Development of Yama and Niyama

 

Dr. Parimal Devnath,

  Research Assocate,

The Lonavla Yoga Institute (India), 

Lonavla, India.

 

Introduction:

The pair of Yama and Niyama forms an integral practice in the tradition of Patanjala Yoga.  According to the scheme of Ashtangayoga, this pair of personal purity, ethics and social conduct is the basis of all other further practices of Yoga.  One without being well equipped with these practices may not be able to extract suitable benefits from the higher curriculum of Yoga as laid down in Yoasutras.  Even one might discover that higher practice of Ashtangayoga like dhyana, dharana would be pretty difficult or  impossible to practise if one is not well grounded in Yama and Niyama, the lessons of each components are fully inculcated in personal life.

 

However,   a close study of the Indian traditional scriptures would reveal that advocacy for undertaking the practices of Yama and Niyama or such similar ethical and moral lessons had not been same through all the times and stages of Indian traditional history.  The following paragraphs will clearly show that there had been remarkable changes in perception towards these personal and social rules from time to time.  A time was there when there was no clear suggestion for such practices at all.  But as the time changed, the sages felt the need to clearly put forward the guidelines for an individual to behave with one’s own self as well as with others around him.  These rules are not only mandatory for one’s spiritual evolution but also necessary for personal and social enmity, peace and integrity.         

 

Nature and limitation:  (i) The present study is predominantly historical in nature.  But it is limited to literature of Yoga excluding vast source material of Puranas.

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