Vaishnava Purāṇas as a source material for the yoga studies (with a special reference to the Viṣṇu and Bhāgavatapurāṇa)

Despite the great scientific interest in yoga among the researchers of various disciplines in past decades, one area of study still remains insufficiently explored. It is the puranic literature, and Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas in particular, which so far have rarely been the subject of systematic analyses as a source material for the history of yoga. Only a few works on yoga in the Purāṇas have been published so far, some of which investigate exclusively the lecture parts on yogic philosophy and practice (usually of the patañjala type) without going too deeply into what more the Purāṇa may “know” about yoga of their time and what they disclose in passing in the narrative parts. As the exoteric mythological texts of hinduism that have been subject to a long process of composition-in-transmission, recording in the way various historical and cultural changes, they constitute a very important source material for the history of religion, including its practices such as yoga. Aim of this paper is to investigate whether, or rather to what extent, Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas can serve as a significant source for the yoga studies, as well as to address various methodological and other issues that may be encountered during this kind of research. I will be also interested in finding out what kind of knowledge about yoga Purāṇas may convey. In exploring this topic the examples of Viṣṇu- and Bhāgavata-purāṇa will be used, as they are the most popular and the best known Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas, but also because they have already been published in the critical editions.