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The intimate relationship between Patanjala Yoga and Buddhist contemplative traditions has attracted considerable interest in the study of Indian religion and philosophy. This is evident in the work of generations of scholars from Emile Senart and Louis de La Vallee Poussin to the present. This paper continues this comparative project with a deeper examination of the parallels and discontinuities between the representation of spiritual accomplishments or perfections (siddhi and rddhi) in the Yogasutra and Abhidharmakosa and their commentaries. In particular, I examine Patanjalayogasastra 4.1 in comparison to Abhidharmakosabhasya 7.53. These exhibit a parallel set of conceptions of siddhi and rddhi, framed within the respective Samkhya-Yoga and Abhidharma (Sarvastivada-Vaibhasika and Sautrantika) philosophical contexts. The larger discussion of rddhi in the Abhidharmakosabhasya makes otherwise opaque passages in the Patanjalayogasastra transparent, particularly with respect to the notion of the constructed mind (nirmanacitta). These verses indicate that both Patanjala Yoga and the 'Classical Sramana' traditions of Buddhism were concerned with a range of techniques of mind-body discipline (yoga) that emerged during the earlier period of Brahmanical Asceticism and Sramana traditions. These factors lead to the discussion of larger comparative and contemporary issues regarding asceticism, contemplation, and the use of psychoactive substances in India and beyond.

Severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmissions among healthcare workers and hospitalized patients are challenging to confirm. Investigation of infected persons often reveals multiple potential risk factors for viral acquisition. We combined exposure investigation with genomic analysis confirming 2 hospital-based clusters. Prolonged close contact with unmasked, unrecognized infectious, individuals was a common risk.

Geoffrey Samuel’s new book, The Origins of Yoga and Tantra: Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century (2008, Cambridge University Press), aims to bring a richness of contextuality to the scholarly study of the traditions of Yoga and Tantra in South Asian religion. In pursuing this goal, Samuel brings his work on the Indian and Tibetan philosophical, religious and social worlds into conversation with a larger body of scholarship on these issues from recent decades. What emerges is a coherent and lucid narrative of the development of Yoga and Tantra within a richly contextualized social history of Indic religion, especially with respect to the traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. As such, Samuel’s work might be thought of as a fruitful counterpoint to Mircea Eliade’s landmark study, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (1958), in which Eliade examines and theorizes about the “inner logic” of Yoga philosophy and praxis, with little attention to social context. Samuel’s work is, in contrast, centered upon the ways in which the practices of Yoga and Tantra can be understood as being products of particular historical moments, and that they were at least shaped, if not determined, in important ways by the changing political, economic and other social factors in Indic religious history. Samuel states his purpose quite clearly with respect to presenting a “balanced” account of the history of Yoga and Tantra

As has been argued by Frank Reynolds, in his article "Teaching in the Postmodern University: Understanding, Critique, Evaluation," the teach ing of courses on the Buddhist tradition has significant potential for helping students develop empathy, criticism, and an attitude of social and intellectual engagement.1 In part due to the great popular interest in Buddhism among the current generation of college students, Buddhism courses serve as a gateway for students to broaden their perspective on religion in general and their own tradition more specifically. Issues of religious identity and authority inescapably come to play a role in these courses on many levels with respect to both students and teachers, and makes the teaching of these courses of great transformative potential.

Recently, Datta et al. proposed that hepatitis B virus (HBV) invariably infects peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) and that the HBV sequences obtained from PBLs differ from those recovered from the serum due to major differences in humoral immune pressure (2). The basis for their conclusion was a high prevalence of a mutation at G145R in the HBV of the PBL compartment, which was not found in sera. We believe that these data result from contamination of the PBL sequences. Learn et al. proposed guidelines for protecting the integrity of the HIV sequence databases (4). They suggested examining a distance matrix for “high levels of unexpected similarity” that would raise suspicion for contamination. A BLAST search including sequences from the Datta et al. paper confirmed identity of a number of the PBL sequences but also identified another identical sequence (GenBank accession number {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"DQ084757","term_id":"68138239","term_text":"DQ084757"}}DQ084757). Interestingly, that sequence was published in 2006 from the same investigators (1) and was designated X2. The X2 sequence is identical to many of their PBL sequences in the current report, including PB06, PB16, PB24, PB30, PB35, PB38, PB39, PB43, PB45, PB47, and PB54 (Fig. ​(Fig.1).1). Only mixed bases separate X2 from other PBL sequences, including PB02, PB33, PB41, PB61, PB62, and PB76, indicating that these also most likely contain X2. A single nucleotide change separates X2 from PB17 and PB26, as well as a second cluster involving Y3 and PB07, which, in turn, are only one mixed base different from PB19 and PB32. Furthermore, the G145R mutation, which they attribute to shared immune escape in the PBL compartment, was also found in several sequences from the 2006 paper, including X2 and Y3 (which were, according to Table 1 in the 2006 publication, obtained from siblings). The variability seen in Fig. ​Fig.11 of that publication also refutes the hypothesis that constraints on HBV evolution at the studied locus explain the homogeneity of their sequences. FIG. 1. Network analysis of highly similar HBV sequences from two publications. Twenty-two HBV sequences (PBxx) reportedly amplified from peripheral blood leukocyte DNA described in a recent publication (2), depicted with two sequences (X2 and Y3) described in ... Their data seem biologically implausible since they indicate that the HBV in the serum and that in the PBL had different genotypes. For this to occur, one would have to hypothesize that the subjects were infected with two different genotypes but that only one of the genotypes was able to enter PBLs and subsequently disappeared from the circulating quasispecies. We raise these concerns because we strongly believe that inferences about HBV biology, and the integrity of the HBV database, need to be protected from sequences generated through contamination. Though the authors state that “the possible cross-contamination between samples or reagents was ruled out by including appropriate controls during all of the experimental steps and aptly following the PCR recommendations of Kwok and Higuchi” (3), simply applying these precautions does not always prevent contamination. The HBV community needs to remain vigilant for sequences generated by contamination; this goal would be served by following the principles proposed by Learn et al. (4). Unexpected homogeneity is strongly indicative of tight epidemiological linkage or contamination. In the case of the paper by Datta et al., only the latter seems plausible.