Patanjali
Patanjali was the name of one or more author, mystic and philosopher in ancient India. His name is recorded as an author and compiler of a number of Sanskrit works. The greatest of these are the Yoga Sutras, a classical yoga text. Estimates based on analysis of this work suggests that its author may have lived between the 2nd century BCE and the 5th century CE.
An author of the same name is credited with the authorship of the classic text on Sanskrit grammar named Mahābhāṣya, that is firmly datable to the 2nd century BCE, and authorship of medical texts possibly dating from 8th-10th centuries CE. The two works, Mahābhāṣya and Yoga Sutras, are completely different in subject matter, and Indologist Louis Renou has shown that there are significant differences in language, grammar and vocabulary. Before the time of Bhoja, no known text conflates the identity of the two authors.
There has been speculation as to whether the sage Patañjali is the author of all the works attributed to him, as there are a number of known historical authors of the same name. A great deal of scholarship has been devoted over the 20th century to the issue of the historicity or identity of this author or these authors. The view that these were likely different authors is now generally accepted by Western scholars, but "glorification" of Patanjali as singular author of the yoga, grammar, and medical texts "has become an oft-repeated article of faith" "in more traditional circles" and yoga culture.
Patanjali is regarded as an avatar of Adi Sesha.
Identities
Amongst the more important authors called Patañjali are:- The author of the Mahābhāṣya, an ancient treatise on Sanskrit grammar and linguistics, based on the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini. This Patañjali's life is dated to mid 2nd century BCE by both Western and Indian scholars. This text was titled as a bhashya or "commentary" on Kātyāyana-Pāṇini's work by Patanjali, but is so revered in the Indian traditions that it is widely known simply as Mahā-bhasya or "Great commentary". As per Ganesh Sripad Huparikar, actually, Patanjali, the forerunner among ancient grammatical commentators, "adopted an etymological and dialectical method of explaining in the whole of his 'Mahābhāshya', and this has assumed, in the later commentary literature the definite form of 'Khanda-anvaya'." So vigorous, well reasoned and vast is his text, that this Patanjali has been the authority as the last grammarian of classical Sanskrit for more than 2,000 years, with Pāṇini and Kātyāyana preceding him. Their ideas on structure, grammar and philosophy of language have also influenced scholars of other Indian religions such as Buddhism and Jainism.
- The compiler of the Yoga sūtras, a text on Yoga theory and practice, and a notable scholar of Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy. He is variously estimated to have lived between 2nd century BCE to 4th century CE, with many scholars narrowing this period down to between 2nd and 4th century CE. The Yogasutras is one of the most important texts in the Indian tradition and the foundation of classical Yoga. It is the Indian Yoga text that was most translated in its medieval era into forty Indian languages.
- The author of a medical text called Patanjalatantra. He is cited and this text is quoted in many medieval health sciences-related texts, and Patanjali is called a medical authority in a number of Sanskrit texts such as Yogaratnakara, Yogaratnasamuccaya and Padarthavijnana. There is a fourth Hindu scholar also named Patanjali, who likely lived in 8th-century CE and wrote a commentary on Charaka Samhita and this text is called Carakavarttika. According to some modern era Indian scholars such as P.V. Sharma, the two medical scholars named Patanjali may be the same person, but completely different person from the Patanjali who wrote the Sanskrit grammar classic Mahābhashya.
- Patanjali is one of the 18 siddhars in the Tamil siddha tradition.
Name
Life
Many scholars including Louis Renou have suggested that the Patañjali who wrote on Yoga was a different person than the Patanjali who wrote a commentary on Panini's grammar. In 1914, James Wood proposed that they were the same person. In 1922, Surendranath Dasgupta presented a series of arguments to tentatively propose that the famed Grammar text and the Yoga text author may be identical.The view that these were likely two different authors is generally accepted, but some Western scholars consider them as a single entity.
Some in the Indian tradition have held that one Patañjali wrote treatises on grammar, medicine and yoga. This has been memorialised in a verse by Bhoja at the start of his commentary on the Yogasutras called Rājamārttanda, and the following verse found in Shivarama's 18th-century text:
This tradition is discussed by Meulenbeld who traces this "relatively late" idea back to Bhoja, who was perhaps influenced by a verse by Bhartṛhari that speaks of an expert in yoga, medicine and grammar who, however, is not named. No known Sanskrit text prior to the 10th century states that the one and the same Patanjali was behind all the three treatises.
