Comparison of Yogic Practices in Hatha Yogic Literatures: Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Gheranda Samhita and Shiva Samhita

Hatha yoga pradipika, Gheranda Samhita and Shiva Samhita are three major classical treatises on yoga. Hatha Yoga Pradipika was written by Swami Svatmaram sometime in the 15th century C.E.Likewise Gheranda Samhita is a late 17th-century text which is considered to be the most encyclopedic of the three classic texts on hatha yoga. Gheranda Samhita describes of sevenfold yoga, which is not available in other Hatha yogic texts. The text is divided into seven chapters, having a focus on the ṣaṭkarmas (shatkarma), thus this text is sometimes known to describe ghatastha yoga. Similarly Shiva Samhita is the most comprehensive and democratic treatise on Hatha yoga. Some are of the opinion that Shiva Samhita was written in the 17th [ or 18th century. There are many more similarities in the practices mentioned in the three texts. However, in certain cases, remarkable difference is observed while studying and analyzing the texts. In this article the authors have tried to present a comparative study of the three texts taking different aspects into consideration.