8066 SAMADHI
the Prophet did not allow people to disturb girls who were
singing on a feast day. In the fourteenth century, Mawlana
Fakhr al-Dn Zarrad wrote a brochure, Us: ul al-sama E (Prin-
ciples of Sama E) to refute the arguments of the Eulama D at
the court of the Indian ruler Ghiyath al-Dn Tughlaq.
While there could be no method of testing the subjec-
tive state of a mystics mind when listening to music, the
other, outward conditions were strictly enforced and devia-
tions sternly dealt with. Shaykh Niz: am al-Dn AwliyaD of
Delhi (12381325) reprimanded those who used musical in-
struments, and H: afiz: Muh: ammad EAl of Khayrabad
(d. 1849) expressed his condemnation of mystics who al-
lowed recitation of verses by women.
However, these restrictions were not always kept in
mind by the mystics, especially during the later centuries
when the mystic orders lost their centralized structure and
many of them became specific to their geographic setting. A
corollary to this process was the trend through which saints,
using mystic channels and idiom to convey their message to
the common people, failed, unlike their predecessors, to
check the reverse flow of popular superstitions, distortions,
and accretions to their own ways. Sama E was no exception
to this tide, and conditions regulating it were flouted. The
orthodox criticism of Sama E, which had never really subsid-
ed, only became more poignant.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works in Arabic
Hujwr, EAl ibn EUthman al-. Kashf al-mah: jub. Edited by
Muh: ammad Shaf. Lahore, 1967. An abridged translation of
the Kashf al-mah: jub was made by Reynold A. Nicholson in
1911 (2d ed., 1936; reprint, London, 1976).
Qushayr, Abu al-Qasim EAbd al-Karm. Al-risalah al-qushayryah
fi Eilm al-tas: awwuf. Cairo, 1959.
Sarraj, Abu Nas: r al-. Kitab al-luma D f al-tas: awwuf. Edited by
Reynold A. Nicholson. Leiden, 1914.
Suhraward, Shihab al-Dn Abu H: afs: EUmar al-. EAwarif
al-ma Earif. Beirut, 1966.
Zarrad, Fakhr al-Dn. Us: ul al-sama E. Delhi, n. d.
Works in other languages
Macdonald, D. B. Emotional Religion in Islam as Affected by
Music and Singing, Being a Translation of a Book of the
Ih: ya D Eulum ad-dn of al-Ghazzali. Journal of the Royal Asiat-
ic Society (1901): 195252, 705748; (1902): 128.
Meier, Fritz. Der Derwisch-Tanz. Asiatische Studien 8 (1954):
107136.
Mol, Marijan. La danse extatique en Islam. Sources orientales
6 (1963): 145280.
Ritter, Helmut. Der Reigen der tanzenden Derwische.
Zeitschrift fr vergleichende Musikwissenschaft 1 (1933).
Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill,
N. C., 1975. See discussion of sama E on pages 178186.
New Sources
Amnon, Shiloah. Music in the World of Islam: A Socio-Cultural
Study. Detroit, Mich., 1995.
KHALIQ AH: MAD NIZAMI (1987)
Revised Bibliography
SAMADHI. The Sanskrit term samadhi (from sam, to-
gether, the intensifying particle a, and the verbal root dha,
place, put) literally means placing together. It hints at
the merging of subject and object, the essential characteristic
of the mystical state of unification to which it refers. It is
most frequently rendered by ecstasy, but because of the emo-
tive charge of that Greek loanword, the neologism enstasy
from the Greek for standing in [oneself]was suggested
(Eliade, 1969) and is gaining increasing acceptance.
The earliest mention of samadhi is in the Buddhist Pali
canon, where it stands for concentration. Buddhist author-
ities define it as mental one-pointedness (cittasya ekagrata;
see, e.g., Buddhaghosas At:t:hasalin 118). This is not, how-
ever, the sporadic concentration of the conventional mind,
but the creative yogic process of abstracting attention from
external objects and focusing it upon the inner environment.
