Review

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple

Review by: Christopher Key Chapple
Source: International Journal of Hindu Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Apr., 1998), pp. 149-150
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20106564
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 Book reviews and notices I 149

homonymy' ('N?g?rjuna "sounds like" something in Wittgenstein, for example,' [246]) is

not really so different from the folk etymologists' insistence that bhiksu is derived not
from *bhiks (beg) but from *bhid (cut) plus *ksudh (hunger). Both kinds of commentator,
he concludes, can be read as 'deferred revisers, aiming ever at reworking and rewriting
into a meaningful context those textual traces that seem most resistance to incorporation'
(260), and in the end Lopez successfully renders meaningful some of the gems of wisdom
to be found in both sorts of commentary, complete with their sometimes rough and
uneven edges.

Whitman College Jonathan S. Walters

Barbara Stoler Miller, trans., Yoga: Discipline of freedom. The Yoga Sutra attributed to
Pata?jali: A translation of the text, with commentary, introduction, and glossary of
keywords. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. xiv + 114 pp.

The Yoga S?tra of Pata?jali has been translated many times. Most translations provide a
loose paraphrase of the text, often embellished with the translator's favorite examples and
similes. The Theosophical Society translation by I. Taimini (1961) and the recent Heart
of Yoga translation by T. Desikachar (1995) fall within this category. The more scholarly
translations present the text as interpreted by a variety of commentators. These include
James Woods' (1914) translation with the commentary of Vy?sa and the gloss of
V?caspati Miara; T. Rukmani's (1981-83, 1987, 1989) rendering, which includes the
commentary of Vij?anabhiksu; and Trevor Legget's (1990) translation with a commen
tary attributed to Sa?kara. Both genres produce volumes of several hundred pages to
explain 195 verses that can easily fit into twelve pages of translated text.
Yoga: Discipline of freedom embodies a third style of translation, one that seeks to
emulate Pata?jali's original work. Rather than presenting her own interpretation through
the vehicle of her own experience and rather than laboriously presenting a word by word
rendering of a traditional commentary, the late Barbara Stoler Miller chooses for the most
part to let the s?tras stand alone, gently grouping them according to obvious themes and
providing gentle commentary to help the reader make the transition from one segment to
the next, in the style of translations by Georg Feuerstein (1979) and Christopher Chappie
and Anand Viraj (1990). However, rather than including extensive grammatical analysis
as found in the two works just mentioned, she chooses to target the general reader, opting
to thernatize and clarify Pata?jali's thought and present it with a minimum of untranslated
words. The result is an elegant, clean rendering of the Yoga S?tra that is accessible and
meaningful to readers at all levels.
In several instances, Miller makes translation choices that nicely convey the sense of
the original Sanskrit in context. For instance, she translates samapatti as contemplative
poise, which, like the original, conveys a sense of intention and composure. She translates
citta-vrtti as turnings of thought, sattva as lucidity, and vitarka as conjecture; all three
elegantly capture the sense of the original. With some of the more difficult passages,
particularly in the third section, she forms her translations with extraordinary graceful

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 150 / International Journal of Hindu Studies 2, 1 (1998)

ness: 'Through direct perception of the cognitive process, one has knowledge of the
thoughts of others. But this does not involve knowledge of the underlying object of
thought since that is not one's object of perception' (3.19-20).
In other instances, her decisions on individual words are less obvious. For example, she
translates Kvara as Lord of Yoga which is more of an interpolation from the commen
taries than derivative from the original term, which does not specify l?vara's domain.
Likewise, pratyaya in the original carries a more nuanced sense than the term 'concept.'
In a few instances, she adds words to her translation, such as in the rendering of s?tra 1.9.
The original s?tra contains five words: bhava-pratyayo videha-prakrti-lay?n?m. A
possible literal translation might be: 'The ones who are absorbed in primal materiality
and bodiless have an intention of becoming.' The Miller translation seeks to specify and
explain Pata?jali's intent: 'For gods and men unencumbered by physical bodies, but still
enmeshed in material nature, the cessation of thought is limited by reliance on the
phenomenal world.'
Philosophically, Miller summarizes the primary systems embraced and rejected by
Pata?jali. She explains the S?nkhya system, which undergirds Pata?jali's arguments and
elucidates Pata?jali's critique of Yog?c?ra Buddhism. Though her concision is admirable
and in keeping with the tradition of brevity, more could have been explained regarding
Pata?jali's remarkable summary of S?nkhya in s?tras 2.15-27.
On the whole, this work presents an important and useful rendering of Pata?jali's
summary of the Yoga system. It includes a Sanskrit to English and English to Sanskrit
glossary of keywords, a brief bibliography, and useful annotations. This translation fills
an important niche in the library of books on the Yoga tradition.

Loyola Marymount University Christopher Key Chappie

Martha C. Nussbaum and Jonathan Glover, eds., Women, culture, and development: A
study of human capabilities. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1995. xi + 481 pp.

Utilizing philosophical, political, and economic approaches, Martha Nussbaum and

Jonathan Glover edit a fine and thorough resource on women's equality in developing
countries. Although this text does not focus on Hinduism per se, it addresses significant
preliminary concerns for crosscultural analysis and especially for studying comparative
ethics.
The current volume, the progeny of The quality of life project in 1993, offers a variety
of expertise from a fine array of contributors, including Martha Chen's case study of
women's right to employment in India and Bangladesh, Hilary Putnam's argument on
pragmatism and moral objectivity, Amartya Sen's analysis of gender and theories of
justice, and Roop Rekha Verma's analysis of femininity and personhood in India.
Nussbaum and Glover divide the work into four parts each dealing with women's
equality. The first is Chen's case study mentioned above, an excellent and informative
analysis of prohibitions for women of the high caste against leaving the home and against
working even in matters of simple survival. The second section offers various perspec

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