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ACHARYA HARIBHADRA'S COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN YOGA
author here distinguishes eight stages of yogic development. The work records quite a novel plan of classification of yogic stages. The most important feature of spiritual development is acquisition of samyagdṛṣṭi (love of truth). The soul undergoes gradual purification and along with the purification its drşți (love of truth) becomes progressively steady and reaches consummation in the realization of the truth. This gradual development of the dṛṣṭi has been classified into eight stages, viz., mitrā, tārā, balā, diprā, sthirä, käntä, prabha, and pară. Before coming to the description of these dṛṣṭis we shall refer in brief to the threefold yoga with the description of which the Yogadṛṣṭisamuccaya opens.
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A qualified yogic practitioner passes through a number of stages before he reaches the consummation of the practice. Sometimes even in spite of his knowledge and will he falters in his practice on account of spiritual inertia (pramäda). The faltering practice is called icchayoga." The practice of one who has revealed spiritual energy and does never falter in his yogic practices, strictly follows the scriptural injunctions, and has developed penetrating insight, is called sastrayoga. The practice of one who has fully mastered the scriptural injunctions and has developed the power to transcend them is called samarthyayoga. This latter yoga, again, is of two kinds viz. (1) that which is accompanied by the dissociation of all the acquired virtues (dharmasaṁnyasa), and (2) that which effects the stoppage of all activity (yoga-samnyasa).47 The first kind occurs at the time when the soul undergoes the process of apurva-karanas for the second time in the ninth stage of spiritual development while the second occurs in the last stage of spiritual development immediately after which the soul attains final emancipation." These, viz., icchayoga, śästrayoga, and samarthyayoga, are the three broad divisions of all the possible stages of yoga. The eight dṛṣṭis which we shall now describe are only the elaboration of these three,50
Dṛṣṭi means attitude towards truth. This attitude is wrong and perverse so long as the soul has not cut the knot and attained purification. The
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44. YDS, 3.
45. Ibid., 4.
46. Ibid., 5.
47. Ibid., 9.
48. For the conception of apurvakaraṇa see author's Studies in Jaina Philosophy, pp. 271-2.
49. Ibid., 10.
50. Ibid., 12.
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