Utilización de Artemia sp. en acuicultura

System of yoga (religious discipline) tra-ditionally ascribed to Patanjali (1st c.

C.^E.?). This author is believed to be

dif-ferent than the grammarian Patanjali, who wrote the Mahabhashya commen-tary on Panini’s Sanskrit grammar.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are the basis for the Yoga school of Indian philoso-phy, one of the six schools. By the early centuries of the common era (approxi-mately 100–300 C.E.), the Yoga school had become paired with the Samkhya school. In this pairing, Samkhya provid-ed the theoretical and metaphysical explanations for the bondage and liber-ation of the soul, while Yoga laid out the concrete path for ending bondage and gaining liberation.

Ashtanga yoga is made up of eight parts, known as “limbs” (anga):

restraints (yama), observances (niyama), bodily postures (asana), restraint of breath (pranayama), withdrawal of the senses (pratyahara), concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana), and trance (samadhi).

Patanjali’s system is an eight-step program for self-transformation, which begins by cultivating certain whole-some behavioral patterns (yama and niyama). From there one progresses to development and control of the mind, which is considered a more subtle and internalized practice. It culminates in a mystic insight that brings liberation, which in its original articulation is described as yogic aloneness (kaivalya) because Samkhya is atheistic.

Patanjali’s path shows general simi-larities to another well-known program for self-transformation, the Buddha’s eightfold path. Although both Patanjali and the Buddha are credited with origi-nating their particular paths, it is likely that they both drew from an existing yogic tradition and shaped it to fit their own assumptions.

Although Samkhya metaphysics have long been discredited, the tech-niques of the Yoga school are still vitally important in modern Hindu religious life. Many modern Hindu movements stress yoga practice as a means of spiri-tual discipline, purification, and self-awareness. For further information see Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles Ashtanga (“eight-limbed”) Yoga

A. Moore (eds.), A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy, 1957.

Ashtavakra

(“eight bends”) In the Mahabharata, the later of the two great Hindu epics, Ashtavakra is a sage who is the son of Khagodara. According to tradition, Ashtavakra is an exceptionally preco-cious child, and this gets him into seri-ous trouble. While he is still in his mother’s womb, Ashtavakra corrects his father’s pronunciation of a certain mantra. In response his father curses him to be bent, and when the child is born he has eight bends in his body.

Despite his unusual appearance, Ashtavakra becomes a learned sage and is widely believed to be the author of the Ashtavakragita (“Song of Ashtavakra”).

This text describes the philosophical concept of monism, which is the belief that a single Supreme Reality (named Brahman) lies behind the entire uni-verse, and that all things are merely dif-fering manifestations of this reality.

Ashutosh

(“quickly satisfied”) Epithet of the god Shiva. This name reflects Shiva’s rela-tionship with his devotees (bhakta), as well as his ultimate nature. When his devotees approach him with sincerity, he demands neither expensive offerings nor prolonged worship, and he extends his favor immediately. See Shiva.

Ashvalayana

Sage and author of one of the Grhya Sutras, the manuals of domestic rites.

Ashvalayana’s work is one of the earliest to mention the various life-cycle ceremonies (samskaras) and is thus an important source on these rites.

Ashvamedha

(“horse sacrifice”) Vedic sacrifice per-formed to display and prove royal power.

In this sacrifice a specially consecrated

horse was released to roam as it wished, followed by an armed band of the king’s servants. When the horse wandered into a neighboring ruler’s territory, that king had two choices: He could either acknowledge subordinate status to the king who had released it, or he could attempt to steal the horse, and do battle with the king’s servants.

After one year of wandering, the horse was brought back to the royal capital and killed by suffocation or strangulation, so that its blood would not be shed. After the horse had been killed, the chief queen would lie down next to it and simulate sex-ual intercourse. When the instructions for this ritual were first translated in the nine-teenth century, this simulated intercourse generated considerable horrified interest among European scholars, even though it was clearly a subsidiary part of the ritual.

The rite’s major emphasis was a cele-bration of royal power, since the king per-forming it was able to control the territory covered in a year by a free-roaming horse.

The queen’s role, in contrast, seems aimed at symbolically assuring the fertility of the land. Historical records indicate that the ashvamedha was performed until the tenth century ^C.^E. As with all other cases of animal sacrifice, concerns about the karmic consequences of slaughtering a living being has been an important factor in its discontinuation. See also karma.

Ashvattha

The sacred fig tree, Ficus religiosa, which in modern times is more commonly known as the pipal. The ashvattha is especially noted for its aerial roots, which extend downward from some of the limbs until they touch the ground, at which point they take root themselves.

Because their roots can become sub-sidiary trunks, ashvattha trees can grow to be enormous. They have tradi-tionally been favored as places for ascetics to dwell, in part because of their sacred associations and in part because their dense foliage provides shelter from the elements.

Ashtavakra

Their unusual structure is noted in chapter fifteen of the Bhagavad Gita, in which the ashvattha is described as the tree of life. The ashvattha is also believed to be the type of tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment.

Ashvatthama

In the Mahabharata, the later of the two great Hindu epics, Ashvatthama is the son of Drona. When Drona becomes the archery teacher to the Pandavas and the Kauravas, the epic’s two central royal families, Ashvatthama also receives instruction along with the young princes. He absorbs his father’s teaching well and masters the use of terrifying magical weapons. During the Mahabharata’s climactic civil war, he fights on the side of the Kauravas and kills many of the Pandava allies; this includes Dhrshtadyumna, who has ear-lier killed his father, Drona. After the war is over, Ashvatthama retires to the forest with the sage Vyasa.

Ashvin

According to the lunar calendar, by which most Hindu religious festivals are determined, Ashvin is the seventh month in the lunar year, usually falling within September and October. In Ashvin the monsoon rains usually taper off, and the weather becomes a bit cooler.

The dark (waning) half of this month is the Pitrpaksha, one of the most inauspicious times of the year. The bright (waxing) half contains one of the most important festivals of the year, the fall Navaratri, culminating in Dussehra or Vijaya Dashami. Other festivals during this month are Indira Ekadashi, Papankusha Ekadashi, and Valmiki Jayanti.

Ashvins

Twin deities named Satya and Dasya, who are sons of the god Surya (the Sun)

and the physicians to the gods. In the Mahabharata, the later of the two great Hindu epics, the Ashvins are the divine fathers of the Pandava twins, Nakula and Sahadeva. Nakula and Sahadeva are born when their mother, Madri, uses a powerful mantra enabling a woman to have a child by any one of the gods;

as the sons of the divine physicians, the epic portrays these twins as having their fathers’ ability to heal. In the Hindu lunar calendar, the month of Ashvin (October–November) is devoted to them.

Assam

Before Indian independence in 1947, this name designated the entire territory east of Bengal province in northeastern India; in the time since independence, it was divided into seven different admin-istrative regions, one of which is the contemporary state of Assam.

Like all other states in the northeast-ern corner, much of modnortheast-ern Assam is culturally distinct from the rest of India.

One marker of this cultural divide is guage: whereas most Indians speak lan-guages from the Indo-Aryan or Dravidian language families, many tribal people in Assam speak Tibeto-Burman languages. The bulk of modern Assam is in the Brahmaputra River val-ley, which is where most of the Hindus in the northeast reside.

Despite its remoteness from the rest of India, Assam does have one very important sacred place, the temple of the goddess Kamakhya just outside the capital of Gauhati. This is one of the Shakti Pithas, a network of sites con-nected with the worship of the Mother Goddess that were established at places where it is believed that body parts of the dismembered goddess Sati fell to earth.

Kamakhya is considered the most power-ful of all the Shakti Pithas since it is believed to be where Sati’s vulva (a highly charged female body part) fell to earth.

Assam