Sivayogaratna de Jñanaprakasa. Le joyau du Siva-Yoga

by Tara Michaël

This book presents an edition and French translation of the Sanskrit ?ivayogaratna. Its author, a ?udra born in Shalivati (Sri Lanka) in the 16th century, first travelled to Cidambaram, then to Bengal where he took lessons from a Brahmin teaching Ved?nta. Put to the test by his guru, he surprised the latter by his intelligence and became his disciple. Returning to the South, he was initiated into the ?gamas and became a sanny?sin. He is the author of one of the six old Tamil commentaries on the Civañ?n?acittiyar, itself a 13thcentury commentary on the ?ivajñanabodha of Meykan?d??r. The author’s interpretation differs from the ?aivasiddh?nta that had become orthodox in Tamil literature: he believes in the soul’s becoming identical to ?iva in a state of Liberation, a position that he calls ?uddh?dvaita (pure non-dualism). His Yoga aims at “identity” (s?yujya), which he holds to be a form of Knowledge (jñ?na) that is aided by the techniques of classical Yoga.