Pātañjalayogaśāstra
The Pātañjalayogaśāstra (Patañjali’s Authoritative long series of copies and recopies. The oldest known
Exposition of Yoga) is the oldest preserved San-
skrit treatise coming from a Brahmanical milieu
dealing with Yoga as a system of knowledge on
spiritual liberation through m ­ editation-derived
proper knowledge (samyagjñāna). The work was
probably partly composed and partly compiled by
an ­author-redactor named Patañjali, about whom
nothing specific is known, except that he must
have lived at some time around the year 400 CE,
that is during the Gupta era, possibly in the western
region of today’s Madhya Pradesh. This region may
cautiously be inferred as Patañjali’s possible home
from two philosophical exemplifications in the
Pātañjalayogaśāstra (1.7, 36) presupposing familiar-
ity and possible geographical vicinity of its author
and his intended audience to the Vindhya Range
and to a great ocean.
In the course of time, hagiography and mythol-
ogy compensated the lack of historical informa-
tion concerning the Yoga author Patañjali. At an
unknown date, prior to the beginning of the 11th
century, the Yoga author Patañjali was identified
with the Sanskrit grammarian of the same name
who had composed his Mahābhāṣya in 150 BCE, and
with the author of a foundational work of āyurveda,
the Carakasaṃhitā, who probably flourished in the
1st century CE (see Maas, 2013, 66). Tradition not
only fused three historically distinct authors into
a single personality, it also furnished this virtual
author with a divine status when it turned Patañjali
into an incarnation (avatāra) of the divine serpent
Śeṣa or Ananta. The earliest textual evidence for this
identification is a Bengali work on grammar (Maas,
2008, 113) that was composed after the beginning
of the 12th century, and the earliest iconographic
representation of Patañjali as the divine serpent
was created in South India in the 13th century (see
Bühnemann 2018).
Patañjali’s Yoga work is preserved in more than
120 manuscripts, of which only a few were used for
the production of modern printed editions (see
Maas, 2006, xxxiv). The extant manuscripts, written
in a variety of South Asian scripts and mostly dat-
able to the 18th or 19th century, are copies of now
lost intermediate exemplars that were produced in a
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Also available online – www.brill
BEH_Patanjalayogasastra.indd 1
manuscript, which is approximately datable to 1100,
is listed in Jambuvijaya (2000, 52; ms. 395/2). It was
written around 700 years after Patañjali had com-
posed his work on Yoga. In the course of its trans-
mission in hand writing, the Pātañjalayogaśāstra
changed into a multiplicity of different text versions
that, at many instances, deviate considerably (for a
preliminary assessment of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra’s
history of transmission, see Maas, 2010a). A recon-
struction of the earliest reachable text version and
a detailed investigation into the history of transmis-
sion of this foundational work of Indian philosophy
are urgent desiderata of Indological scholarship,
because an improved text will contribute to an
improved understanding of this frequently difficult
and sometimes enigmatic work. Strange as it may
seem, even “after two hundred years of scholarship,
Indological research in classical Yoga is still in its
infancy” (Maas, 2013, 80).
Patañjali’s Yoga work is divided into four chap-
ters, or quarters (pāda), each consisting of two
frequently clearly distinguishable layers of text. In
most of the numerous printed editions, one layer
consists of 195 brief nominal phrases, the ­so-called
yogasūtras. Patañjali probably collected the sūtras,
at least in part, from older textual materials in order
to arrange them in a novel way and to integrate them
into his work. The sūtras serve as brief summaries
or headings for the second layer of text. This layer
consists of commentaries on and explanations of
the sūtra-text, of polemical discussions of divergent
philosophical views, of supplementary expositions
and quotes in support of Patañjali’s view from the
works of preclassical Sāṃkhyayoga that are today
mostly lost. Some medieval primary sources and
many works of modern secondary literature depict
the second layer of text as a work in its own right,
namely as a commentary on the Yogasūtra (Basic
Exposition of Yoga) called Yogabhāṣya (Yoga Expla-
nation), and attribute it to the mythical figure Vyāsa
or Vedavyāsa (see Maas, 2013, 57–67).
