from Suryansu Ray date 18 March 2010 16:01 subject Commentary of King Bhoja on Patanjali's yogasutras Gentlemen at the Indology site: I have typed out the Bhojavṛtti, the commentary on the yoga aphorisms of Patañjali, the popular commentary of King Bhoja who ruled in the 11th century. It is presented as a Word DOC file, which has been converted into a PDF file. It is a 125-page Devanāgarī document. The material was typed by me personally from traditional old manuscript belonging to our family guru. I have appended an English article at the end of the vṛitti and made a separate section in which all the yoga sūtras are given in one place. I would like to donate this Bhojavṛitti e-text to your INDOLOGY website for the general public. I have taken great care to ensure that there are no mistakes in the commentary. With best wishes, Dr. Suryansu Ray, New Delhi. -- from Suryansu Ray date 26 March 2010 07:19 subject Re: Sending Commentary of King Bhoja on Yoga. Dear Dr Dominik Wujastyk, Thank you for your interest in my Bhojavṛtti, the Commentary by King Bhoja on Patañjali's Yoga aphorisms. I have attached the material hereto. The description follows. 1. I am a retired professor from Zakir Husain College, Delhi University. Around the mid-fifties, when I was a young boy, the guru of my father visited our house in Calcutta for a month. He carried a palm-leaf manuscript of this Bhojavṛtti in the Devanāgarī script, which must have been very old. He reluctantly allowed me to copy it out in my notebooks, which I did in a week. He had it checked through a friend of my father. The notes remained there for 40 years, until I rediscovered them in 1995. The pages had become yellowish and brittle with age, and were in bad handwriting, because I am a Bengali and Hindi script was forieign to me those days. In the course of 15 years, I typed out the handwritten pages and compared the material with materials in libraries in Delhi. I found many alternative expressions, some justifiable, some not. I noted down those which could be accepted. You will find them in my vṛttis inserted in square brackets with pa0, meaning pāṭhāntara. Even in some sūtras there are different readings, which I have pointed out there. 2. That my material is genuinely old can be seen from the fact that this text does not contain any European punctuation marks -- there are no commas, semicolons, quotation marks, etc. The whole vṛtti is written using only single and double vertical strokes for punctuation. Besides, joining different words together with the rules of sandhi is compulsorily done. Long continuous expressions abound, with compounds mixed with joinings, as is the case with classical commentaries. I feel that modern-day punctuation marks should not be introduced in the text, because putting hyphens may obstruct the other meanings inherent in the text. 3. The 9 files included in this zipped file are as follows: (1) Bhojavṛtti in Devanagari.doc. -- This is the main text, written in the Devanāgarī font callted Sanskrit 2003. This powerful font was created by Swami Satchidananda of Omkarananda Ashram, Haridwar, India (www.omkarananda-ashram.org), in collaboration with Ulrich Stiehl, Heidelberg (www.sanskritweb.net). Ulrich had earlier tabulated all the consonant conjuncts actually seen in the religious and philosophical works of the classical and vedic language. The respected Swami-ji has included all these conjuncts in his font. (In fact he is better known for his Itranslator, which includes Sanskrit 2003 an the default font.) I have included the Sanskrit 2003 font into my zipped file. Ulrich has written a long technical manual on how to use this Itranslator. -- At the end of this DOC file you can find my English article titled "On the Yoga of Patanjali and King Bhoja." This article reveals to the uninitiated the secrets of spiritual practices like the Yoga through which man can break out of the horrible vortex of transmigration and return to his original fully-conscious state, never to be entangled again in the material body. (2) Bhojavṛtti in Devanagari. pdf.--- This is a pdf conversion of the above doc file. (3) Bhojavṛtti in transliteration.doc.--- Some readers may find it convenient to read this transliterated version of the above doc file. This conversion has been made through the Itranslator of Swami-ji. The font used here is called URW Palladio ITU, which is created by Ulrich and is freely available from his website. I have included 4 fonts from this package. (4) Bhojavṛtti in transliteration.pdf. --- This is the pdf version of the doc file. (5) Sanskrit2005.ttf -- the font of Swamiji in which I have typed the main doc Devanagari file. (6) Four fonts belonging to URW Palladio ITU (Regular, Bold, Italics, Bold-Italics). -- these are four ttf files. In case of any doubt please feel free to talk to me. I have taken great care to see that there is no mistake in the commentary. Nevertheless, to err is human, and for which the Mother Earth is still in her orbit. With best wishes, Suryansu Ray, Dr. Suryansu Ray 4-B, Pocket-B Vikaspuri Extension Outer Ring Road New Delhi - 119918, India. -- [In response to an enquiry about copyright and distribution permission:] from Suryansu Ray date 26 March 2010 15:31 subject Re: Sending Commentary of King Bhoja on Yoga. Dear Dr. Dominik Wujastyk, 1. In India when we donate something, -- the exact word is daana, --- we lose all rights to it. The Bhojavṛtti I sent to you is your property now, and you will use it as you please. 2. In India, the tradition is that, at some time in our life, we become initiated to the sprirituality through a spiritual master (guru). The best gurus are mendicant sannyāsīs, who are constantly moving on foot, staying at a town not more than three months. They usually avoid contact with society and stay at temples, etc. They do not have any address, but through his disciples scattered all over India some rumour would float that he left Pune last month and his whereabouts are now not known. In 1955, when I was a 15-year-old boy, this much I knew: that the manuscript this Hindi-speaking sādhu was carrying was something valuable. Sanskrit was taught at my school and my Sanskrit Paṇḍit told me that it would be better if I could keep a copy of it. The matter was in 4 volumes, each with two wooden covers and two holes to bind them together. He was possibly carrying it from one Gurukul (Traditional Vedic School) to another. That was why HE WAS RELUCTANT to allow me to touch it because I was then ignorant of the subject. Such gurus give up even their names, and assume a name ending with -ānanda (bliss). They are known by the succession of disciples, and people refer to them as a disciple of so and so. Later, I came to Delhi for higher studies and started teaching in Delhi University. I had my own guru, who is no more in the body. These days such gurus are rare. They did not have any property or address, walked barefoot constantly, suddenly appearing where big congregations or yajñas were held, giving initiation (dīkṣā) to a few unknown people, and travelling in the company of a few recluse disciples. They did not have any worry for procuring food. In the afternoon they would come down to the locality where people would give them alms in rice, āṭā (wheat powder) and potato. They would go back to their shelter, cook it with wooden fire and take a few morsels without salt. Even these days millions of such sādhus exist but they do not come to the locality any more. --- Instead a modern sort of religious people have emerged, who are making money for their speeches, have built big Ashrams and are imparting wrong information. Yoga has become some sort of physical exercises. 3. My origianal typing was in ITRANS in Swami Satchidananda's Itranslator. Para by para I converted the matter in transliteration and Devanāgarī through his software. I am sending my ITRANS code with this letter. With best wishes, Suryansu Ray, New Delhi