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77-443: Divisions Sama vedic Yajur vedic Atharva vedic Vaishnava puranas Shaiva puranas Shakta puranas The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali ( IAST : Patañjali yoga-sūtras) is a collection of Sanskrit sutras ( aphorisms ) on the theory and practice of yoga – 195 sutras (according to Vyāsa and Krishnamacharya ) and 196 sutras (according to others, including BKS Iyengar ). The Yoga Sutras were compiled in

154-445: A "transformative catalyst or guide for aiding the yogin on the path to spiritual emancipation". Whereas the purusa (spirit, or true self) of the yogin is bound to the prakriti – the material body subject to karmas and kleshas, the special purusa called Isvara is immaterial and ultimately free. Patanjali defines Isvara (Sanskrit: ईश्वर) in verse 24 of Book 1, as "a special Self/Spirit (पुरुषविशेष, puruṣa-viśeṣa )."} This sutra adds

231-526: A Lord...." The Bhagavad Gita , one of the chief scriptures of Hinduism, is considered to be based on this synthetic Samkhya-Yoga system. The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali is a foundational text of the Yoga philosophy school of Hinduism. While there are differences between Buddhist tenets and the views presented in the Yoga Sutras, scholars have noted striking similarities between Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and

308-529: A composite of various traditions. The levels of samādhi taught in the text resemble the Buddhist jhanas . According to Feuerstein, the Yoga Sutras are a condensation of two different traditions, namely "eight limb yoga" (aṣṭāṅga yoga) and action yoga ( Kriya yoga ). The kriya yoga part is contained in chapter 1, chapter 2 sutras 1–27, chapter 3 except sutra 54, and chapter 4. The "eight limb yoga"

385-415: A dissertation on the " Indigenous Aryans Debate". He taught Hinduism at Harvard University for three years, and is presently professor of Religions of India at Rutgers University where he teaches courses on Hindu philosophy and religion. He has received numerous fellowships. In addition to his academic courses, Bryant currently teaches workshops at yoga studios and teacher training courses throughout

462-406: A few centuries after Patanjali and his "Hindu-izing" commentary subverted Yoga Sutras' original "Buddhist" teachings; while the majority scholarly view disagrees with this view. IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST ) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It

539-433: A font, etc. It can be enabled in the input menu in the menu bar under System Preferences → International → Input Menu (or System Preferences → Language and Text → Input Sources) or can be viewed under Edit → Emoji & Symbols in many programs. Equivalent tools – such as gucharmap ( GNOME ) or kcharselect ( KDE ) – exist on most Linux desktop environments. Users of SCIM on Linux based platforms can also have

616-399: A late date] are problematic." Michele Desmarais summarized a wide variety of dates assigned to Yogasutra, ranging from 500 BCE to 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. The Yoga Sutras are

693-707: A modifier key to type letters with diacritical marks. For example, alt + a = ā. How this is set up varies by operating system. Linux/Unix and BSD desktop environments allow one to set up custom keyboard layouts and switch them by clicking a flag icon in the menu bar. macOS One can use the pre-installed US International keyboard, or install Toshiya Unebe's Easy Unicode keyboard layout. Microsoft Windows Windows also allows one to change keyboard layouts and set up additional custom keyboard mappings for IAST. This Pali keyboard installer made by Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) supports IAST (works on Microsoft Windows up to at least version 10, can use Alt button on

770-578: A series of articles by proponents of the " Indigenous Aryans " position and scholars of the Indo-Aryan migration theory , with some alternative interpretations. According to Edwin Bryant, most of the evidence regarding the origin of Indo-Aryans is inconclusive and he is not convinced of the Indo-Aryan migrations theory, but he is also not convinced of an "Out-of-India position", since the support for it

847-693: Is Purusha meaning Self or consciousness, the others being Prakriti (primal nature), Buddhi (intellect or will), Ahamkara (ego), Manas (mind), five buddhindriyas (sensory capabilities), five karmendriyas (action-capabilities) and ten elements. The second part of the Sutras, the Sadhana, also summarizes the Samkhya perspectives about all seen activity lying within the realm of the three Gunas of Sattva (illumination), Rajas (passion) and Tamas (lethargy). The Yoga Sutras diverge from early Samkhya by

