Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali is a compilation "from a variety of sources" of Sanskrit sutras on the practice of yoga – 195 sutras and 196 sutras. The Yoga Sutras were compiled in India in the early centuries CE by the sage Patanjali, who collected and organized knowledge about yoga from Samkhya, Buddhism, and older Yoga traditions, and possibly another compiler who may have added the fourth chapter. He may also be the author of the Yogabhashya, a commentary on the Yoga Sutras, traditionally attributed to the legendary Vedic sage Vyasa, but possibly forming a joint work of Patanjali called the Pātañjalayogaśāstra.
The Yoga Sutras draw from three distinct traditions from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE, namely Samkhya, Buddhism traditions, and "various older ascetic and religious strands of speculation." The Yoga Sutras are built on Samkhya notions of purusha and prakriti, and are often seen as complementary to it. It is closely related to Buddhism, incorporating some of its terminology. While there is "an apparent lack of unity and coherence," there is a "straightforward unity to the text," which focuses on "one-pointed awareness" and "content-free awareness" ; the means to acquire these, namely kriya yoga and ashtanga yoga ; the results acquired from the attainment of these levels of awareness; and the final goal of yoga, namely kaivalya and liberation.
The Yoga Sutras is best known for its sutras on ashtanga yoga, eight elements of practice culminating in samadhi. The eight elements, known as limbs, are yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi. When the mind is stilled kaivalya can be attained, the discernment of purusha as distinct from prakriti.
The contemporary Yoga tradition holds the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali to be one of the foundational texts of classical Yoga philosophy. However, the appropriation – and misappropriation – of the Yoga Sutras and its influence on later systematizations of yoga has been questioned by David Gordon White, who argues that the text fell into relative obscurity for nearly 700 years from the 12th to 19th century, and made a comeback in the late 19th century due to the efforts of Swami Vivekananda, the Theosophical Society and others. It gained prominence as a classic in the 20th century.
Author and dating
Author
The colophons of manuscripts of the Yoga Sutras attribute the work to Patanjali, though according to Larson chapter 4 is a later addition, and cannot be attributed to Patanjali.The identity of Patañjali has been the subject of academic debate, because 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 second century BCE. Although some scholars argue that this is the same Patanjali who authored the Yoga Sutras, the two works 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.
Dating
The text of the Yoga Sūtras has been variously dated to be between 500 BCE and 450 CE, but latter dates are more commonly accepted by scholars.Philipp A. Maas assessed Patañjali's Pātañjalayogaśāstra
Edwin Bryant surveyed the major commentators in his translation of the Yoga Sūtras. He observed 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 concluded that "A number of scholars have dated the Yoga Sūtras as late as the fourth or fifth century CE, but these arguments have all been challenged All such arguments are problematic."
Michele Desmarais summarized a wide variety of dates assigned to the Yoga Sūtras, ranging from 500 BCE to the 3rd century CE, noting that there is a paucity of evidence for any certainty. She stated the text may have been composed at an earlier date given conflicting theories on how to date it, but latter dates are more commonly accepted by scholars.
Text - ''Pātañjalayogaśāstra''
Scholars hold that the Yoga sutras and the Yogabhasya, a commentary on the sutras, were written by one person, and form an integral work. According to Philipp A. Maas, based on a study of the original manuscripts, Patañjali's composition was entitled Pātañjalayogaśāstra and consisted of both Sūtras ''and Bhāṣya. According to Maas and Wujastyk, Patanjali compiled yoga from older traditions in Pātañjalayogaśāstra, and added his own explanatory passages to create the unified work that, since 1100 CE, has been considered the work of two people. The practice of writing a set of aphorisms with the author's own explanation was well known at the time of Patañjali, as for example in Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośabhāṣya. These research findings change the historical understanding of the yoga tradition, since they allow us to take the Bhāṣya as Patañjali's very own explanation of the meaning of his somewhat cryptic sūtras. This commentary is indispensable for the understanding of the aphoristic and terse Yoga sutras, and the study of the sutras has always referred to the Yogabhashya.While the Yogabhashya was probably written by Patanjali, it has traditionally also attributed to the legendary Vedic sage Vyasa who is said to have composed the Mahabharata. The bhasya has also been attributed by some to Vindhyavasin, who reinterpreted the samkhya-philosophy due to his knowledge of Buddhist philosophy; his reinterpretation is closely related to the Yogabhasya'', which builds on this reinterpretation.
