Shamanism is the sacred art of changing one’s awareness in order to enter nonordinary realms of reality, which are experienced to be populated by spirits. The word shaman is of Siberian (Tungusic) origin and describes a seasoned traveler in the spirit realms. Mostly by listening to the monotonous sound of a drum, click stick, or other percussion instrument, or by means of psychotropic substances (such as the fly agaric mushroom), shamans achieve a radical shift in their perceptual field. They do this in order to communicate with the spirit world. Their purpose is not idle curiosity; rather, they hope to retrieve power and information that are vital to the psychological and bodily welfare of their community.
According to some authorities, notably Mircea Eliade, Shamanism is of Siberian origin. Others regard Shamanism as a worldwide tradition that has arisen independently in diverse cultures. I favor the former view, which associates Shamanism especially with the cultural backdrop of Siberia and Central Asia. In a similar vein, Yoga is essentially an Indic phenomenon, and the spiritual traditions of other cultures should be given their own distinct name. Thus, strictly speaking, we should not speak of African Shamanism, unless it can be demonstrated that it is a descendant of Siberian Shamanism, which is true of the shamanic tradition of the Eskimos and Hopi Indians. Similarly, we should not speak of a Christian Yoga, unless it is indeed a hybrid between Christianity and Hinduism. Terms like “sorcery,” “witchcraft,” or “magic” may be applied in contexts other than Siberian or Siberian-derived spirituality, and “mysticism” or “spiritual esotericism” may be used in connection with Yoga-like traditions other than those traceable to India.
Some scholars have suggested that Yoga grew directly out of Shamanism, but this is difficult to prove. While Yoga contains shamanic elements, it absorbed many other teachings as well. According to Michael Harner, the transition from Shamanism to Yoga occurred at the time of the early city states in the East, when shamans were suppressed by the representatives of the official religion.5 In order to avoid detection, they had to cease drumming loudly and instead elaborated quiet methods of altering consciousness. Out of this, in Harner’s reconstruction of ancient history, evolved the tradition of Yoga.
While Harner’s hypothesis is intriguing, the waning of the shamanic tradition was probably more connected with the fact that the rise of the city states coincided with the collapse of the tribal communities that were served by the shamans. This collapse, in turn, is best understood as a shift in consciousness toward a more individuated self- awareness, associated with the emerging mental structure of consciousness.6
The shaman is a privileged sacred technician who acts on behalf of his (or more rarely her) community. This aspect is shared by the brahmin (brâhmana), who performs his sacrifices and other rituals for the sake of others, whether it be the ancestral spirits, his own living family, or the community at large. However, the yogin is a sacred technician who first and foremost seeks his own salvation. He does not, as a rule, endeavor to make any direct social contribution. If anything, he has dropped out of the social game. Yet, indirectly by their exemplary behavior and benevolent aura, the yogins of India have contributed significantly not only toward their own society but also to human civilization as a whole.7 Even in Karma-Yoga, the ideal of benefiting the world loka-samgraha), as mentioned earlier, is primarily in the interest of the yogin’s own spiritual growth. Only the bodhisattva ideal of Mahâyâna Buddhism embodies the intention to improve our collective human destiny. But, unlike the shaman, the bodhisattva is chiefly concerned with the spiritual welfare of people, not merely their bodily or emotional well-being or their material prosperity. Even those practitioners of the bodhisattva path who are healers understand their healing ministry as a spiritual service to others: By helping people re-establish physical health or emotional balance, these healers hope to create in them the proper conditions for spiritual practice.
