Tracing Vivekananda's Prāṇa and Ākāśa: The Yogavāsiṣṭha and Rama Prasad's Occult Science of Breath

Autor(en)

Magdalena Kraler

Abstrakt

In his famous Râja Yoga (1896), Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) outlines a cosmology that employs the concepts of prāṇa, or “energy, force”, and ākāśa, or “ether, matter” (in his translation, respectively). Although scholars have interpreted these concepts mainly in the light of mesmerism and nineteenth-century ether theories, this chapter pursues a different approach. It traces them to two sources influencing Vivekananda, the medieval Yogavāsiṣṭha and the tantric Śivasvarodaya, the latter translated by the Theosophist Rama Prasad in his Occult Science: The Science of Breath (1884). It thus positions Vivekananda’s cosmology at the confluence of Indian mediaeval sources that integrated yoga into Advaita-related movements and of literature influenced by Theosophy.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Religionswissenschaft

Seiten

373–397

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55318-0_17

Publikationsdatum

2021

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

603909 Religionswissenschaft

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/tracing-vivekanandas-prana-and-ka-the-yogavasistha-and-rama-prasads-occult-science-of-breath(8e9120d1-7ee9-48d9-89d8-d8f0f7579b97).html