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{{Short description|Indian yoga teacher}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}
{{Use Indian English|date=March 2017}}
[[File:The Jñāna Guru Yogi Śrī Sabhāpati Svāmi.png|thumb|Śrī Sabhāpati Svāmī meditating in padmāsana.]]'''Sri Sabhapati Swami''' (also transliterated "Śrī Sabhāpati Svāmī" and "Sabhapaty Swami," Tamil: சபாபதி சுவாமிகள் "Capāpati Cuvāmikaḷ," Devanāgarī: सभापति स्वामी) was born around the year 1828 in [[Madras]] (modern [[Chennai]]), [[Tamil Nadu]], [[India]].<ref name="Swâmy-1880">{{Cite book|title=Om, a treatise on Vedantic Raj Yoga Philosophy|last=Swâmy|first=Sabhâpati|publisher="Civil and Military Gazette" Press|year=1880|editor-last=Basu|editor-first=Siris Chandra|location=Lahore}}</ref><ref name="Swamy-1884">{{Cite book|title=Om. The Cosmic Psychological Spiritual Philosophy and Science, Part One.|last=Swamy|first=Sabhapathy|publisher=The Hindu Press|year=1884|location=Madras}}</ref><ref name="An Admirer-1880">{{Cite journal|last=An Admirer|date=March 1880|title=The Madras Yogi Sabhapaty Swami|url=http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/theosoph/theos6a.htm|journal=The Theosophist}}</ref> Sabhāpati's writings survive in [[Sanskrit]], [[Tamil language|Tamil]], [[Hindi]], [[English language|English]] and [[German language|German]] (with bibliographic records also in [[Bengali language|Bengali]], [[French language|French]], and [[Urdu]]), and are notable for their rich visual depictions of the subtle body (''[[Linga sarira|liṅga-śarīra]]'') and their early fusion of Rājayoga and Haṭhayoga techniques of meditation in a [[Vedanta|Vedantic]] and [[Shaiva Siddhanta|Tamil Śaivite]] context.

== Biography ==
Sabhāpati's earliest biographical sources<ref name="Swâmy-1880" /><ref name="Swamy-1884" /><ref name="An Admirer-1880" /> record that after being educated at a Christian missionary school, he traveled to [[Burma]] ([[Myanmar]]) on textile trade business with his father-in-law, where he interacted with Buddhist ''phongyi'' ("monks"). Returning to Tamil Nadu, he soon departed for the predominantly Islamic ''[[Marakkar|maraikkāyar]]'' port city of [[Nagore Dargah|Nagore]] (near [[Nagapattinam|Nagappatinam]]), where he interacted with [[fakir]]s at the 16th century ''[[dargah]]'' of the [[Sufism|Sufi]] pir [[Saiyid Abd al-Qadir Shahul Hamid Naguri]] (1502-1570 C.E.). [[File:A Minaret of the Nagore Dargah.jpg|thumb|A Minaret of the Nagore Dargah.]]Following his travels in Burma and Nagapattinam (which together lasted three years), Sabhāpati's "admirer" mentions that despite his exploits in comparative religion his "mind was not at ease" and that he was still "far from obtaining the true Spirituality (''brahma-jñāna'')." This anxiety gave way to a midnight vision at the age of twenty-nine, when the Vedic sage [[Agastya]] appeared and told him to go to Vedaśreṇi, a once rural temple site now situated amid a rapidly developing tech hub in modern Chennai ([[Velachery]], Tamil: Veḷacceri). At Vedaśreṇi it is said that he obtained ''śiva-darśana''. It is here that Agastya again communicated to Sabhāpati his desire for him to travel to a hermitage deep in the heavily-forested [[Nilgiri mountains|Nīlagiri]] ("Blue Mountain") range of South India, situated on the borders of the modern states of Tamil Nadu, [[Karnataka]] and [[Kerala]]. After a long journey his biography records that he encountered his guru who welcomed him into the company of adepts. Śrī Sabhāpati Swami then returned to Madras with a new-found spiritual passion, and the accounts agree that he began to publish his various works and that he also went on pilgrimages to many of the major Hindu temple circuits in India and Nepal ([[Kedarnath Temple|Kedarnāth]], [[Muktinath|Muktināth]], and [[Pashupatinath Temple|Paśupatināth]]) before traveling to [[Lahore]] (in modern-day [[Pakistan]]). He published his last book (in the Tamil language) in 1913. One group claims he attained Mahasamadhi in 1940 at "Pudhupatti" located few kilometres away from Vadamadurai in Dindigul district, Tamilnadu, as a shrine has been erected by the villagers where he attained Mahasamadhi, but this is not verified and unlikely. The more likely site of his jīvasamādhi is in Konnur / Villivakkam, outside Chennai, which was the location of his ''maṭālayam'' or "meditation hall" as he called it.<ref name="Keith E. Cantú 2021">{{cite web
|url=https://www.academia.edu/29691061
|title="Sri Sabhapati Swami: Forgotten Yogī of Western Esotericism"
|author=Keith E. Cantú
|date=2021
|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan
}}</ref>