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924-488: Is a "manufactured one" with a non-scholarly, religio-nationalistic attack on scholarly consensus and the editors (Bryant and Patton) have unwittingly provided it a gloss of intellectual legitimacy. The editors are not linguists, she contends, and they have accepted patently weak or false linguistic arguments. So their apparently even-handed assessment lacks merit and cannot be regarded as objective scholarship. Historian Sudeshna Guha concurs, saying that Bryant does not probe into

1001-435: Is actually glottal , not velar . Some letters are modified with diacritics : Long vowels are marked with an overline (often called a macron ). Vocalic (syllabic) consonants, retroflexes and ṣ ( / ʂ ~ ɕ ~ʃ/ ) have an underdot . One letter has an overdot: ṅ ( /ŋ/ ). One has an acute accent : ś ( /ʃ/ ). One letter has a line below: ḻ ( / ɭ / ) (Vedic). Unlike ASCII -only romanisations such as ITRANS or Harvard-Kyoto ,

1078-551: Is based on Yamas and Niyama , as well as elements of the Guṇa theory of Samkhya. Patanjali adopts the theory of Guṇa from Samkhya. Guṇas theory states that three gunas (innate tendency, attributes) are present in different proportions in all beings, and these three are sattva guna (goodness, constructive, harmonious), rajas guna (passion, active, confused), and tamas guna (darkness, destructive, chaotic). These three are present in every being but in different proportions, and

1155-684: Is based on a scheme that emerged during the 19th century from suggestions by Charles Trevelyan , William Jones , Monier Monier-Williams and other scholars, and formalised by the Transliteration Committee of the Geneva Oriental Congress , in September 1894. IAST makes it possible for the reader to read the Indic text unambiguously, exactly as if it were in the original Indic script. It is this faithfulness to

1232-457: Is believed that Vachaspati Mishra’s commentary is the "next most authoritative." Other commentators include Bhoja Rāja , Vijñānabhikṣu , and Rāmānanda Sarasvatī. Vijñānabhikṣu, according to Bryant, wrote the "most insightful and useful commentary after that of Vyasa's." Bhoja Rāja and Rāmānanda Sarasvatī's commentaries follow the previous commentaries, without expanding much on what their predecessors have said. Hariharānanda Āraṇya , in contrast to

1309-435: Is considered as a state in which puruṣa is bonded to prakriti in some form, in various permutations and combinations of various elements, senses, feelings, activity and mind. During the state of imbalance or ignorance, one of more constituents overwhelm the others, creating a form of bondage. The end of this bondage is called Kaivalya, liberation, or moksha by both Yoga and Samkhya school. The ethical theory of Yoga school

1386-634: Is described in chapter 2 sutras 28–55, and chapter 3 sutras 3 and 54. There are numerous parallels in the ancient Samkhya , Yoga and Abhidharma schools of thought, particularly from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century AD, notes Larson. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras may be a synthesis of these three traditions. From the Samkhya school of Hinduism, Yoga Sutras adopt the "reflective discernment" ( adhyavasaya ) of prakrti and purusa (dualism), its metaphysical rationalism, and its three epistemic methods to gaining reliable knowledge. From Abhidharma Buddhism's idea of nirodhasamadhi , suggests Larson, Yoga Sutras adopt

1463-534: Is eternal, and once this awareness is achieved, a person cannot ever cease being aware; this is moksha , the soteriological goal in Hinduism. Book 3 of Patanjali's Yogasutra is dedicated to soteriological aspects of yoga philosophy. Patanjali begins by stating that all limbs of yoga are a necessary foundation to reaching the state of self-awareness, freedom and liberation. He refers to the three last limbs of yoga as samyama , in verses III.4 to III.5, and calls it

1540-581: Is firmly datable to the second century BC. 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 (11th century), no known text conflates the identity of the two authors. Philipp A. Maas assessed Patañjali's Pātañjalayogaśāstra 's date to be about 400 CE, based on synchronisms between its arguments and those of Vasubandhu , on tracing

1617-460: Is not significant. He notes that the discovery of Indo-Aryan language family was foundational to the investigation of the origins of the Western civilization, and the relationship between the Indo-Aryan family and the remaining Indo-European languages must be established. However, he states: "... I find most of the evidence that has been marshalled to support the theory of Indo-Aryan migrations into