According to an alternative hypothesis, which
was apparently already held by the Jain philosopher
Vādirājasūri around 1025, the bhāṣya part of the
Pātañjalayogaśāstra was composed by the Sāṃkhya
03/09/2019 3:44:42 PM
 2 Pātañjalayogaśāstra
philosopher Vindhyavāsin, whereas the sūtras go
back to Patañjali. The overall evidence for these
hypotheses appears, however, weaker than the evi-
dence in support for a joint ­author-cum-redactorship
of a single author with the name Patañjali (see Maas,
2013, 64f.).
Irrespective of whether the Pātañjalayogaśāstra
is the work of a single a­ uthor-redactor or not, the
explanations of the bhāṣya are indispensable for any
appropriate interpretation of the frequently enig-
matic sūtras in their contemporary religious, philo-
sophical, and cultural contexts (Maas, 2013, 68).
Modern Reception
Patañjali’s sūtras, probably extracted from the
Pātañjalayogaśāstra and passed off as a work in its
own right, have been so enthusiastically received in
modern transnational yoga circles that many mil-
lion practitioners of yoga around the globe are, to
some extent, familiar with this iconic work in one of
its numerous translations into more than 40 mod-
ern languages (White, 2014, xvi). M. Singleton con-
cluded, from the exalted status of the Yogasūtra in
modern yoga and from the relative paucity of late
medieval and modern South Asian literature on
Pātañjala Yoga, that the prestige of the Yogasūtra
as a foundational work of Yoga philosophy was first
invented by ­19th-century orientalist scholars, then
appropriated by modern n ­ eo-Hinduism, and from
there, as it were, reimported into the modern global-
ized world (Singleton, 2008; White, 2014). Although
this narrative conveys some historical truth, it over-
emphasizes the creativity of orientalist scholars and
their ambitions to communicate western values to
the population of South Asia by means of selective
translations of Sanskrit sources. The Yogasūtra, as
an integral part of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra, has had
a long history of reception as a foundational work
of philosophy before it became the subject of aca-
demic scholarship (Maas, 2013).
However, when scholars finally turned to Yoga
as one out of various systems of Indian philosophy,
they relied, among other works, upon comparatively
late doxographical works, such as the 1­ 4th-century
Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha (Compendium of all Views),
which was composed under the patronage of the
Vijayanagara court, either by Māyaṇa, the son
of the famous Veda commentator Sāyaṇa, or by
the Nyāya author Cannibhaṭṭa (Yamashita, 1998,
31). In this work, which is the earliest traceable
source clearly supporting a separate authorship of
BEH_Patanjalayogasastra.indd 2
Patañjali and Vyāsa for the sūtra- and the bhāṣya-
part of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra (Maas, 2013, 67),
Patañjali’s system of Yoga figures as the second
important of all philosophies, inferior only to the
pinnacle of all philosophies in the author’s con-
viction, that is the system of Advaita Vedānta. It is
therefore very much conceivable that the ascrip-
tion of the authorship of the bhāṣya-part of the
Pātañjalayogaśāstra to Vyāsa, which appears in
numerous Indological handbooks and histories
of Indian literature as a historical fact, was ulti-
mately invented in the 14th century in the circles of
­meditation-oriented Advaita Vedānta. In this regard,
it may be telling that in the Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha
“Vyāsa” occurs also as the name of the author
of a foundational work of Advaita Vedānta, the
Brahmasūtra.
Early scholarship showed little awareness for the
criteria on which medieval doxographers based their
classification schemes and took them at face value
(Nicholson, 2010, 4–6). This naïve approach may
not only have led to a privileged treatment of Yoga
philosophy in modern Indological handbooks and
histories of Indian philosophy, but it may also have
prevented a critical reassessment of the authorship
question for long, although V. Rāghavan published
evidence in support of Patañjali’s common author-
ship of the sūtra- and bhāṣya-part as early as 1938.
­Religio-Philosophical Foundations 
The philosophy of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra is simi-
lar to, but in many ways markedly different from,
the system of classical Sāṃkhya as depicted in the
Sāṃkhyakārikā of Īśvarakṛṣṇa (Frauwallner, 1953,
275–450), which are a summary of a now lost com-
prehensive exposition of Sāṃkhya philosophy called
Ṣaṣṭitantra that predates the Pātañjalayogaśāstra.
