Comparative Theology in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali and Muḥammad Ghawth Gwāliyarī’s Baḥr al-Ḥayāt

Abstract

This study adopts an analytical-comparative approach to examine the concept of God, the divine essence and attributes, and the role of the sacred in the soteriology of two distinct traditions: Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras and the mystical treatise Baḥr al-Ḥayāt. The central research problem is how God or the transcendent reality is defined in these two texts, what relationship it has with the world and the human being, and what place it occupies on the path of liberation, spiritual wayfaring, and spiritual perfection. In the Yoga Sūtras, the concept of Īśvara enters the philosophical-practical system of Yoga in distinction from classical Sāṃkhya; however, this inclusion does not signify the acceptance of a creator, governing, and personal God in the sense commonly found in monotheistic religions. In this tradition, Īśvara is a “special puruṣa” who is untouched by karma, kleśas, the fruits of action, and the cycle of saṃsāra, and is introduced as the primordial teacher, the reference point of perfection, the object of meditation, and the helper on the path to samādhi. Therefore, Yoga theology, rather than relying on divine creatorship or active lordship, emphasizes the transcendence, independence, perfection, and meditative function of Īśvara. By contrast, Baḥr al-Ḥayāt understands God within the horizon of Indo-Islamic mysticism and through the language of tawḥīd, self-sufficiency, creatorship, power, wisdom, light, lordship, grace, and guidance. In this text, God is not only a transcendent and everlasting reality standing over against the perishability of all that is other than God, but also the source of manifestation, illumination, guidance, and spiritual presence in the world and within the human being. The findings of the study indicate that the fundamental difference between the two texts lies in the way they explain the relationship between God, the world, and the spiritual seeker: in the Yoga Sūtras, Īśvara is primarily a transcendent horizon and an object of meditation for the realization of discernment and liberation; however, in Baḥr al-Ḥayāt, God is a manifestation-centered reality whose attributes and names are actively present in the structure of the cosmos, the inner being of the human, and the seeker’s spiritual experience. Accordingly, it may be argued that Yoga theology is grounded in transcendence and the soteriological-meditative function of Īśvara, whereas the theology of Baḥr al-Ḥayāt is founded on tawḥīd, manifestation, lordship, and mystical witnessing.