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1694-481: Is often seen as complementary to it. It is closely related to Buddhism , incorporating some of its terminology. Samkhya , Yoga and Vedanta , as well as Jainism and Buddhism, can be seen as representing different manifestations of a broad stream of ascetic traditions in ancient India, in contrast to the Bhakti traditions and Vedic ritualism which were prevalent at the time. The contemporary Yoga tradition holds

1771-412: Is only aware of its own nature as consciousness unmixed with any other object." While the Samkhya school suggests that jnana (knowledge) is a sufficient means to moksha , Patanjali suggests that systematic techniques/practice (personal experimentation) combined with Samkhya's approach to knowledge is the path to moksha. Patanjali holds that avidya , ignorance is the cause of all five kleshas, which are

1848-599: Is still open on this issue. Patañjali divided his Yoga Sutras into four chapters or books (Sanskrit Pada ), containing in all 196 aphorisms, divided as follows: The metaphysics of Patanjali is built on the same dualist foundation as the Samkhya school. The universe is conceptualized as of two realities in Samkhya-Yoga schools: Puruṣa (consciousness) and prakriti (mind, cognition, emotions, and matter). It considers consciousness and matter, self/soul and body as two different realities. Jiva (a living being)

1925-500: Is the author of The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture ( Oxford University Press , 2001). J. P. Mallory says the book: ... systematically exposes the logical weaknesses of most of the arguments that support the consensus of either side. This is not only an important work in the field of Indo-Aryan studies but a long overdue challenge for scholarly fair play. Michael Witzel writes: A balanced description and evaluation of

2002-511: Is the theory. The influence of Samkhya is so pervasive in the Sutras that the historian Surendranath Dasgupta went so far as to deny independent categorization to Patañjali's system, preferring to refer to it as Patanjala Samkhya , similar to the position taken by the Jain writer Haribhadra in his commentary on Yoga. Patañjali's Yoga Sutras accept the Samkhya's division of the world and phenomena into twenty-five tattvas or principles, of which one

2079-532: Is to free the individual from the clutches of the matter, and considers intellectual knowledge alone to be inadequate for the purpose – which is different from the position taken by Samkhya. However, the essential similarities between the Samkhya and Patañjali's system remained even after the addition of the Isvara principle, with Max Müller noting that "the two philosophies were in popular parlance distinguished from each other as Samkhya with and Samkhya without

2156-576: The Bhakti traditions and Vedic ritualism which were also prevalent at the same time. The Vedanta - Sramana traditions, iconolatry and Vedic rituals can be identified with the Jnana marga, Bhakti marga and the Karma marga respectively that are outlined in the Bhagavad Gita . The Yoga Sutras are built on a foundation of Samkhya philosophy, and are generally seen as the practice while Samkhya

2233-577: The Bhāṣya was in fact Patañjali's own work. 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 (that, incidentally, Patañjali quotes). 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

2310-763: The ISO 15919 standard for transliterating Indic scripts emerged in 2001 from the standards and library worlds. For the most part, ISO 15919 follows the IAST scheme, departing from it only in minor ways (e.g., ṃ/ṁ and ṛ/r̥)—see comparison below. The Indian National Library at Kolkata romanization , intended for the romanisation of all Indic scripts , is an extension of IAST. The IAST letters are listed with their Devanagari equivalents and phonetic values in IPA , valid for Sanskrit , Hindi and other modern languages that use Devanagari script, but some phonological changes have occurred: * H

2387-566: The Nyaya school prioritizes inference. The Vedānta school has as its main source testimony from the Upaniṣads , whereas the Yoga school ascribes supreme authoritativeness to "direct, personal experience". Bryant argues that because of its favoring of direct experience the Yoga Sutras will "remain a perennial source of interest to the empirical dispositions of the modern world". Patanjali differs from

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2464-604: The Yoga Sutras is often closer to "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, the Sanskrit of the early Mahayana Buddhist scriptures, than to the classical Sanskrit of other Hindu scriptures". He adds, historical evidence suggests that yoga philosophical systems influenced, and were influenced by, other philosophical systems in India such as early Buddhism and Jainism. White mentions controversies about the Yoga Sutras. A significant minority of scholars, notes White for example, believes that Vyasa lived