Patañjali’s philosophy is based on the premise
that the world consists of two ontologically differ-
ent realms. On the one side, there exist innumerable
transcendental subjects or selves (puruṣa). The sub-
jects are entities of pure con­sciousness (caitanya,
citi, or citiśakti), free of consciousness content. They
lack activity, are permanent, and unchangeable. On
the other side, the world consists of the products
of primordial or ­proto-matter (prakṛti, pradhāna,
aliṅga, or avyakta), which are unconscious, active,
and changeable. Under the influence of the sub-
jects, p­ roto-matter transforms from an unspecified
state, which lies beyond human comprehension,
into the things of the perceptible world and into
03/09/2019 3:44:43 PM
 Pātañjalayogaśāstra 3
individual living beings with mental capacities.
This process of transformation is conceived of as
a progressive increase of attributes on an identi-
cal substance, consisting of the three constitu-
ents, or forces (guṇa), called sattva (“goodness”),
rajas (“passion/activity”), and tamas (“ignorance/
darkness”), “which are psychological as well as
physical principles, ‘threads’ that extend from the
state of potentiality into the actual, manifest, differ-
entiated universe” (Halbfass 1992, 60).The unspeci-
fied ­proto-matter first transforms into a category
(tattva) called “­characteristic-only” (liṅgamātra) or
“the great” (mahat), which possesses existence as its
only attribute (sattāmātra) . This category then trans-
forms into “individuation” (ahaṃkāra), which is the
starting point for a bifurcation of the transformation
along two distinct lines. On the one side, individua-
tion turns into the fine substances (tanmātra) sound
(śabdatanmātra), touch (sparśatanmātra), form
(rūpatanmātra), taste (rasatanmātra), and smell
(gandhatanmātra). These entities are the starting
points for a further transformation into the gross
elements of space (ākāśa), air (vāyu), fire (agni),
water (udaka) and earth (bhūmi), which make up
the perceptible world. On the other side, the cat-
egory of individuation transforms into the senses
(buddhīndriya, i.e. the auditory, tactile, visual, gus-
tatory and olfactory senses), the five organs of action
(karmendriya, i.e. voice, hands, feet, organ of excre-
tion and organ of generation) and into the mental
organ (citta) of all living beings (see PYŚ. 2.19).
The existence of each mental organ is not limited
to a single existence. As a store of mental impres-
sions (saṃskāra), caused by actions with karmic rel-
evance, mental capacities exist from primordial time
and potentially for ever, as long as they do not dis-
solve in final liberation (mokṣa, apavarga, kaivalya).
These metaphysic foundations are also the basis
for the epistemology, ethics, and soteriology of Pata-
ñjali’s Yoga. The mental organ provides the sub-
ject, namely the principle of pure consciousness,
with data that turn into contents of consciousness
(viṣaya) when the subject perceives them. Percep-
tions of contents leave impressions (saṃskāra)in
the mental organ that can be reactivated as mem-
ories (smṛti). Concerning the yogic conceptions
of karman and rebirth, impressions originating in
connection with karmic relevant actions are of spe-
cial relevance. Their storage (āśaya) causes, after
death, a rebirth in a certain realm of existence with
a certain life span leading to pleasant or unpleasant
experiences and corresponding to the ethical qual-
ity of previously committed actions.
BEH_Patanjalayogasastra.indd 3
Human everyday experience deviates, however,
from the analysis of mental processes as outlined
above. We usually do not experience mental pro-
cesses as resulting from the interplay of a materiel
mental organ, which is responsible for the contents
of mental processes (cittavṛtti), with a transcenden-
tal subject that renders information conscious. We
usually experience mental process as having a uni-
tary nature. According to Patañjali, this analysis is,
however, based upon a fundamental error (avidyā).
In everyday experience, the subject is deluded about
its own transcendental nature and identifies itself
with the contents that the mental organ displays.
Thus, it erroneously deems itself affected by men-
tal contents. The subject feels happiness and suffers
pain, although these experiences, in reality, exclu-
sively affect the mental organ.