== Teachings on yoga ==
[[File:The Twelve Faculties of Sabhāpati Swami.png|thumb|The Twelve Faculties of Sabhāpati Swami (original diagram published in 1884, with new overlaid references pointing to the cakra referred to in the text itself).]][[File:Sabhāpati's diagram on svarūpa ("inherent forms").pdf|thumb|Sabhāpati's diagram on svarūpa ("inherent forms")]]Śrī Sabhāpati Swami’s literature contains detailed meditations that are designed to pierce one’s veils of delusion (''bhrānti''), caused by deceiving impressions (''vāsana''), in order to reach an isolated state of liberation (''mukti''). The delusions lift through a gradual awakening the ''kuṇḍalinī'' and its accompanying ''jñānākāśa'' ("aether of gnosis") or ''prāṇākāśa'' ("aether of vitality") along twelve ''cakra''s of the spine and through four transcendent principles.<ref name="Swâmy-1880" /> Also advocated (yet kept distinct from Rājayoga proper) are "nine states of practice": [[Patanjali|Patañjali]]’s standard fare of ''aṣṭāṅga'' — ''yama'', ''niyama'', ''āsana'', ''prāṇāyāma'', ''dhāraṇā'', ''dhyāna'', ''samādhi'' — plus ''samyāma'', glossed as the cancellation "of consciousness of all internal and external faculties."<ref name="Swamy-1884" />

These practices allow the yogi to embody various "essential images" or "inherent forms" (''svarūpa''s), which Sabhāpati variously glosses as "spiritual visions," "spiritual states," or "spiritual phenomena." In one diagram, for instance, he outlines as many as seven ''svarūpa''s, which he calls the "seven spiritual states of God." These are formulated in the mind through processes of ''bhāvana'' "meditative formulation," a term used in a technical sense to describe the assumption of a specific form to the exclusion of anything else.

== Publication history ==
While lecturing in Lahore, Sabhāpati met his editor [[Srisa Chandra Vasu|Sriṣa Chandra Vasu]] (Bengali: Basu) (1861-1918), an educated Bengali civil servant and Sanskritist who himself moved in Theosophical circles and published widely on yoga, including an early edition of the ''[[Shiva Samhita|Śiva-saṃhitā]]''. Mark Singleton points out in his landmark study that Vasu later came to be an icon of early 20th century Hindu revivalism.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice|last=Singleton|first=Mark|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0195395341|location=Oxford}}</ref> Together they published Sabhāpati's lectures in English with transliterated Sanskrit terms as early as 1880, over fifteen years ''before'' [[Swami Vivekananda]]'s ''Rāja Yoga'' (1896), the publication of which Elizabeth De Michelis convincingly demonstrates as marking the birth of modern yoga.<ref>{{Cite book|title=[[A History of Modern Yoga]]: Patañjali and Western Esotericism|last=De Michelis|first=Elizabeth |publisher=Continuum|year=2004|location=London}}</ref> The original title of Sabhāpati's work was ''Om: a treatise on Vedantic Raj Yoga and Philosophy'' (1880), and it attracted even the attention of Indologists such as [[Max Müller]], who cites it in his work ''The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy'' (1899). [[Henry Steel Olcott|Henry Olcott]]'s personal copy of this book has also been located in the library at [[Adyar, Chennai|Adyar]], and reviews of it and Sabhāpati's other works populate early Theosophical periodicals. Elaborations and revisions of this 1880 text were later published in various languages, including in Sanskrit, Hindi and a Tamil version that, if the account of Sabhāpati's "admirer" is to be believed, likely contains material that predates the 1880 work in English. One of the most notable versions is a much more precisely edited and visually stunning two-part volume entitled ''Om: Cosmic Psychological Spiritual Philosophy and Science'', published four years later in 1884.<ref name="Swamy-1884" /> This work combined material published in 1880 with even more practical instructions, visual diagrams and associative correspondences. Another version was published in 1892 in Sanskrit ([[Devanagari|Devanāgarī]] script) and Hindi, using the Sanskrit version of the previous work's title, ''Rājayoga brahmajñānānubhūti saṅgraha veda''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Rājayoga Brahmajñānānubhūti saṅgraha veda nāmaka grantha|last=Swami|first=Sabhapaty|publisher=Tattvavivecaka Chāpakhāna|year=1892|location=Mumbai}}</ref>