Slightly later than the Buddhist references is the men-
tion of samadhi in the Bhagavadgta (2.44, 53, 54) in the
sense of one-pointedness as communion with the divine
being. This enstatic and transformative experience of the di-
vine is said to be fostered through strict meditational prac-
tices (see, e.g., Bhagavadgta 6.1215), but also through dis-
interested action (see, e.g., Bhagavadgta 12.10) and simple
devotion to the personal God (see, e.g., Bhagavadgta 12.11).
Prior to these usages is the employment of the past participle
samahita (collected) in reference to mental concentration
(see, e.g., Br: hadaran: yaka Upanis: ad 4.4.23).
As perfect concentration (samyaksamadhi), the term
figures in Hinayana Buddhism as the last limb of the Eight-
fold Path of the Buddha. As such it comprises all the tech-
niques of meditative introversion known as dhyana (Pali,
jhana), of which eight stages of progressive simplification of
the contents of consciousness are distinguished. The first
four stages pertain to the category of meditation with form
(rupa dhyana), the last four to that of formless meditation
(arupa dhyana). Beyond these mystical realizations lies the
unconditional, transcendental reality, nirvan: a.
The most elaborate metapsychology of samadhi states,
modeled in part on the Buddhist schema, is found in the lit-
erature of classical Yoga. According to the Yoga Sutra (2.11),
samadhi ensues when the five types of fluctuations
(vr: tti)perceptual or inferred knowledge, error, conceptual-
ization, sleep, and memoryare perfectly suspended. That
suspension (nirodha) is achieved by means of sensory inhibi-
tion (pratyahara), concentration (dharan: a), and meditation
(dhyana), even though the state of suspension is only a suffi-
cient, not a necessary, condition for the occurrence of the en-
static consciousness (grace motif).
In classical Yoga, samadhi designates the technique of
mystical identification with the intended object, whereas the
underlying process is more properly expressed by the term
samapatti (coincidence), which is reserved in Buddhism for
the four states of formless meditation. Similarly, the expres-
sions dharan: a and dhyana represent types of yogic technique,
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

while their essential processes are more accurately referred to
as ekagrata (one-pointedness) and ekatanata (one- Albrecht, Carl. Psychologie des mystischen Bewusstseins. Bremen,
flowingness), respectively.
The Yoga Sutra (1.4244) mentions four levels of ensta-
tic coincidence: (1) savitarka samapatti, or cogitative coinci-
dence; (2) nirvitarka samapatti, or transcogitative coinci-
dence; (3) savicara samapatti, or reflexive coincidence;
and (4) nirvicara samapatti, or transreflexive coincidence.
The first two levels are practiced in relation to an intended
object pertaining to the coarse dimension, whereas in the
latter two the yogins consciousness merges with a subtle
(psychic, unmanifest) object. These four progressively
higher stages belong to the category of sam: prajata
samadhi, or enstasy with [object-]consciousness.
In the Yoga Bhasya (1.17) two further levels are men-
tioned: (5) ananda samapatti, or blissful coincidence (ac-
cording to Vacaspati Misras Tattvavaisarad 1.17, the in-
tended object is here a sense organ), and (6) asmita samapatti,
or coincidence with the sense of individuation. Vacaspati
Misra makes a further distinction between (7) nirananda
samapatti, or coincidence beyond bliss, and (8) nirasmita
samapatti, or coincidence beyond the sense of individua-
tion, but the existence of these types is adamantly denied
by Vijanabhik0u in his Yoga Varttika (1.17).
