Patañjali

Patañjali is the name tradition gives to the compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, 195 or 196 aphorisms in four chapters that define the classical Yoga school. Nothing is known of him as a person. Indian tradition often identified him with the grammarian Patañjali, author of the Great Commentary on Pāṇini’s grammar in the second century BCE, but most modern scholars regard them as different people, and the identification is now generally set aside.

The date of the Yoga Sūtras is debated, with proposals ranging from the second century BCE to the fifth century CE. An influential recent view, argued by Philipp Maas, holds that the sūtras and the oldest commentary on them, traditionally attributed to Vyāsa, form a single work, the Pātañjalayogaśāstra, composed around 325–425 CE. On that view “Patañjali” is the author of both.

The four chapters treat absorption (samādhi), the means of practice (sādhana), the powers that practice brings (vibhūti), and isolation (kaivalya), the goal. The second chapter sets out the eight limbs of Yoga: restraints, observances, posture, breath control, withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation and absorption. The text draws on Sāṃkhya metaphysics and engages with Buddhist thought, and it became the authority for later Yoga, including commentaries by Vācaspati Miśra and Vijñānabhikṣu, and, in modern times, a central text of yoga worldwide.