While the hypothesis that derives Yoga from (officially suppressed) Shamanism is problematical, clearly many aspects and motifs of Shamanism have survived in Yoga. Eliade, who pioneered research on both Yoga and Shamanism, furnished the following characteristics for the shamanic tradition:
Among the elements that constitute and are peculiar to shamanism, we must count as of primary importance: (1) an initiation comprising the candidate’s symbolical dismemberment, death, and resurrection, which, among other things, implies his descent into hell and ascent to heaven; (2) the shaman’s ability to make ecstatic journeys in his role of healer and psychopompos (he goes in search of the sick man’s soul, stolen by demons, captures it, and restores it to the body; he conducts the dead man’s soul to hell, etc.); (3) “mastery of fire” (the shaman touches red-hot iron, walks over burning coals, etc., without being hurt); (4) the shaman’s ability to assume animal forms (he flies like the birds, etc.) and to make himself invisible.8
Yoga, as we have seen in Chapter 1, is an initiatory tradition. Its entire course is governed by the idea of the progressive transcendence (“dismemberment”) of the human ego-personality. Later we will encounter the Kshurikâ-Upanishad (“Secret Doctrine of the Dagger”), a work that explains the yogic process in terms of a step-by-step dismantling of ordinary consciousness. This corresponds to the dismemberment associated with the shamanic rope trick, which has been described as a form of mass hypnosis. This involves the shaman, a sharp blade in his mouth, climbing up the vertically extended rope in hot pursuit of a young boy until both are out of sight. After a while, the boy’s severed limbs rain down from high above. The drama ends with the boy’s resurrection by the shaman. Cameras will only capture the shaman sitting on the ground, alone and perhaps with a knowing smile.
“Shamans are usually aroused during their journey and may dance or become highly agitated … In yogic samadhi, calm may become so profound that many mental processes cease temporarily.”
—Roger Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism, p. 229
The yogin’s ecstatic introversion and mystical ascent is the equivalent of the shaman’s ecstatic flight, and the yogin’s teaching function corresponds to the shaman’s role as a guide of souls. Furthermore, many of the shamanic powers also are recognized in Yoga, where they are known as siddhis (“accomplishments”), including the ability to become invisible, with which shamans are also credited. Finally, the shaman’s mastery of fire-an external feat-is paralleled by the yogic mastery of the “inner fire,” especially the psychophysio-logical heat generated during the arousal of the life force in Kundalînî-Yoga. This is the basis for the Tibetan practice of tummo, which allows practitioners of this yogic discipline to sit naked for many hours in the frozen snow blanketing the mountain peaks of the Himalayas.
One of the best known techniques of Yoga-sitting cross-legged in one of the many yogic postures (âsana)-has its shamanic precursor. In her book Where the Spirits Ride the Wind, the American anthropologist Felicitas Goodman examined a number of shamanic postures that have been used to induce ecstatic states or out-of-body experiences.9 Apparently, each posture has its own distinct effect on the mind, and she and her students are capable of entering various states of consciousness by using specific shamanic postures.
The previous chapter introduced the tradition of asceticism (tapas), the precursor of Yoga, which has many striking parallels to Shamanism: Where shamans demonstrate their mastery of fire by touching burning coals, tapasvins excel in the act of “self-heating”-that is, in disciplining themselves to the point where sweat pours from all pores. One ancient ascetic practice (called panca-agni, written pancâgni) is to sit surrounded by four lit fires, in the middle of summer, while the sun is burning down from above. In recent years, Swami Satyânanda Sâraswati of the Bihar School of Yoga practiced this age-old technique over a long period. Whether through prolonged retention of the breath or through transmutation of the sexual drive into vital energy (ojas), yogins similarly seek to frustrate the natural tendencies of the body-mind and thereby create an inner pressure that translates into physiological heat. They feel as if
they are burning up. Then, at the peak of this experience, a radical breakthrough occurs whereby their whole being is illumined. They discover that they are that light, which has no apparent source but is the Source of everything.
The condition of illumination, or enlightenment, is to the yogin what the magical journey into other realms is to the shaman. Both experiences represent a radical departure from conventional reality and consciousness. Both have a profoundly transformative effect. Yet only the yogin, who travels inward, discovers the ultimate futility of all journeying, because he realizes that he is never traveling outside the very Reality that is the goal of his spiritual odyssey.
