Yoga powers : extraordinary capacities attained through meditation and concentration / / edited by Knut A. Jacobsen.

• Superior document: Brill's Indological library, v. 37
• TeilnehmendeR: Jacobsen, Knut A., 1956-
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Brill's Indological library ; v. 37.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (532 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

A neglected topic in the research on yoga and meditation traditions, the extraordinary capacities called yoga powers are at the core of the religious imagination in the history of religions in South Asia. Yoga powers explained the divine, the highest gods were thought of as great yogins, and since major religious traditions considered their attainment as an inevitable part of the salvific process the textual traditions had to provide rational analyses of the powers. The essays of the book provide a number of new insights in the yoga powers and their history, position and function in the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions, in classical Yoga, Haṭha Yoga, Tantra and Śaiva textual traditions, in South Asian medieval and modern hagographies, and in some contemporary yoga traditions.

Table of Contents

Preliminary material / Knut A. Jacobsen -- Yoga Powers and Religious Traditions / Knut A. Jacobsen -- Yoga powers in the Mahābhārata / Angelika Malinar -- How Big Can Yogis Get? How Much Can Yogis See? / David Gordon White -- The Cultivation of Yogic Powers in the Pāli Path Manuals of Theravāda Buddhism / Bradley S. Clough -- The Wondrous Display of Superhuman Power in the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa: Miracle or Marvel? / David V. Fiordalis -- On the Appearance of Siddhis in Chinese Buddhist Texts / Ryan Richard Overbey -- Supernatural Powers and Their Attainment in Jainism / Kristi L. Wiley -- Power and Meaning in the Yogasūtra of Patañjali / Stuart Ray Sarbacker -- Siddhis in the Yogasūtra / Christopher Key Chapple -- Holding On and Letting Go: The In and Out of Powers in Classical Yoga / Lloyd W. Pflueger -- Powers and Identities: Yoga Powers and the Tantric Śaiva Traditions / Somadeva Vasudeva -- Liberation and Immortality: Bhuśuṇḍa’s Yoga of Prāṇa in the Yogavāsiṣṭha / Sthaneshwar Timalsina -- Siddhi and Mahāsiddhi in Early Haṭhayoga / James Mallinson -- My Miracle Trumps Your Magic: Encounters with Yogīs in Sufi and Bhakti Hagiographical Literature / Patton Burchett -- Sāī Bābā of Śirḍī and Yoga Powers / Antonio Rigopoulos -- Yogic Powers and the Rāmānanda Sampradāy / Ramdas Lamb -- Yoga Powers in a Contemporary Sāṃkhya -Yoga Tradition / Knut A. Jacobsen -- Th e Evolving Siddhis: Yoga and Tantra in the Human Potential Movement and Beyond / Jeffrey J. Kripal -- Contributors / Knut A. Jacobsen -- Index / Knut A. Jacobsen.