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After the key statement on the mighty body of yoga comes a paradoxical statement on the status of the body in relation to life and death:

O goddess who鈥檚 face is like the moon, you ask what is death to him: he does not die again because of the power of yoga (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 51). He has already died, so of one who has died what death can there be? Where there is death for all, there the yogi lives happily (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 52). Where the ignorant live, there he is always dead; there is nothing that he must do and he is not stained by what he does, he is always liberated while alive, established in himself, and free of all faults (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 53). Other ascetics and gnostics are always conquered by their bodies. How are they equal to yogis? They are lumps of flesh with miserable bodies (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 54).

Whether the 驰辞驳补产墨箩补鈥檚 conception of 箩墨惫补苍尘耻办迟颈 implies embodied liberation, as I have understood the term elsewhere, will be considered below. Birch states, 鈥榖odiless liberation (videhamukti) is rejected explicitly鈥� in keeping with the view that the yogi does not die (Birch 2000b:219). I would temper this statement somewhat and point to the paradoxical status of the liberated body in the 驰辞驳补产墨箩补. Videhamukti is not mentioned in the text. The liberated body is not a dead body, but there is a transcendence of the laws of the body in 蝉补峁僺腻谤补 such that the concepts of life and death appear paradoxical.

As we saw in chapter one, in the 驰辞驳补产墨箩补 liberation is bodily (箩墨惫补苍尘耻办迟颈) (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 53, 127, 137 and 139). Bodily death is not liberation but liberation of the body is when it has the nature of brahman (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 140-142). Bodily liberation is sovereignty over the body, expressed as the opposite of 箩腻岣峺补: upon liberation the yogi can play in the three worlds, is omniscient, may assume any shape and move as swiftly as the wind, is a god, creator of all and autonomous (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 125, 127).

Thus 箩墨惫补苍尘耻办迟颈 is not sa峁僺膩ric embodiment but fractures the constraints of 蝉补峁僺腻谤补. We have seen the text use paradoxical statements in the characterisation of the cooked body (purer than 腻办腻艣补, the most pure of substances, more subtle than the subtle, more gross than the gross, more material than matter (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 48)). The layered, apparently mutually exclusive paradoxes suggest that the liberated yogi is beyond mundane ontology and conventional comprehension. Brereton in a 1990 book chapter examines paradigms by which the 鲍辫补苍颈峁�a诲蝉 construct totality out of multiplicity, and I think we can see at play here the strategies he identifies as hierarchy and paradox (1990:124-133). In this text these paradigms suggest the yogi encompasses and exceeds known ontologies. Just as on the nature of the body, we have seen paradoxical statements on life and death despite the insistence that death is not liberation: he has already died so what death can there be for him? The yogi lives where others die (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 52) and where the ignorant live he is always dead (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 53ab). The text is neither confused nor unsystematic, but points to a state beyond sa峁僺膩ric embodiment or bodiless liberation using on the one hand paradox and riddle and on the other a two-levels-oftruth approach contrasting a sa峁僺膩ric conception of life and death with an ultimate conception of the embodied liberated yogi beyond the constraints of 蝉补峁僺腻谤补.

驰辞驳补产墨箩补 39 is likely the destruction of the body but could refer to the disappearance of the body. Here the destruction of the I-maker (补丑补峁僰峁泃颈) facilitates the destruction/disappearance (苍补峁ａ弓补) of the body (deha) and diseases (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 39). It appears to be saying that the body is destroyed upon liberation. However, it can be taken as disappearance or invisibility of the body as 苍补艣, usually intransitive, is not in the causative, and thus refers to the destruction of the conception of the body rather than the body itself.^[1] In another verse 苍补艣 does mean the death of the body: when the body is destroyed (苍补艣yate) due to lack of success in yoga and ignorance, one bound by former impressions obtains another body (驰辞驳补产墨箩补 116). The 驰辞驳补产墨箩补 however belongs to the group of texts that understand the liberated body as capable of invisibility, as discussed below in the intra-corpus analysis. The prima facie reading is that the body is destroyed and so diseases must be destroyed too.

On the basis of this discussion we can refine the definition of 箩墨惫补苍尘耻办迟颈. Though 箩墨惫补苍尘耻办迟颈 is bodily, the body is free of the constraints of 蝉补峁僺腻谤补 such that it is only enigmatically construed as body.

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

Birch personal communication, 25 May 2022.