Compilation of sources
The Yoga Sutras are a compilation of sutras from various traditions and sources, with "an apparent lack of unity and coherence."Larson notes that Yoga, Buddhism, Jainism and Ajivika share related origins, and argues that the Yoga Sutras draw from three distinct traditions from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE, namely " one or more Samkhya traditions, one or more Buddhist traditions, and an emerging philosophical Yoga tradition that is compiling various older ascetic and religious strands of speculation." Patanjali's Yoga Sutras may be a "hybrid formulation, a conflation" of these three traditions. From the old Samkhya philosophy the Yoga Sutras adopt the "reflective discernment" of prakrti and purusa, its metaphysical rationalism, and its three epistemic methods to gaining reliable knowledge. From Buddhism the sutras adopt the nirodhasamadhi philosophy, the pursuit of altered states of awareness and an ontology of 'naive realism' or representationalism. Like Samkhya, the Yoga sutras are physicalist or materialist, but unlike Samkhya, "it rigorusly rejects any notion of substantive transcendence." The third stream that the Yoga Sutras conflate are elements of older traditions of ascetic meditation, including "the kriya yoga sections of Book Two, the yoganga sections of Books II and III, some karma yoga sections in Book IV, and various sutras having to do with the issue of God. According to Larson, "many of these strands come probably from contexts such as the Moksadharma and Bhagavadgita portions of the epic, some passages from the early Puranas, the socalled middle verse Upanisads (Katha, Svetasvata and Maitri, and from oral traditions of regional teachers and any number of local asramas.
Structure of the text
Beginning in the early 20th century, scholars have dissected the sutras into the constitutive layers. Book I consists of two texts, I.1 or I.2 to I.16 or I.22, the remainder of the book forming a second text. Book II.1-27 is the Kriya yoga text, while Book II.28-III.55 describes astanga yoga. Hauer regards Book IV as one text, treating nirmanacitta, while Deusse discerns four "appendices," namely IV.1-6, IV.7-13, IV.14-23 and IV.24-33.Frauwallner discerns two main traditions, namely the astangha yoga of Book II and III, which aims to attain "mental alertness and clarity," and the "way of suppression of mental functioning" of Book I. Frauwallner rejects Book IV as a later addition.
According to Feuerstein, presupposing an inherent homegeinity of the text, the Yoga Sutras are a condensation of two different traditions, namely "eight limb yoga" and action yoga. The kriya yoga part is contained in chapter 1, which forms an introduction, chapter 2 sutras 1–27, chapter 3 except sutra 54, and chapter 4. The "eight limb yoga" is described in chapter 2 sutras 28–55, and chapter 3 sutras 3 and 54. According to Feuerstein, the Yoga sutras main component is the Kriya yoga, with astangha yoga forming a "long insert or quotation of an 'Eight-limbed Yoga'portion." While Larson is appreciative of Feuerstein's attempt to treat the Yoga sutras as a uniform text, he also notes that "it is doubtfull that most researchers would concede that the YS overal centers on kriyayoga." Scholars seem to agree, though, that the yoganga-portion, the eight-limb yoga, is a distinct unit, though there is no agreement as how far it extends into Book III.
Larson takes into account the Yogabhasya and Vacaspatimitra's commentaries when describing the basic structure of the Yoga sutras. Book I describes levels of awareness relevant for yoga, namely "one-pointed or content-filled awareness and suppressed or content-free awareness, and the means for attaining these levels of awareness: 'practice' and 'renunciation'. Book II treats practical exercises "needed to train those who have not yet reached" those levels of awareness; these exercises include kriya yoga and the first five limbs of astangha yoga. Book III describes the results acquired from the attainment of these levels of awareness, resulting from dharana, dhyana and samadhi. Book IV treats the final goal of yoga, namely kaivalya, content-free or seedless samadhi, and liberation.