The work also stayed in print well into the 20th century. In 1908 a German translation based on the 1880 work was made by one of the founders of the O.T.O., the Theosophist author [[Franz Hartmann]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Die Philosophie und Wissenschaft des Vedanta und Rāja-Yoga oder Das Eingehen in Gottheit von Mahātma Ināna Guru Yogi Sabhapatti Svāmī aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Franz Hartmann|last=Hartmann|first=Franz|publisher=Jaeger|year=1909|location=Leipzig}}</ref> In 1915 an exclusively Tamil Sanskrit edition was published in Madras with a few new diagrams. Sabhāpati's works also made their way to the United States, and the eclectic and profiteering William Estep published a stripped down version of the two-volume 1884 edition in 1929.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Esoteric cosmic yogi science, or, Works of the world teacher|last1=Swami|first1=Sabhapaty|last2=Estep|first2=Wm|publisher=Super Mind Science Publications|year=1929|location=Excelsior Springs, MO}}</ref> In India, a revised edition based on a later edition of the 1880 work was published in 1950 from a Hindu temple publisher in [[Mumbai]],<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Philosophy and science of Vedanta and Raja Yoga|last=Swami|first=Sabhapaty|publisher=C.P. Mandali|year=1950|editor-last=Vasu|editor-first=Srisa Chandra|location=Bombay}}</ref> and a facsimile of the 1880 work was published in 1977 in [[New Delhi]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Vedantic raj yoga : ancient tantra yoga of rishies [sic]|last=Swami|first=Sabhapaty|publisher=Pankaj Publications|year=1977|location=New Delhi}}</ref> Despite such an abundant publication history, Sabhāpati's English works today remain largely out of print and removed from popular memory.

Sabhapati also published his teachings on yoga in Tamil, Hindustani, Bengali (as a translation), and Telugu (no longer extant). His collected works, most of which are long out of print, are currently being edited and translated (where applicable) for re-publication.

== Relationship with early modern yoga ==
Sabhāpati has had a far-reaching impact on South Asian, North American, and European esoteric and occult conceptions of the body. With the exception of publications by Keith E. Cantú,<ref name="Keith E. Cantú 2021"/> Karl Baier,<ref name="Baier-2009">{{Cite book|title=Meditation und moderne: zue genese eines kernbereichs moderner spiritualität in der wechselwirkung zwischen westeuropa, nordamerika und asien|last=Baier|first=Karl|publisher=Königshausen & Neumann|year=2009|isbn=978-3826040214|location=Würzburg}}</ref> Gordan Djurdjevic,<ref name="Djurdjevic-2014">{{Cite book|title=India and the Occult: The Influence of South Asian Spirituality on Modern Western Occultism|last=Djurdjevic|first=Gordan|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2014|isbn=978-1137404985|location=New York}}</ref> and Henrik Bogdan,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Brother Curwen, Brother Crowley: A Correspondence|last1=Crowley|first1=Aleister|last2=Curwen|first2=David|publisher=Teitan Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0933429277|editor-last=Bogdan|editor-first=Henrik|location=York Beach, ME}}</ref> however, Sabhāpati has been mostly overlooked by scholars researching the subject of early modern yoga and tantra.

== Relationship with the Theosophical Society ==
Sabhāpati originally seems to have been on good terms with members of the [[Theosophical Society Adyar|Theosophical Society]], as he is cited favorably in their works and periodical journals. However, he lost their favor after a misunderstanding over a vision in which he claimed to have been caught up to [[Lake Manasarovar]]a in modern Tibet to commune with [[Shiva|Mahādeva]] on [[Mount Kailash|Mount Kailāśa]]. The vision, which he communicated as happening in his physical body, is reminiscent of [[Kālidāsa]]'s classical Sanskrit poem "[[Meghadūta]]," in which a cloud-messenger travels in the air to Mount Kailāśa to send a message on behalf of a lonely ''[[Yaksha|yakṣa]]'' to his lover. In any event, the Theosophists seem to have taken it literally — [[Henry Steel Olcott|Henry Olcott]] (1832-1907) records in his diaries that both he and [[Helena Blavatsky|H.P. Blavatsky]] (1831-1891) were disenchanted with Sabhāpati after they met with him personally and he recounted his vision to them in terms of a physical experience. Olcott writes:

