The article considers each case of using words with the stem ‘yoga’, as well as other yogic vocabulary found in the first part of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. In total, there are the following ten words: yoga, bhaktiyoga, yogin, yogeśvara, mahāyogin, kuyogin, yoganidrā, kriyāyogа, viyoga and yama. They are used 30 times altogether. This vocabulary forms not only the yoga glossary of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, but also the Vaiṣṇava understanding of yogic teaching. The analysis of these terms takes into account several (...) contexts, in particular: compositional, linguistic, religious and philosophical, and statistical. It has been found out that the whole vocabulary is somehow subordinated to the semantic vertical yogeśvara → mahāyogin → yogin and in various ways forms the Vaiṣṇava understanding of yoga, i.e. bhakti-yoga. The last is believed to be a human response to the challenges of the Highest reality (Heaven). This semantic vertical is conceived of as set by the Lord, who in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa appears under various names, including Viṣṇu, Kṛṣṇa, Adhokṣaja, as well as Yogeśvara, and Mahāyogin. Extraordinary people, who are called mahāyogins (Śukadeva Gosvāmī), and also yogins (Vyāsa, Śukadeva Gosvāmī, nameless yogins), are able to accept the challenge of Heaven. They are those who can achieve the highest goal of human life; they practice bhaktiyoga. The context of bhaktiyoga is present in most cases of the word yoga, and in all cases of the words yoganidra, kriyayoga, viyoga, as well as other friendly vocabulary (for example, seva), whereas the word yama does not apply to bhaktiyoga. The use of the rare word kuyogin reflects the fact that bad yogins are also mentioned in the text. The term yoga might be also considered to be a gender marker, as the yogins are exclusively men in the first part. The compositional peculiarities of the use of this yogic vocabulary include the fact that the first part begins and ends with chapters containing terms which are derived from the stem yoga (Is this some kind of semantic framing?). Moreover, the first chapter ends with the śloka, that contains the important word yogeśvara (Is it a kind of summarizing semantic marker?). (shrink)

The article is devoted to the study of the etymology and semantic connotations of Sanskrit terms: sat, bhāva, sambhava, bhavitṛ, bhavya, bhavat, bhūti, bhūta, sarvabhūta, bhavaka, sattva, sattā, saṃvṛtti, jāstāmātā sampatti, vartamāna, āvitta, āvinna as lexical representatives of the conceptosphere of being in the Sanskrit-English dictionary of Monier-Williams. The method of conceptual analysis is implemented based on the assumption of the determining influence of language culture on the content and nature of philosophical creativity. This study is only the first stage (...) of the project to reveal the way of interpreting "being" in the history of Indian philosophy. The key semantic connotations of this concept in the Monier-Williams English-Sanskrit dictionary are revealed. The semantic connection of the concept of "being" with the concepts: "life" and "time" is defined. In this context, "to live" is to be "someone" in order to embrace "one's place" and play "one's role" that can provide "possession" for "subsistence", and the relationship between "being" and "time" is the concreteness of the existing event that is happening or has happened and belonging to the future that is about to happen. Although we do not trace a transparent connection between the concepts of "being" and "space" in Sanskrit, there are reasons to believe that the first of all, the etymology of the terms of our chosen conceptosphere clearly presents the interpretation of being as a long and a spatially defined location. Noticeable is the fact that the connection between the interpretation of the concept of "being" in Sanskrit and the ethical concept of "good" and aesthetic "beauty" we trace only in terms derived from as and bhū, and at the same time only the terms sat and bhava can be translated as "truth", and the meaning of "essence" we find only in the translation of the terms sat and sattva. This explains the fact why the term sat is considered as close as possible to the "Western" interpretation of the concept of "being". It has been suggested that the polysemy of lexical representatives of the concept of being in Sanskrit and the complexity and variability of the grammar compliance of this language can be interpreted as an obstacle to the extreme problematization of this concept. (shrink)