The sage Patañjali is said to have attained Samadhi through yogic meditation at the Brahmapureeswarar Temple located at Tirupattur, Tamil Nadu, India. Jeeva Samadhi of sage Patanjali, which is now an enclosed meditation hall, can be seen near the Brahma's shrine within Brahmapureeswarar Temple complex.
Grammatical tradition
In the grammatical tradition, Patañjali is believed to have lived in the second century BCE. He wrote a Mahabhasya on Panini's sutras, in a form that quoted the commentary of Kātyāyana's vārttikas. This is a major influential work on Sanskrit grammar and linguistics. The dating of Patanjali and his Mahabhasya is established by a combination of evidence: that from the Maurya Empire period, the historical events mentioned in the examples he used to explain his ideas, the chronology of ancient classical Sanskrit texts that respect his teachings, and the mention of his text or his name in ancient Indian literature. Of the three ancient grammarians, the chronological dating of Patanjali to mid 2nd century B.C. is considered as "reasonably accurate" by mainstream scholarship.The text influenced Buddhist grammatical literature, as well as memoirs of travellers to India. For example, the Chinese pilgrim I-tsing mentions that the Mahabhasya is studied in India and advanced scholars learn it in three years.
Yoga tradition
In the Yoga tradition, Patañjali is a revered name. This Patañjali's oeuvre comprises the sutras about Yoga and the commentary integral to the sutras, called the Bhāṣya. Some consider the sutras and the Bhaṣya to have had different authors, the commentary being ascribed to "an editor". According to Phillipp Maas, the same person named Patanjali composed the sutras and the Bhāṣya commentary.Radhakrishnan and Moore attribute the text to the grammarian Patañjali, dating it as 2nd century BCE, during the Maurya Empire. Maas estimates Patañjali's Yogasutra's date to be about 400 CE, based on tracing the commentaries on it published in the first millennium CE. Edwin Bryant, on the other hand, surveys the major commentators in his translation of the Yoga Sūtras. He states that "most scholars date the text shortly after the turn of the Common Era, but that it has been placed as early as several centuries before that." Bryant concludes that "A number of scholars have dated the Yoga Sūtras as late as the fourth or fifth century C.E., but these arguments have all been challenged", and late chronology for this Patanjali and his text are problematic.
Tamil Saivite legend
Regarding his early years, the Tamil Saiva Siddhanta tradition from around 10th century AD holds that Patañjali learned Yoga along with seven other disciples from the great Yogic Guru Nandhi Deva, as stated in Tirumular's Tirumandiram. His Samadhi is said to be at Rameswaram Shiva temple and a shrine for him still exists in the temple.
Nandhi arulPetra Nadharai Naadinom
Nandhigal Nalvar Siva Yoga MaaMuni
Mandru thozhuda Patañjali Vyakramar
Endrivar Ennodu Enmarumaame
Translation
We sought the feet of the God who graced Nandikesvara
The Four Nandhis,
Sivayoga Muni, Patañjali, Vyaghrapada and I
We were these eight.
Works
Whether the two works, the Yoga Sutras and the Mahābhāṣya, are by the same author has been the subject of considerable debate. The authorship of the two is first attributed to the same person in Bhojadeva's Rajamartanda, a relatively late commentary on the Yoga Sutras, as well as several subsequent texts. As for the texts themselves, the Yoga Sutra iii.44 cites a sutra as that from Patanjali by name, but this line itself is not from the Mahābhāṣya. This 10th-century legend of single-authorship is doubtful. The literary styles and contents of the Yogasūtras and the Mahābhāṣya are entirely different, and the only work on medicine attributed to Patañjali is lost. Sources of doubt include the lack of cross-references between the texts, and no mutual awareness of each other, unlike other cases of multiple works by Sanskrit authors. Also, some elements in the Yoga Sutras may date from as late as the 4th century C.E., but such changes may be due to divergent authorship, or due to later additions which are not atypical in the oral tradition. Most scholars refer to both works as "by Patanjali", without meaning that they are by the same author.In addition to the Mahābhāṣya and Yoga Sūtras, the 11th-century commentary on Charaka by the Bengali scholar Chakrapani Datta, and the 16th-century text Patanjalicarita ascribes to Patañjali a medical text called the Carakapratisaṃskṛtaḥ which is apparently a revision of the medical treatise by Caraka. While there is a short treatise on yoga in the medical work called the Carakasaṃhitā, towards the end of the chapter called śārīrasthāna, it is notable for not bearing much resemblance to the Yoga Sūtras, and in fact presents a form of eightfold yoga that is completely different from that laid out by Patañjali in the Yoga Sūtras and the commentary Yogasūtrabhāṣya.