The aim of Yoga, according to Patañjali, is to
terminate the erroneous identification of the sub-
ject with the mental organ, which leads to libera-
tion of the subject from the cycle of rebirths and
its innate suffering. This involves the realization
of the ontological difference between the subject
and matter in meditative absorption (samādhi).
Patañjali designates this realization as the “cogni-
tion of the difference” (vivekakhyāti), that in the
final stages of meditation turns into an unrestricted
­self-awareness of the subject, which is then estab-
lished in its own form or nature (svarūpapratiṣṭha,
see PYŚ. 4.34). With this realization reached, the
mental organ continues to exist as long as the yogin
lives his final existence as liberated during his life-
time ( jīvanmukta). Thereafter, at the moment of
death, the mental organ dissolves, whereas the
liberated subject continues its existence. At this
instance, the yogin reaches the final aim, that is the
complete cessation of suffering within the cycle of
rebirths or the complete separation (kaivalya) of his
subject from matter.
Structure and Contents
The Pātañjalayogaśāstra consists of four chapters
or “quarters” (pāda). Each quarter bears a specific
chapter title in its p­ ost-chapter heading or colo-
phon that refers to the main contents of the quarter
(Maas, 2006, xx–xxi).
The initial chapter, the Samādhipāda (Quarter
on Absorption), consists of 51 brief sections of sūtra-
text together with an accompanying bhāṣya-part,
although sūtra 1.6 lacks an accompanying bhāṣya-
part. It opens with four sections introducing the topic
03/09/2019 3:44:43 PM
 4 Pātañjalayogaśāstra
“yoga” and defining the aim of yoga from a psycho-
logical perspective as the cessation of mental activ-
ity (cittavṛtti) leading to the continuous existence
of the subject in its own form or nature (svarūpa).
The following seven sections (5–11) deal with the five
kinds of mental activities, namely, valid knowledge
(pramāṇa), error (viparyaya), conceptual thinking
(vikalpa), deep sleep (nidrā) and memory (smṛti),
that, in spite of being potentially conducive to lib-
eration, ultimately have to cease. Next, Patañjali
discusses the two general means towards liberation
(12–16), namely repeated practice (abhyāsa) and
detachment (vairāgya), before he sketches a spe-
cific form of meditation (samādhi), the ­non-theistic
yogic concentration, focusing on the subject of the
yogin (17–20; see Oberhammer, 1977, 135–161; Maas,
2009, 264–276). Following, a brief excursion on dif-
ferent types of yogins, characterised by different
degrees of effort and by practicing methods with
different efficacies (21–22), Patañjali turns to the
theistic yogic concentration as a variation of the
previously discussed n ­ on-theistic one (23–29; see
Oberhammer, 1977, 1­62–177; Maas, 2009, ­276–280).
The theistic concentration focuses on god, who is a
prototype of an eternally liberated subject. In con-
cluding this passage, Patañjali stresses the specific
usefulness of this meditation for overcoming spiri-
tual hindrances and their side effects, which he then
depicts in conjunction with alternative methods for
their prevention (30–32). Next, Patañjali turns to
methods of establishing an initial stability (sthiti) of
the mental organ (33–40). This is required for a more
advanced form of meditation called samāpatti. The
samāpatti-meditation differs from the two previ-
ously presented meditations concerning its objects
of meditation – which are neither the subject nor
god, but entities belonging to the realm of matter –
and with regard to its specific structure (41–51; see
Oberhammer, 1977, 177–209).