2541-426: 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

2618-402: The "uncoupling of puruṣa from all connection with prakṛti and all involvement with the citta." Bryant states that, to Patanjali, Yoga-practice "essentially consists of meditative practices culminating in attaining a state of consciousness free from all modes of active or discursive thought, and of eventually attaining a state where consciousness is unaware of any object external to itself, that is,

2695-505: The Samkhya school, considers Pratyakṣa or Dṛṣṭam (direct sense perception), Anumāna (inference), and Śabda or Āptavacana (verbal testimony of the sages or shāstras) to be the only valid means of knowledge or Pramana . Unlike few other schools of Hinduism such as Advaita Vedanta , Yoga did not adopt the following three Pramanas : Upamāṇa (comparison and analogy), Arthāpatti (postulation, deriving from circumstances) or Anupalabdi (non-perception, negative/cognitive proof). Of

2772-463: The Sutra's release, Hindu scholars have debated and commented on who or what is Isvara ? These commentaries range from defining Isvara from a "personal god" to "special self" to "anything that has spiritual significance to the individual". Whicher states that while Patanjali's terse verses can be interpreted both as theistic or non-theistic, Patanjali's concept of Isvara in Yoga philosophy functions as

2849-796: The Traditional Commentators). In his article History Repeats Itself (Yoga Journal, Nov 2001), the author adds that "Our modern world, more than any other epoch in human history, has universalized and idolized consumerism - the indulgence of the senses of the mind - as the highest goal of life." In yoga, that creates unwanted influences, where "Our vrittis , the turbulences of the mind born from desire, are out of control." Control and elimination of vrittis comprise significant portion of yoga practices and observances ( yama and niyama ) that culminates with nirodha , an arrested state of mind capable of one-pointedness. Otherwise, if unwanted vrittis are allowed to predominate, "We risk missing

2926-524: The above figures, is a modern commentator on the text. Bryant explains that, even though "his is a standpoint exposed to Western thought", it is still "thoroughly grounded in tradition". Scholars hold that both texts, the sutras and the commentary were written by one person. According to Philipp A. Maas, based on a study of the original manuscripts, Patañjali's composition was entitled Pātañjalayogaśāstra ("The Treatise on Yoga according to Patañjali") and consisted of both Sūtras and Bhāṣya . This means that

3003-404: The actual technique of Yoga procedures more exactly than the Buddhist exposition". However, states Werner, "The Buddha was the founder of his system, even though, admittedly, he made use of some of the experiences he had previously gained under various Yoga teachers of his time. Patanjali is neither a founder nor a leader of a new movement. (...) The ingenuity of his [Patanjali's] achievement lies in

3080-408: The addition of the principle of Isvara or God, as exemplified by Sutra 1.23 – "Iśvara pranidhãnãt vã", which is interpreted to mean that surrender to God is one way to liberation. Isvara is defined here as "a distinct Consciousness, untouched by afflictions, actions, fruitions or their residue". In the sutras, it is suggested that devotion to Isvara , represented by the mystical syllable Om may be

3157-547: The aphoristic and terse Yoga sutras, and the study of the sutras has always referred to the Yogabhashya . Some scholars see Vyasa as a later 4th or 5th century AD commentator (as opposed to the ancient mythic figure). Vyasa is, however, not the only commentator on the text. Another well-known commentator on the Yoga Sutras is Vachaspati Mishra , who had also written commentaries on other schools of Indian philosophy such as Vedanta, Samkhya, Nyaya, and Mimamsa. After Vyasa, it

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3234-686: The area of Sanskrit studies make use of free OpenType fonts such as FreeSerif or Gentium , both of which have complete support for the full repertoire of conjoined diacritics in the IAST character set. Released under the GNU FreeFont or SIL Open Font License , respectively, such fonts may be freely shared and do not require the person reading or editing a document to purchase proprietary software to make use of its associated fonts. Edwin F. Bryant Edwin Bryant received his Ph.D in Indic languages and Cultures from Columbia University in 1997 with

3311-459: The cause of suffering and saṁsāra . Liberation, like many other schools, is removal of ignorance, which is achieved through discriminating discernment, knowledge and self-awareness. The Yoga Sūtras is the Yoga school's treatise on how to accomplish this. Samādhi is the state where ecstatic awareness develops, state Yoga scholars, and this is how one starts the process of becoming aware of Purusa and true Self. It further claims that this awareness