The environment of the shaman is composed of the subtle realms of existence, which he strives to master. “The distinctive feature of the shamanic ecstasy,” writes the American psychiatrist Roger Walsh, “is the experience of ‘soul flight’ or ‘journeying’ or ‘out-of-body experience.’ That is, in their ecstatic state shamans experience themselves, or their soul or spirit, flying through space and traveling either to other worlds or to distant parts of this world.”10 The shamanic journeys are for the sake of obtaining knowledge or power, or to effect changes in the material realm by altering the conditions in the subtle realms.
The yogin’s ultimate purpose, however, is to go beyond the subtle levels of existence explored by the shaman, and to realize the transcendental Being, which is transdimensional and unqualified, and which the yogin knows to be his innermost identity. Thus, whereas the shaman is a healer or miracle-worker, the yogin is primarily a transcender. But in the spiritual ascent to the transcendental Reality, the yogin is likely to gather a great deal of knowledge about the subtle realms (sûkshma-loka). This explains why many yogins have demonstrated extraordinary abilities and have long been looked upon by the Indian people as miracle workers and magicians. From the yogic point of view, however, the paranormal abilities possessed by many adepts are insignificant by comparison with the ultimate attainment of Self-realization, or enlightenment.
III. YOGA AND THE ENIGMATIC INDUS-SARASVATÎ CIVILIZATION
The Vedic Aryans: A Revolutionary New View
Yoga as we know it today is the product of several millennia. The earliest beginnings are lost in the obscurity of ancient Indian prehistory. Rightly, the Bhagavad-Gîtâ (4.3), essentially composed in its present form perhaps around 500-600 B.C.E., calls Yoga “archaic” (purâtana).11 Western scholars have generally underestimated the antiquity of Yoga, and until recently the consensus has been to connect it with the esotericism of the Upanishads, which have been placed as late as the sixth or seventh century B.C.E., but which are much older.
Recent studies have clearly shown the presence of Yoga, as a loose structure of ideas and practices (which we might conveniently call “Proto-Yoga”), at the time of the Rig-Veda. More importantly, the age of the Vedic canon itself has been pushed back considerably. The bulk of the Rig-Veda, the most important of the four Vedic hymnodies, was composed long prior to 1900 B.C.E. I will discuss the significance of this date shortly.
Several generations of Western scholars have subscribed to the so-called Aryan invasion model, which has now been refuted by the new evidence. According to this outdated model, the Sanskrit-speaking Vedic tribes invaded India between 1500 and 1200 B.C.E., causing death and destruction among the native (supposedly Dravidian) population. This hypothesis, favored especially by the influential scholar Max Muller, quickly acquired the status of a popular dogma that has proven extremely resilient even in the face of abundant contradictory evidence.
The first challenge to the Aryan invasion theory came when, in 1921, archaeologists discovered the ancient cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro at the banks of the Indus River in Pakistan. However, instead of questioning their assumptions about the origin of the Vedic Aryans, most researchers simply adjusted the date for the alleged invasion by several hundred years to take into account the archaeological record. Under the influence of the invasion model, they overinterpreted certain archaeological findings, notably the apparent signs of violence in some strata of Mohenjo-Daro. In the meantime, most archaeologists have abandoned this particular explanation, but many Indologists continue to rely on the outdated interpretations.
The reason for this is that the alternative, which is strongly suggested by the facts themselves, requires a total revision of our understanding of India’s early civilized history: That is, the invasion of India by the Vedic Aryans never occurred! Rather, they have long been established in India. The overwhelming evidence refuting the Aryan invasion model has been presented and discussed in some detail in the book In Search of the Cradle of Civilization.12 Therefore it will not be necessary to review all the facts again, and a broadly painted picture should suffice.
The Vedic Aryans belonged to the Indo-European language family, whose numerous members undoubtedly also shared many ethnic features. The Vedic Aryans are related to the Celts, the Persians, the Goths, and several other linguistic-cultural groups that no longer exist. They also are distant cousins of those of us whose native tongue is English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, and a host of other languages that originated in Eurasia.