<blockquote>Whatever good opinion we may have formed of him before was spoilt by a yarn he told us of his exploits as a Yog. He had, he said, been taken up at Lake Mânsarovara, Tibet, high into the air and been transported two hundred miles along the high level to Mount Kailâs, where he saw Mahadeva! Ingenuous foreigners as H.P.B. and I may have been, we could not digest such a ridiculous falsehood as that. I told him so very plainly. If, I said, he had told us that he had gone anywhere he liked in astral body or clairvoyant vision, we might have believed it possible, but in physical body, from Lake Mânsarovara, in company with two Rishis mentioned in the Mahabharata, and to the non-physical Mount Kailâs—thanks, no: he should tell it to somebody else.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Old Diary Leaves, Second Series 1878-83|last=Olcott|first=Henry S.|publisher=The Theosophical Publishing Society|year=1900|location=London|pages=258–259}}</ref></blockquote>

A response to this negative view can be traced in later editions of Śrī Sabhāpati Swami's works. For example, the 1895 reprint to ''OM'' adds the following footnote (presumably written by Vasu) in the part of Sabhāpati's account that mentions this vision:

<blockquote>This need not have been in the ''physical'' body of the Rishis; they might have flown towards the holy mountain in their ''Mayavi Rupa Kama Rupa'' (astral body), which to our author (who certainly is not an Adept in the sense the Theosophists use the word) must have been as real as if he had travelled through air in his physical body.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Om. The Philosophy & Science of Vedanta and Raja Yoga.|last=Svāmi|first=Sabhāpati|publisher=The New Lyall Press|year=1895|editor-last=Vasu|editor-first=Srīṣa-Candra|location=Lahore}}</ref> </blockquote>

In any event, either from this misunderstanding or from other issues the Theosophical Society subsequently abandoned the support it may have had previously for Sabhāpati and his works.<ref name="Baier-2009" />

== Relationship with Thelema ==
Whereas the early Theosophists ultimately dismissed Sabhāpati, the British occultist and poet [[Aleister Crowley]] (1875-1947) came to deeply appreciate his work and cited him often in his literature. Crowley wrote in his ''Confessions'' that he first became attracted to Sabhāpati's literature during his travels in 1901 to [[Ceylon]] (modern [[Sri Lanka]]) and Madurai en route to visit his friend [[Charles Henry Allan Bennett|Allan Bennett / Ananda Maitreya Bhiksu]] (1872-1923), a fellow initiate of Crowley's in the [[Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography|last=Crowley|first=Aleister|publisher=Hill and Wang|year=1970|editor-last=Symonds|editor-first=John|location=New York|pages=252–258|editor-last2=Grant|editor-first2=Kenneth}}</ref> During Crowley's sojourn in [[Madurai]] he became exposed to Sabhāpati's works and became particularly interested in Sabhāpati's rich visual meditations (''dhyāna'') on the spinal cord as a phallus (''liṅga'') and the cranial vault as the kteis (''yoni''), which he published in modified form as an instruction for his students.<ref>{{Cite book|title="Liber HHH: SSS" in The Equinox, vol. I, no. 5|last=Crowley|first=Aleister|publisher=Simpkin Marshall|year=1911|location=London}}</ref>

Sabhāpati's subtle physiology is situated around twelve tantric cakras and four transcendent states, which in part may also explain Crowley's willingness to entertain notions of additional ''cakra'' to the commonly known system of seven (or "six plus one") as usually found in Western [[New Age]] systems of the ''cakra'' that follow the pattern laid out by [[Charles Webster Leadbeater|Charles W. Leadbeater]] (1854-1934) and [[John Woodroffe|John Woodroffe / Arthur Avalon]] (1865-1936). In any case, the continuing practice of certain aspects of Sabhāpati's system does live on in Thelema, a religio-philosophical tradition deeply associated with Crowley.<ref name="Djurdjevic-2014" />

==See also==
* ''[[Eight Lectures on Yoga]]''

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

== Further reading ==
*{{cite book |last=Cantú |first=K. E. |year=2023 |title=Like a Tree Universally Spread: Sri Sabhapati Swami and Śivarājayoga |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-766547-3 |ref=none}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swami, Sri Sabhapati}}
[[Category:1840 births]]
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Sri Sabhapati Swami - Revision history

Pureganics: Added the entry and citations!