The second quarter, which comprises 55 sections,
is called Sādhananirdeśapāda (Quarter on Instruc-
tion in Means). Here, Patañjali initially presents
a specific form of yoga practice, called kriyāyoga,
that involves asceticism, recitation, and devotion
to god (tapas, svādhyāya, and īśvarapraṇidhāna;
1–2). This ritualistic form of yoga fosters meditative
absorption and weakens the afflictions that cause
bondage and suffering in the cycle of rebirths. Pata-
ñjali next characterizes the five afflictions (kleśa),
consiting in misconception (avidyā), ­sense-of-I
(asmitā), craving (rāga), aversion (dveṣa), and
­self-preservation (abhiniveśa; 3–9), before he turns
BEH_Patanjalayogasastra.indd 4
to the ultimate and provisional means for their
elimination (10–11). Then he presents the mecha-
nism of karmic retribution (12–14), which leads him
to a discussion of the question why yogins, in contra-
distinction to ordinary people, experience suffering
as a universal phenomenon that is intrinsic even to
seemingly joyful experiences (15–16). In the context
of suffering as a universal phenomenon of human
existence, Patañjali presents his fourfold division
of the science of Yoga (in analogy to that of medi-
cine) into (1) what has to be avoided; (2) the cause
of what has to be avoided; (3) avoiding; and (4) the
means for avoiding. The structure of larger parts
of the remaining work follows this division, which
is probably based on the four noble truths of Bud-
dhism (Wezler, 1984, 336), to wit, (1) the truths of suf-
fering, (2) the truths of the origin of suffering, (3) the
truths of the cessation of suffering and the (4) truths
of the way leading to the cessation of suffering. The
cause of what has to be avoided, that is the cause of
suffering, is discussed in sections 17–24, which con-
tain a fascinating account of Patañjali’s system of
Sāṃkhya metaphysics in sections 18–20. Then, the
author addresses the question of how to avoid suf-
fering (25), before he turns to the means for avoid-
ing, namely the eight ancillaries or means of yoga
(aṣṭāṅga) comprising (1) commitments (yama),
(2) obligations (niyama), (3) posture (āsana),
(4) breath control (prāṇāyāma), (5) retraction of
the senses (pratyāhāra), (6) fixation (dhāraṇā),
(7) meditation (dhyāna), and (8) absorption
(samādhi) (Birch, 2016; Mallinson & Singleton, 2017).
The topic of sections 26–45 are the first two means:
(1) the five commitments, that is, nonviolence
(ahiṃsā), truth (satya), not stealing (asteya), living
chastely (brahmacarya), and not possessing prop-
erty (aparigraha); and (2) the five religious obliga-
tions, that is, purity (śauca), satisfaction (saṃtoṣa),
asceticism (tapas), recitation (svādhyāya) and
devotion to God (īśvarapraṇidhāna), together with
supernatural powers and knowledge arising from
complying with these regulations. The final part
of the third quarter of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra is
devoted to posture practice (46–48; see Maas, 2018),
breath control (49–53) and to the retraction of the
senses from their everyday objects (54–55).
The third quarter, called Vibhūtipāda (Quarter
on Supernatural Powers), continues the presen-
tation of yogic ancillaries by characterizing the
three ­meditation-related means, namely fixation,
meditation, and absorption (1–3; on the phenom-
enon of supernatural powers in yoga, see Jacobsen,
03/09/2019 3:44:43 PM
 Pātañjalayogaśāstra 5
2012). Patañjali refers to this triplet with the tech-
nical term “complete control” (saṃyama) when
directed in sequence on an identical object (4–10).
“Complete control” ignites the yogin’s “light of
insight,” (prajñāloka) which fills the yogic mind with
a clam flow of consciousness contents. The discus-
sion of the mental organ in its various stages leads
Patañjali to an excursion on the Sāṃkhyayoga doc-
trine of the threefold transformation of properties,
time characteristics, and states (dharma, lakṣaṇa,
and avasthā), both in general and with special ref-
erence to the transformation of the mind through
intense yogic meditation (11–15). The following
sections present the topic to which the third quar-
ter owes its title, namely supernatural powers and
knowledge arising in consequence of yogic medi-
tation on different objects. Quite surprisingly, the
term vibhūti, which designates superpowers and
knowledge in the chapter title, does not occur at all
in Patañjali’s work except in the title of the quarter.
In his conclusion of this quarter, Patañjali empha-
sises that liberating insight into the difference
between matter and mental organ, that entails all
other kinds of knowledge pertaining to the past,
present, and future, is supreme among all forms of
power and knowledge reachable by yogic medita-
tion (16–55).