3388-434: The characteristics of Isvara as that special Self/Spirit which is unaffected (अपरामृष्ट, aparamrsta ) by one's obstacles/hardships (क्लेश, klesha ), one's circumstances created by past or one's current actions (कर्म, karma ), one's life fruits (विपाक, vipâka ), and one's psychological dispositions/intentions (आशय, ashaya). The Yoga Sutras incorporated the teachings of many other Indian philosophical systems prevalent at

3465-453: The closely related non-theistic/atheistic Samkhya school by incorporating what some scholars have called a "personal, yet essentially inactive, deity" or "personal god" (Ishvara). Hindu scholars such as the 8th century Adi Sankara , as well as many modern academic scholars describe Yoga school as "Samkhya school with God." The Yogasutras of Patanjali use the term Isvara in 11 verses: I.23 through I.29, II.1, II.2, II.32 and II.45. Ever since

3542-536: The consumer edition since XP. This is limited to characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). Characters are searchable by Unicode character name, and the table can be limited to a particular code block. More advanced third-party tools of the same type are also available (a notable freeware example is BabelMap ). macOS provides a "character palette" with much the same functionality, along with searching by related characters, glyph tables in

3619-528: The country. His lectures and workshop engagements include: The Bhagavad Gita , The Yoga Sutras , Indian Philosophy and Bhakti , and the Krishna Tradition. His Indian Philosophy workshop includes "the foundational philosophical texts of yoga and examine the underpinnings and essential principles of the classical schools of Hindu philosophy... beginning with their foundations in the Upanishads ,

3696-646: The cry/speech of all living beings. Once a yogi reaches this state of samyama , it leads to unusual powers, intuition, self-knowledge, freedoms and kaivalya , the redemptive goal of the yogi. The epistemology in Patanjali's system of Yoga, like the Sāmkhya school of Indian philosophy, relies on three of six Pramanas , as the means of gaining reliable knowledge. These included Pratyakṣa (perception), Anumāṇa (inference) and Sabda ( Āgama or Āptavacana , word/testimony of reliable sources). Patanjali's system, like

3773-528: The diacritics used for IAST allow capitalisation of proper names. The capital variants of letters never occurring word-initially ( Ṇ Ṅ Ñ Ṝ Ḹ ) are useful only when writing in all-caps and in Pāṇini contexts for which the convention is to typeset the IT sounds as capital letters. For the most part, IAST is a subset of ISO 15919 that merges the retroflex (underdotted) liquids with the vocalic ones ( ringed below ) and

3850-493: The earliest mystico-philosophical tradition of India, and evolving into the Yoga Sutras, Vedanta Sutras, Bhagavad Gita, and other post-Vedic texts." Bryant has published seven books and authored a number of articles on Vedic history, yoga , and Krishna - bhakti tradition. He is an expert on Krishna tradition and has translated the story of Krishna from the Sanskrit Bhagavata Purana . Bryant

3927-420: The early centuries CE, by the sage Patanjali in India who synthesized and organized knowledge about yoga from much older traditions. The Yoga Sutras is best known for its reference to ashtanga , eight elements of practice culminating in samadhi . The eight elements are yama (abstinences), niyama (observances), asana (yoga posture), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (withdrawal of

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4004-486: The efforts of Swami Vivekananda , the Theosophical Society and others. It gained prominence as a classic in the 20th century. The colophons of manuscripts of the Yoga Sutras attribute the work 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

4081-440: The epistemology of evidence and hence perceives the opposing viewpoints unproblematic. On the contrary, she holds that the timing and renewed vigour of the indigenist arguments during the 1990s demonstrates unscholarly opportunism. Fosse and Deshpande's contributions to the volume provide a critical analysis of the historiography and the nationalist and colonial agendas behind it. She also holds Bryant's desire to present what he calls

4158-524: The fundamental nature and psychological dispositions of beings is a consequence of the relative proportion of these three gunas . When sattva guna predominates in an individual, the qualities of lucidity, wisdom, constructiveness, harmony, and peacefulness manifest themselves; when rajas is predominant, attachment, craving, passion-driven activity and restlessness manifest; and when tamas predominates in an individual, ignorance, delusion, destructive behavior, lethargy, and suffering manifest. The theory underpins

