, emotional and physic stability symbolised by the “kūrma” which functions as a foundational embodied form enabling one to cross the vast ocean of human consciousness and ultimately still the “mind-ocean”. The final outcome of this process is the complete nirodha (nirvāṇa) of the ocean’s “waves” (vṛtti), which arise from the continuous and powerful “churning” between dharma (the observation of the spiritual values) and adharma (the neglect of eternal values), driven by the ever-changing nature of matter.