The fourth and final quarter with the title
Kaivalyapāda (Quarter on Separation) initially
addresses a number of loosely related topics, such as
different causes for supernatural powers and forms
of knowledge (1) and the role of accumulated kar-
man for the generation of a body in the process of
rebirth (2–3). This topic leads Patañjali to deal with
the question of how several bodies that advanced
yogins may miraculously create are related to their
own mental organs and to the mental organs of their
creator (4–5). Subsequently, Patañjali discusses the
consequences of actions performed by miraculously
created beings, in terms of karmic retribution (6).
Then, he introduces a quadruple conception of
karman as being, black, white, mixed or neither of
these Three kinds of karman exist for virtually all
beings, who inevitably experience its maturation,
whereas the fourth kind of karman, that does not
bring about consequences, is peculiar to advanced
yogins. Karman, in general, is accumulated when
mental activity takes place, generating mental
impresses (vāsanā). These impresses can be elimi-
nated through a removal of the factors leading to
their generation and storage in the mental organ
(7–11). In the following part, Patañjali addresses
BEH_Patanjalayogasastra.indd 5
polemic objections against his system of thought
from rival philosophical schools, including that of
Vijñānavāda Buddhism, according to which the exis-
tence of the world is dependent upon consciousness
(12–24). After having thus established the coherence
of his work, he turns to a final exposition of spiritual
liberation, by means of special meditative insights
into the difference of mind matter and the con-
scious subject (25–34).
Dating
Patañjali’s work can be dated to a short time span
around the year 400 CE. References to Vijñānavāda
Buddhism in Pātañjalayogaśāstra 4.16 and an adap-
tation of a passage from the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya
establish Patañjali’s familiarity with the works of
the Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu, who lived
between 320 and 400 CE (Franco & Preisendanz,
2010, xvi). Further evidence for the same termi-
nus post quem are textual and conceptual agree-
ments between the Patañjali’s Yoga work and
the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, as well as the earlier
Yogācārabhūmiśāstra (Maas, 2014a; O’­ Brien-Kop,
2017; see also below). Accordingly, the earli-
est possible date for the composition of the
Pātañjalayogaśāstra is the late 4th century CE. Its
latest possible date is established on the basis of a
quotation from Pātañjalayogaśāstra 2.6 in the old-
est commentary (vṛtti) on Bhartṛhari’s Vākyapadīya
2.31. Bhartṛhari flourished probably between the
years 450 and 510 CE. The Vākyapadīyavṛtti, whose
authorship is contested, was probably composed
during the same time, possibly by one of Bhartṛhari’s
students. Accordingly, the Pātañjalayogaśāstra
must have been known in the second half of the 5th
century CE as an authoritative work within the cir-
cles of Śabdādvaita philosophy, according to which
language and the universe are an inseparable whole.
If one assumes some time to pass before a newly
composed work acquires the prestige that makes it
worthy of being quoted and discussed in the work of
a rival school of philosophy, the Pātañjalayogaśāstra
must have been composed around the year 400 CE.
This dating is supported by the fact that Patañjali’s
work is quoted in the Nyāyabhāṣya (1.2.6; 3.2.15),
which Vātsyāyana composed probably already
around the year 450 CE (see Thakur, 1997, x; for the
date of the Nyāyabhāṣya, see Franco & Preisendanz,
1995).
03/09/2019 3:44:43 PM
 6 Pātañjalayogaśāstra
Sources
Patañjali’s work is strongly indebted to the ideas
of his contemporary religious and philosophical
environment. As outlined above, Patañjali’s most
important source of inspiration was the philoso-
phy of Sāṃkhya, possibly in a coinage similar to
that of the nowadays lost Ṣaṣṭitantra. Patañjali was
also familiar with the ideas of the early philosophi-
cal schools of Vaiśeṣika and Mīmāṃsā. The second
strongest sources of influence on Patañjali’s thought
were, however, Buddhist. The influence of various
Buddhist schools, but most of all of Sārvāstivāda
Abhidharma, reveals itself in Patañjali’s usage of a
strongly Buddhist terminology and in his adapta-
tion of Buddhist theories and conceptions. From
among the numerous cases it may be sufficient to
point to Pātañjalayogaśāstra 1.20, which presents
“belief ” (śraddhā), “energy” (vīrya), “mindfullness”
(smṛti), and “insight” (prajñā) as four means
for the realization of absorption without object
(asaṃprajñātasamādhi). These correspond exactly
to the set of four balas (“powers”) that figure promi-
nently in early Buddhist literature as being con-
ducive for the attainment of liberation and which
are portrayed in detail in the Milindapañha (see
Hacker, 1963; Oberhammer, 1977, 141–148; on the
reuse of Buddhist terminology in Pātañjala Yoga
see also La Vallée Poussin, 1937; Wujastyk, 2018).
