The Sanskrit Kokaśāstra describes various sexual positions in its tenth chapter. However, both authors chose to teach only one or two specific poses for the purpose of Haṭhayoga (Birch 2018: 107-108). The authors of early yoga texts, such as the Dattātreyayogaśāstra and the Vivekamārtaṇḍa, explicitly state that they are aware of the existence of numerous āsanas, which Śiva taught a total of eighty-four. The Kokaśāstra, also known as Ratirahasya (‘secrets of passion’), is a Sanskrit work typically dated to the twelfth century, around the same period when the earliest texts of Haṭha- and Rājayoga were composed. It is not implausible that similarities, borrowings, or cross-pollination occurred between Kāmaśāstra and yoga, given that several āsanas in the Mallapurāṇa, a Sanskrit work on wrestling, share names with those found in yoga texts. In fact, Iühnemann cites a list of eighty-four āsanas from the Kokaśāstra based on a reference in the Marathi book Saṅkhyāsaṅketakośa by Haṇmante (1980). Additionally, Gudrun Bühnemann's work (2007: 158) mentions eighty-four āsanas in Kāmaśāstra, which prompted me to search well-known works of this genre, such as the Kāmasūtra, for complex postures that might be identical to those found in yoga texts.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |