Amritasiddhi

The Amṛtasiddhi (Sanskrit: अमृतसिद्धि, "the attainment of immortality"), written in a Buddhist environment in about the 11th century, is the earliest substantial text on what became haṭha yoga, though it does not mention the term.

[2] The work describes the role of bindu in the yogic body, and how to control it using the Mahamudra so as to achieve immortality (Amṛta).

The implied model is that bindu is constantly lost from its store in the head, leading to death, but that it can be preserved by means of yogic practices.

Its opening and closing invocations to Siddha Virupa imply that it was written in a Vajrayana tantric Buddhist setting.

The text was used also in Tibet, as the basis of the ’Chi med grub pa, a textual cycle whose name translated back into Sanskrit was Amarasiddhi.

A modern critical edition of the Amṛtasiddhi, published in 2021 by the Indologists James Mallinson and Péter-Dániel Szántó, made use of C and eleven other manuscripts, with other evidence.

[8] Bindu is described as a "single seed" and identified with Sadashiva, the moon, and "other exotic substances" as the basic essence of all that exists.

The combination of these three techniques is to be practised every three hours, making the body strong and destroying diseases and other disturbances; the text cautions that this will be tiring at first.

The states of Samādhi or meditative absorption, Jīvanmukti or living while liberated (a concept rarely found in Buddhism), and Mahāmudrā are described.

[15] Also for the first time, the text states that preserving this fluid is necessary for life: "The nectar of immortality in the moon goes downwards; as a result men die."

[16] A primary[17] Buddhist feature is the opening verse praising the goddess Chinnamasta:[14] At the navel is a white lotus.

[17] Other Buddhist features of the text include the idea of a chandoha, a gathering place; the existence of four elements (not five as in Shaivite tradition); the term kutagara, a "multi-storeyed palace"; the three vajras (kaya, vak, and citta, "body, speech, and mind"); trikaya, the Buddhist triple body; and in early versions even the Buddha is associated with bindu, Shiva, and Vishnu.

Mallinson and Szántó give multiple examples of such language, extending to terms such as mahāmudrā, fundamental to Hatha yoga.

Jason Birch states that the Amaraughaprabodha, an early Shaivite Hatha yoga text, some of whose verses were copied into the Haṭhayogapradīpikā, has a "close relationship" with the Amṛtasiddhi.

[25] Nils Jacob Liersch writes that the Gorakṣayogaśāstra, an early 15th century text attributed to the sage Gorakṣa, paraphrases much of the Amṛtasiddhi and borrows several verses from it.

Like the earlier text, it does not use the name Hatha yoga directly; and like the Amaraughaprabodha, it condenses the Amṛtasiddhi, dropping much of the theory and doctrine to be less sectarian.

A folio, one of 38, from a medieval copy of the Amṛtasiddhi , called C, written bilingually in Sanskrit and Tibetan. The text is tripartite, the first line in Sanskrit, the second a transliteration into Tibetan dbu can letters, and the third a translation into Tibetan dbu med letters. [ 1 ]
Early amṛta /bindu model of Hatha yoga , as described in the Amṛtasiddhi and later texts [ 13 ]
A yogi practising Mahāmudra , illustrated in the Joga Pradīpikā
Alchemical processes involving heating a closed crucible (with lid). Manuscript and illustrations by Ramon Llull , 13th-14th century.
One folio of the Gorakṣayogaśāstra , a 15th-century Hatha yoga text which summarizes the Amritasiddhi [ 26 ]