4235-465: The history of the commentaries on it published in the first millennium CE, on the opinions of earlier Sanskrit commentators, on the testimony of manuscript colophons and on a review of extant literature. This dating for the Pātañjalayogaśāstra was proposed as early as 1914 by Woods and has been accepted widely by academic scholars of the history of Indian philosophical thought. Edwin Bryant , on

4312-603: The meaning of his somewhat cryptic sūtras. The Yogabhashya states that 'yoga' in the Yoga Sutras has the meaning of 'samadhi'. Another commentary (the Vivarana ) by a certain Shankara, confirms the interpretation of yogah samadhih (YBh. I.1): 'yoga' in Patañjali's sutra has the meaning of 'integration'. This Shankara may or may not have been the famed Vedantic scholar Adi Shankara (8th or 9th century). Scholarly opinion

4389-529: The most efficient method of achieving the goal of Yoga. This syllable Om is a central element of Hinduism, appearing in all the Upanishads , including the earliest Chandogya and Brihadaranyaka Upanishads, and expounded upon in the Mandukya Upanishad. Another divergence from Samkhya is that while the Samkhya holds that knowledge is the means to liberation, Patañjali's Yoga insists on the methods of concentration and active striving. The aim of Yoga

4466-749: The opportunity to install and use the sa-itrans-iast input handler which provides complete support for the ISO 15919 standard for the romanization of Indic languages as part of the m17n library. Or user can use some Unicode characters in Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended Additional and Combining Diarcritical Marks block to write IAST. Only certain fonts support all the Latin Unicode characters essential for

4543-456: The original scripts that accounts for its continuing popularity amongst scholars. Scholars commonly use IAST in publications that cite textual material in Sanskrit, Pāḷi and other classical Indian languages. IAST is also used for major e-text repositories such as SARIT, Muktabodha, GRETIL, and sanskritdocuments.org. The IAST scheme represents more than a century of scholarly usage in books and journals on classical Indian studies. By contrast,

4620-582: The other hand, 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 (circa first to second century), 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 [for

4697-619: The philosophy of mind in the Yoga school of Hinduism. 1.2. Yoga is the inhibition of the modifications of the mind. 1.3. Then the Seer is established in his own essential and fundamental nature. 1.4. In other states there is assimilation (of the Seer) with the modifications (of the mind). Yoga Sutra of Patanjali According to Bryant, the purpose of yoga is liberation from suffering, by means of discriminative discernment. The eight limbs are "the means of achieving discriminative discernment,"

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4774-600: The practice of ishvara-pranidhana (commitment or surrender to God), David Gordon White points out in his The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali - A Biography , "Edwin Bryant, who, in his recent splendid commentary on the Yoga Sutra, notes that Vijnanabhiksu considered ishvara-pranidhana to refer to the practice of devotion to Krishna, the Lord of the Bhagavat Gita . Bryant clearly aligns himself with this interpretation of

4851-678: The pursuit of an altered state of awareness. However, unlike Buddhism, which avoids stating whether self and soul exist, Yoga is physicalist and realist, like Samkhya, believing that each individual has a self and soul. The third concept that Yoga Sutras synthesizes into its philosophy is the ancient ascetic traditions of isolation, meditation and introspection, as well as the yoga ideas from the 1st millennium BCE Indian texts such as Katha Upanishad , Shvetashvatara Upanishad and Maitri Upanishad . According to Wujastyk, referencing Maas, Patanjali integrated yoga from older traditions in Pātañjalayogaśāstra , and added his own explanatory passages to create

4928-471: The right side of the keyboard instead of Ctrl+Alt combination). Many systems provide a way to select Unicode characters visually. ISO/IEC 14755 refers to this as a screen-selection entry method . Microsoft Windows has provided a Unicode version of the Character Map program (find it by hitting ⊞ Win + R then type charmap then hit ↵ Enter ) since version NT 4.0 – appearing in

5005-427: The senses), dharana (concentration of the mind ), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (absorption or stillness). The main aim of practice is kaivalya , discernment of purusha , the witness-consciousness, as distinct from prakriti , the cognitive apparatus, and disentanglement of purusha from prakriti's muddled defilements. The Yoga Sutras built on Samkhya notions of purusha and prakriti , and

5082-400: The short close-mid vowels with the long ones. The following seven exceptions are from the ISO standard accommodating an extended repertoire of symbols to allow transliteration of Devanāgarī and other Indic scripts , as used for languages other than Sanskrit. The most convenient method of inputting romanized Sanskrit is by setting up an alternative keyboard layout . This allows one to hold