A. Wezler (1987) argues that the quadruple divi-
sion of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra’s is an adaptation of
the Buddhist four noble truths (see above). P. Maas
(2014a) highlightes the adaptive reuse of mate-
rial on the existence of all entities throughout the
three time phases of past, present, and future as it
occurs in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya in
the context of Patañjali’s exposition of transforma-
tion of matter (pariṇāma) in Pātañjalayogaśāstra
3.13. K. O’­Brien-Kop (2017) discussed in detail the
use of botanical metaphors concerning the con-
ception of karman that Patañjali apparently devel-
oped on the basis of similar conceptions occurring
also in the Abhidharmkośabhāṣya and in the
Yogācārabhūmiśāstra). Patañjali also adopted cen-
tral conceptions from Jainism such as the five com-
mitments (yama) in the set of eight ancillaries of
yoga, which are identical with the five mahāvratas
(great vows) of Jainism, namely, nonviolence
(ahiṃsā), truth (satya), not stealing (asteya), living
chastely (brahmacarya), and not possessing prop-
erty (aparigraha; Dundas, 2002, 137–160). Moreover,
Patañjali’s view of four possible realms of rebirth
among gods (deva), humans (manuṣya), animals
BEH_Patanjalayogasastra.indd 6
(tiryañc), and inhabitants of a hell (naraka) as pre-
sented in Pātañjalayogaśāstra 3.18, parallels exactly
the realms of rebirth in Jain cosmology. An additional
source of inspiration for Patañjali was Brahmanism,
as can be inferred from the fact that the Yoga author
regarded only male members of the social class of
Brahmans eligible for practicing yoga (Maas, 2014b,
73). Further indications for Patañjali’s commitment
to Brahmanism are, for example, the soteriological
role of meditations involving the mantraoṃ and a
quotation of Taittirīyāraṇyaka 1.11.6. In addition,
Patañjali was apparently acquainted with pre-
classical forms of yoga, as they are reflected in the
Mahābhārata, in early Purāṇas and other sources.
This may safely be concluded from the numer-
ous quotations of earlier sources throughout the
Pātañjalayogaśāstra, some of which with parallels
in the Mahābhārata, the purāṇas, the Yogavāsiṣṭha
and other works (see Maas, 2006, 111). Finally,
Patañjali was apparently influenced by the contem-
porary theistic currents. His personal theological
background is difficult to determine, because he
kept the exposition of theological topics voluntarily
neutral. However, the fact that Patañjali quoted a
stanza from the Viṣṇupurāṇa in the context of his
exposition of the theistic yogic concentration may
indicate his vicinity to a Vaiṣṇava milieu (PYŚ. 1.28 =
ViP. 6.6.2).
Premodern History of Reception and
Commentaries
Soon after its composition, the Pātañjalayogaśāstra
was recognized widely as an authoritative exposition
of Sāṃkhya philosophy. Accordingly, the commen-
tators of the Sāṃkhyakārikā (or Sāṃkhyasaptati),
like Gauḍapāda in his Sāṃkhyakārikābhāṣya,
Māṭhara in his Māṭharavṛtti, and the unknown
author of the Jayamaṅgalā quoted Patañjali’s work
in support of their own views (see e.g. SāṃKBh.