The evidence of the Yoga Sutra itself suggests that the
highest form of enstasy associated with object-consciousness
is nirvicara vaisaradya, or autumnal-lucidity in the transre-
flexive (state). In this condition the transcendental Self
(purus: a) is intuited over against the nonself or ego-
mechanism of nature (prakr: ti). When even that vision of
discernment (viveka khyati) is suspended, there occurs a
sudden, unpredictable switch-over into asam: prajata
samadhi, the enstasy devoid of object-consciousness in which
only subconscious activators (sam: s: kara) are operative. As this
state is cultivated over a period of time, these activators neu-
tralize each other, ultimately leading to dharmamegha
samadhi, the enstasy of the cloud of dharma [constituent,
truth]. That condition is nowhere clearly defined, but it ap-
pears to be the terminal phase of asam: prajata samadhi,
being responsible for the cessation of the five causes of afflic-
tion (klesas) and all karman (see Yoga Sutra 4.30), thus giving
rise to final emancipation (apavarga, kaivalya).
The dualist ontology and metapsychology of classical
Yoga suggest that emancipation coincides with the demise
of the finite body-mind. This goal of disembodied libera-
tion (videhamukti) contrasts with the ideal, in nondualist
traditions like Advaita Vedanta, of liberation in life
(jvanmukti). Whereas the abovementioned forms of enstasy
represent realizations based on the introversion of attention,
the enstasy associated with liberation in life is founded on
the transcendence of attention itself. It is known as
sahajasamadhi or spontaneous [i. e., natural] enstasythe munity lives on the mountain, half lives in H: olon, a southern
enstasy with open eyes (Da Free John, 1983), transcending
all knowledge and experience, both secular and esoteric.
SEE ALSO Yoga.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
SAMARITANS 8067
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1951. A profound phenomenological investigation of the
meditative state preceding ecstasy/enstasy, with some funda-
mental observations about the nature of subject-object tran-
scendence.
Conze, Edward. Buddhist Meditation. New York, 1969. A useful
reader.
Da Free John. Enlightenment and the Transformation of Man. Ed-
ited by Georg Feuerstein. Clearlake, Calif., 1983. A compila-
tion of published and unpublished materials with special ref-
erence to sahaja samadhi.
Dasgupta, Surendranath. The Study of Patajali. Calcutta, 1920.
An early study of classical Yoga containing useful materials
on the enstatic state.
Eliade, Mircea. Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. 2d ed. Princeton,
1969. There are several relevant sections in this standard
work on Yoga; see especially pages 76ff. and 167ff.
Feuerstein, Georg. The Philosophy of Classical Yoga. Manchester,
1980. The different stages of enstatic unification are given
a fresh examination, especially on pages 81ff.
Feuerstein, Georg. The Bhagavad Gta: Its Philosophy and Cultural
Setting. Wheaton, Ill., 1983. See especially the chapter on the
yogic path, pages 126146.
Jarrell, Howard R. International Meditation Bibliography, 1950
1982. ATLA Bibliography Series, no. 12. Metuchen, N.J.,
and London, 1985. An extensive, if still incomplete, bibliog-
raphy listing over one thousand books and more than nine
hundred articles on the subject of meditation.
Koelman, Gaspar M. Patajala Yoga: From Related Ego to Absolute
Self. Poona, 1970. The enstatic state is given careful attention
on the basis of the commentarial literature on the Yoga Sutra,
especially on pages 187ff.
Langen, Dietrich. Archaische Ekstase und asiatische Meditation.
Stuttgart, 1963. A comparative study of ecstatic/enstatic
techniques in relation to contemporary psychotherapeutic-
medical methods of relaxation and hypnosis.
Oberhammer, Gerhard. Strukturen yogischer Meditation. Vienna,
1977. The most detailed Indological study of yogic medita-
tion and enstasy, with particular reference to Sam: khya, the
Mr: gendra Tantra, and classical Yoga.
New Sources
Biermann, Derek. Samadhi: Personal Journeys to Spiritual Truth.
Boston, 2000.
GEORG FEUERSTEIN (1987)
Revised Bibliography
SAMARITANS. The Samaritans are an ethno-religious
group in Palestine and in Israel. Their religious center is
Mount Gerizim in the vicinity of Nablus. Half of the com-
suburb of Tel Aviv. In the early twenty-first century the com-
munity comprises approximately 660 members. The Samari-
tan religion is an outgrowth of the Israelite-Jewish religion
as it existed around the beginning of the common era. It