5159-425: The subcontinent to be inconclusive upon careful scrutiny, but on the other, I have not been convinced by an Out-of-India position, since there has been very little of significance offered so far in support of it." In a review, Sanskrit linguist Stephanie W. Jamison likened the effort of the volume to calls to "teach the controversy" by the proponents of Intelligent Design . She states that the Indo-Aryan controversy

5236-523: The teachings in Buddhist texts . Karel Werner writes, "Patanjali's system is unthinkable without Buddhism. As far as its terminology goes there is much in the Yoga Sutras that reminds us of Buddhist formulations from the Pāli Canon and even more so from the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma and from Sautrāntika ." He adds, "upon the whole it [Patanjali's Yoga sutras] is more elaborate and summarizes

5313-517: The technology for "discerning principle" and mastery of citta and self-knowledge. In verse III.12, the Yogasutras state that this discerning principle then empowers one to perfect sant (tranquility) and udita (reason) in one's mind and spirit, through intentness. This leads to one's ability to discern the difference between sabda (word), artha (meaning) and pratyaya (understanding), and this ability empowers one to compassionately comprehend

5390-457: The thoroughness and completeness with which all the important stages of Yoga practice and mental experiences are included in his scheme, and in their systematic presentation in a succinct treatise." Werner adds that the ideas of existence and the focus on "Self, Soul" in Patajali's Yogasutra are different from the "no Self" precepts of Buddhism. According to David Gordon White , the language of

5467-481: The three pramanas that it accepts as valid, pratyakṣa (perception) is the most important according to Yoga Sutras . It is superior to the other two sources because testimony ( sabda ) and inference ( anumāna ) are ultimately dependent on a prior perception. Bryant distinguishes Yoga school from the Vedānta , Nyaya and Mīmāṃsā in their prioritizing of different pramanas . The Mīmāṃsā school prioritizes testimony and

5544-434: The time. According to Zimmer, Samkhya and Yoga are two of several schools of philosophy that originated over the centuries that had common roots in the pre-Aryan cultures and traditions of India. Yet, the orthodox Hindu philosophies of Samkhya , Yoga , Vedānta , as well as the non-orthodox Nastika systems of Jainism and Buddhism can all be seen as representing one stream of spiritual activity in ancient India, in contrast to

5621-487: The transliteration of Indic scripts according to the IAST and ISO 15919 standards. For example, the Arial , Tahoma and Times New Roman font packages that come with Microsoft Office 2007 and later versions also support precomposed Unicode characters like ī . Many other text fonts commonly used for book production may be lacking in support for one or more characters from this block. Accordingly, many academics working in

5698-470: The two century old debate dealing with the origins of the Indo-Aryan speaking peoples of South Asia. [Bryant] presents both sides of the issue, that is the traditional western, linguistic and philological consensus of immigration from Central Asia, and the more recent Indian position that denies any immigration and that asserts an indigenous South Asian origin. He probes for loopholes on both sides.... This book, edited by Edwin Bryant and Laurie Patton, contains

5775-537: The unified work that, since 1100 CE, has been considered the work of two people. Together the compilation of Patanjali's sutras and the Vyasabhasya, is called Pātañjalayogaśāstra. The Yogabhashya is a commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali , traditionally attributed to the legendary Vedic sage Vyasa who is said to have composed the Mahabharata . This commentary is indispensable for the understanding of

5852-519: The views of "Indian scholars" for "reconstructing the religious and cultural history of their own country" as misleading because it patently ignores the views of historians of India who have done so since the beginning of the twentieth century. In 2007 Bryant completed a translation of the Yoga Sutras and their traditional commentaries. The translation was published in 2009 by North Point Press as The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali (with Insights from

5929-723: The whole point of the practice". In the interview Inside the Yoga Tradition , Bryant describes some tenets of his interpretation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali , "I stress in my commentary that Patanjali is emphatic about the yamas and niyamas (vows and observances). We can't say that what he is teaching is applicable only to the time period in which he codified the Sutras or that they are only for Hindus living in India. Patanjali asserts that yamas and niyamas are great universal vows. He didn't have to further qualify them - universal means no exception whatsoever." Discussing theistic overtones in Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and

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