23; see also Maas, 2006, xviii). Authors of rival
philo­sophical schools, however, soon started
criticizing Patañjali. For example, Vātsyāyana’s
Nyāyabhāṣya (c. 450 CE) argues against the Sāṃkhya
theory of trans­ formation as formulated in
Pātañjalayogaśāstra 3.13 (see NyāBh. 3.2.15), and
the Vṛtti on Bhartṛhari’s Vākyapadīya 2.31 disap-
provingly refers to the metaphysical foundations of
epistemology as formulated in Pātañjalayogaśāstra
2.6. Patañjali’s philosophy was also discussed exten-
sively in circles of Kashmir Śaivism by authors like
Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha (10th cent.) in his commentary
03/09/2019 3:44:43 PM
 Pātañjalayogaśāstra 7
on the Mṛgendratantra, his son Rāmakaṇṭha
(late 10th cent.) in his commentaries on the
Mataṅgaparameśvaratantra, on the Kiraṇatantra,
in the Paramokṣanirāsakārikāvṛtti, and in the
Nareśvaraparīkṣāprakāśa, Abhinavagupta (11th cent.)
in his Īśvarapratyabhijñāvimarśinī, and Kṣemarāja
(11th cent.) in his Svacchandatantroddyota.
In the course of time, Patañjali’s Yoga work
became so ­well-known even among nonspecial-
ists of philosophy that it served the Vaiṣṇava poet
Māgha (c. 750 CE) and the Śaiva poet Ratnākara
(c. 830 CE) as a source of literary reuse in their
respective h ­ igh-class poems entitled Śiśupālavada
and Haravijaya (Maas, 2017). In early 11th century,
the famous ­Perso-Muslim polymath ­Al-Bīrūnī ren-
dered the Pātañjalayogaśāstra into Arabic, in order
to make the work accessible to a Muslim readership
(Maas & Verdon, 2018). Parts of Patañjali’s work also
served as a source for the Old Javanese Śaiva work
entitled Dharma Pātañjala (Acri, 2011).
The Yoga of Patañjali inspired numerous
authors in their own expositions of yoga, from
the anonymous compilers of the yoga section of
Liṅgapurāṇa up to the medieval authors of rājayoga
and haṭhayoga works, who used the Yoga of the
Pātañjalayogaśāstra as a point of reference even if
their own practice and theories deviated from those
of Patañjali. In the 14th century, the Yoga system
of Patañjali figures prominently in the works of
­meditation-oriented Advaita Vedāntins that were
active under the patronage of the Vijayanagara
court, such as Vidyāraṇya and Bhāratītīrtha in their
Pañcadaśī. The Pañcadaśī teaches, for example, that
the dharmameghasamādhi (“absorption called ‘rain-
cloud of dharma’”) leads to a direct encounter with
the highest reality (Ahlborn, 2014, 44–46), which is
an idea strongly indebted to Pātañjalayogaśāstra
4.29 (on this special absorption in Yoga and Bud-
dhism, see Wujastyk, 2019, 35–38).
From possibly the 8th century onwards, the
Pātañjalayogaśāstra became the subject of exten-
sive commentaries. The probably oldest pre-
served, but definitely most informative one is the
Pātañjalayogaśāstravivaraṇa (see Wezler, 1983,
17; Harimoto, 2014, 7) by an author called Śaṅkara.
The question of whether this Śaṅkara is identical
with the famous Advaita Vedānta philosopher of
the same name is still unsolved (Maas, 2013, 72–75).
Around 950 CE, a further important commentary,
the Tattvavaiśāradī, was composed by the famous
polymath Vācaspatimiśra I, who, however, was
apparently frequently unable to provide ­first-hand
BEH_Patanjalayogasastra.indd 7
explanations of a text from an ascetic milieu that
was alien to him and written in an idiom permeated
with Buddhist terminology.
King Bhoja of Malwa employed an innovative
strategy for dealing with the difficult idiom of the
Pātañjalayogaśāstra when he composed a com-
mentary called Rājamartaṇḍa exclusively on the
sūtra-part in early 11th century. Bhoja extracted
the sūtras from the Pātañjalayogaśāstra and pro-
vided them with a paraphrase of the bhāṣya-part of
Patañjali’s work, that he supplemented with his own
explanations.
Vijñānabhikṣu composed a third commen­
tary, this time from the perspective of
Bhedābhedavedānta, in the latter half of the 16th
century, called Yogavārttika. This commentary is,
however, frequently indebted to Vācaspatimiśra’s
Tattvavaiśārada. Further Sanskrit commentar-
ies on the Yogasūtras were composed throughout
the Middle Ages and in modern time (Larson &
Bhattacharya, 2008, 321–433).
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