Dominic Goodall's Talk on "The Yogic Teachings of the Śivadharmottara"
On May 29th UniOr and the Śivadharma Project welcomed prof. Dominic Goodall for a talk on “The Yogic Teachings of the Śivadharmottara”.
The Śivadharma corpus illuminates lay Śaiva beliefs and practices distinct from those of the professional Śaiva religions of the Atimārga (Pāśupata) and Mantramārga (Śaivasiddhānta, etc.). The tenth chapter of the 7th-century Śivadharmottara, probably the second earliest text of the corpus, offers what may be one of the earliest accounts of Śaiva yoga. A cursory read might suggest that it contains nothing unfamiliar, but the particular combination of the elements it involves is perhaps distinctive. I offer today a summary of its teachings on this subject, highlighting both Mantramārga features that it includes (dhāraṇās, an insistence on 6 aṅgas, the terms recaka, pūraka and kumbhaka), as well as features that it omits or fails to mention (any nāḍī of the yogic subtle body).
