घेरण्ड संहिता (महर्षि घेरण्ड - सप्ताङ्ग हठयोग सटीक)

INTRODUCTION xv based on two earlier Bengali editions which appear to have relied on a very small number of manuscripts. The Adyar Library edition is much more thorough and omits several spurious verses found in Vasu's edition. I consulted three manuscripts (two in the library in Jodhpur's Mehrangarh Fort and one in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) that were not collated for the Lonavala edition, but they were very similar to manuscripts that had been used so I decided that there was no point in editing the text myself. I have made emen- dations or adopted alternative readings in a few places, but in general the text is the same as the Lonavala edition.³ The Sanskrit is of the variety that medieval commentators on Tantric and Yogic works generously called "aisha," which literally means "coming from Shiva." In other words, it is often ungrammatical. Some verses have been borrowed from other works, in particular the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and the Goraksha Samhita. The section on the five dharanas (elemental visualizations) in verses 3.59-63 sheds light on the text's composition and development. It has clearly been taken directly from the Goraksha Samhita, verses 155-59, but is incoherent and ungrammatical in all the Gheranda Samhita manuscripts. In the Goraksha Samhita each element has a ³These critical editions are mentioned in the introduction and footnotes. The first work has been referred to as the Goraksha Samhita. Nowotny, Fausta. Das Gorakṣaśataka. Dokumente der Geistesgeschichte 3. Köln: K. A. Nowotny, 1976. Digambarji, Swami, and Dr. M. L. Gharote, eds. Gheraṇḍasaṃhitā. Lonāvalā: Kaival- yadhāma Śrīman Mādhav Yoga Mandir Samiti, 1978. Mallik, Kalyani. The Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati and Other Works of Nātha Yogīs. Poona: Oriental Book House, 1954.