The Indo-European speakers all are thought to be descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who are now placed as early as the seventh millennium B.C.E. Scholars are not agreed about their homeland, but it is generally located somewhere in Central Asia or Eastern Europe. According to one influential linguist, Colin Renfrew, the Proto-Indo-Europeans originally had their home in Anatolia (modern Turkey) and from there spread to the north, the west, and the east. At any rate, it is now considered probable that the Proto-Indo- European communities were well established in Eurasia by 4500 B.C.E. or earlier still. Thereafter, the various dialects crystallized into separate languages, including Vedic Sanskrit. According to Renfrew and others, by at least 3000 B.C.E. Indo-European languages and their various dialects were spoken throughout Europe, and a strong Indo-European presence continued to exist in Anatolia, as is evident from the Hittite empire of 2200 B.C.E.
In light of this and other evidence, we can safely jettison the idea that the Vedic Aryans arrived in India as late as 1500 B.C.E. They could easily have been resident there several millennia earlier, growing out of an existing branch of the Proto-Indo-European community present on the subcontinent. This is exactly what is suggested by the archaeological evidence and also by the internal evidence of the Rig-Veda.
Very significantly, as aerial photographs have revealed, the most celebrated river of the Rig-Veda-the Sârasvatî, which was situated to the east of the Indus river—ceased to exist around 1900 B.C.E. The catastrophic drying up of this huge river, which may have been caused by a major tectonic upheaval followed by climatic and environmental changes, occurred over many centuries. It led to the abandonment of numerous towns and villages, and the relocation of the heart of the Vedic civilization to the Ganges (Gangâ) River. In other words, the Rig-Veda must have been composed prior to the disappearance of the Sârasvatî. In fact, astronomical references in this archaic hymnody point to the third, fourth, and even fifth millennium B.C.E., but these have typically been ignored or dismissed as later inventions. However, astronomical back calculations are notoriously difficult, and there is no reason to brand the references to solstices in the Rig-Veda and other early scriptures as subsequent interpolations, especially considering that virtually all scholars marvel about the high degree of fidelity with which the Vedic hymnodies have been transmitted through the millennia.
Another very important finding is that Babylonian mathematics (c. 1700 B.C.E) was profoundly influenced by India’s mathematical geniuses. This conclusion was arrived at by A. Seidenberg, a historian of mathematics who had no particular fealty to India.14 Indic mathematics appears to have grown out of the brahmins’ ritual culture, particularly the construction of complex altars that were symbolically related to the structure of the macrocosm. Mathematical ideas made their first appearance in the Brâhmanas, and subsequently were elaborated a
nd codified in the Shulba-Sûtras.15 The first Brâhmanas cannot be dated much later than 2000 B.C.E. Some researchers assign them to 3000 B.C.E. and the Vedas to 4000–5000 B.C.E. and earlier still. In this book I have opted for a tentative date of 2500 B.C.E. for the earliest Brâhmanas.
These facts raise anew the important question of the relationship between the Sanskrit-speaking Aryan tribes and the so-called Indus civilization, which flourished from around 2800 B.C.E. to 1900 B.C.E. It must also be noted here that the date of 2800 B.C.E. is purely provisional since the earliest strata of Mohenjo-Daro have not yet been excavated because of permanent flooding. The foundations of that city, which lie under twenty- four feet of mud, could be many centuries older. Nor have the more than two thousand other sites along the Indus and the Sârasvatî been excavated. It is possible that some of these towns, most of which are situated at the banks of the former Sârasvatî (rather than the Indus), could be older still. The city of Mehrgarh in the extreme northwest of India has been dated back to 6500 B.C.E., thus providing the earliest step in an astonishing continuity of cultural expression.
More and more investigators are inclined to regard that great civilization as a creation of the Vedic Aryans themselves. Indeed, there is nothing in the Vedas themselves to contradict such an identification. Those passages that previous generations of scholars have always taken as proof for the violent invasion of India can easily and more sensibly be interpreted in other ways. The battles mentioned in some of the Rig- Vedic hymns are either mythological or, if historical, clearly recollect intertribal Aryan conflicts and not the supposed conquest of the native population by the Vedic Aryans as foreign aggressors.
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