![]() We have become accustomed to discussing just one yogaśāstra in the classical period, that of Patañjali, but, as I have argued elsewhere, the Yogācārabhūmiśāstra (YĀBh) is worth considering as another śāstra on yoga discipline from the same period. Within early Mahāyāna soteriology, the concept of dharmamegha is especially elaborated in yogācāra Footnote 3 and particularly in various sections of Asaṅga’s Yogācārabhūmiśāstra. This article traces the early elaborations of dharmamegha in Buddhist texts, and, drawing on conceptual metaphor theory, lays out four arguments that each, in part, accounts for the stark contrast in how classical yoga and yogācāra employ the superlative metaphor of dharmamegha. Given the relative paucity of Brahmanical mentions of dharmamegha in the early common era, Patañjali appears to adopt this key metaphor from a Mahāyāna context-and to revise its primary meaning from fullness to emptiness. Where we do find dharmamegha discussed, however, is in Buddhist yogācāra, and more broadly in early Mahāyāna soteriology, where it represents the apex of attainment and the superlative statehood of a bodhisattva. Yet despite the structural importance of dharmamegha in the soteriology of Pātañjala yoga, the śāstra itself does not say much about this term. The Pātañjalayogaśāstra concludes with a description of the pinnacle of yoga practice: a state of samādhi called dharmamegha, cloud of dharma. ![]()
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