योगतारावली (आदि शङ्कराचार्य - अमनस्क दशा, नादानुसन्धान एवं राजयोग रहस्य सटीक)

[ 3 ] The authorship of the work is usually ascribed to the great Advaita teacher Śaṅkarācārya. There are however strong grounds to hold that this ascription is not beyond doubt. The work had not been commented on by any of the direct or indirect disciples of Śaṅkarācārya, nor has it been commented on by any teacher of minor yoga schools. Moreover the work does not seem to have been quoted by any teacher who lived before the fifteenth century. All these tend to show that the work belongs to a much later date. It is quite reasonable to hold that the work was composed by one of these later Śaṅkarācāryas who were proficient in Haṭha and Rāja yogas. There is a difficulty in accepting this view also, for the work was ascribed to Nandikeśvara by Śivānanda ( in his Yogacintāmaṇi, p. 15 ), one of the authorities on yoga. It is difficult to explain this change in authorship. Even if we accept the authorship of Nandikeśvara, it is difficult to identify him. Historically it is impossible to take this Nandikeśvara as the same as the Puranic Nandin or Nandikeśvara ( the son of the sage Śilāda ), who assumed a daiva śarīra ( divine body ) through the grace of Śiva. A Nandikeśvara is said to have composed a commentary ( in verse ) on the fourteen Pratyāhāra sūtras of Paninian grammar. The identification of these two Nandikeśvaras is still to be proved. It is a pity that the present work has no ancient Sanskrit commentary. There are, however, a few translations and commen- taries in Hindi and Bengali. These commentaries neither try to determine the intended importe of the important expressions of the text, nor take into consideration the variant readings found in the different printed editions of the text. Though we have tried to