The Yoga Sutras Historical Context

Vocabulary

1. PATANJALI — Codifier of The Yoga Sutras
2. SANSKRIT — A sacred language designed to convey subtlety and communicate spiritual insights
3. SUTRA — Summary of teachings

About Patanjali

• Patanjali, who lived “somewhere around 250 BCE” codified (arranged in a systematic collection) the Yoga Sutras.
• Yoga existed long before Patanjali. It was referred to in The Vedas, estimated to have been written between 3,000 and 6,000 years ago.
• Kofi Busia says, “Almost everything about Patanjali is unknown. Even his most basic biographical details are disputed.” Others claim that Patanjali was a revered yogi and scholar of many subjects.
• Yogiraj Alan Finger writes that Patanjali seems to have been “a practicing yogi writing for his contemporary community of yoga practitioners and students” and not “for intellectual dabblers or the general public.”

WHY THE DATES ARE UNKNOWN

The dates proposed for Patañjali’s birth and life vary by a millennium… A part of the reason for this wide divergence in possible dates is the tradition, common at the time… In order to make their contributions more acceptable, and to give them some cachet and an air of authority, later thinkers were frequently content to concede authorship of their contributions to one or another of their more illustrious predecessors. Those predecessors thus acquired an exaggerated longevity… Given that the knowledge in Patañjali’s most widely recognized work, the Yoga Sutras, is presented through a series of terse aphorisms, a date for him of somewhere between the fourth and second centuries BCE becomes highly likely… Give or take a century, therefore, somewhere around 250 BCE seems the best bet. – Kofi Busia

PATANJALI’S ROLE

Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutras, lived somewhere between 500 BCE and 200 CE, a time that possibly overlaps the life of Buddha and a period of intense philosophical activity in India. Patanjali was revered as an outstanding scholar and wise man who wrote significant commentaries on Sanskrit grammar and Ayurveda… The Patanjali yoga tradition is a later expression of older teachings based on the source texts of India known as the Vedas. – Nicolai Bachman

A YOGI WRITING FOR HIS CONTEMPORARIES, NOT FOR GENERAL PUBLIC

Not much is known of Patanjali… There are many differing options about who he was and when exactly he lived… Whatever the truth of the matter, it seems evident to us that Patanjali was a practicing yogi writing for his contemporary community of yoga practitioners and students. The Sutras do not impart philosophy in a vacuum, nor are they intended for intellectual dabblers or the general public. – Alan Finger & Wendy Newton

PATANJALI, THE MAN

Master Patanjali was a great yogi; he knew the physical poses of yoga and the art of breathing: yoga of the body. He was also a great thinker and meditator—a master of the yoga of the mind. He wrote as well famous books on medicine and on Sanskrit, the ancient tongue from which almost all our languages come. He is recognized, too, as the father of the classical dance of India. – Geshe Michael Roach & Christie McNally

PATANJALI’S APPROACH

Sri Patanjali was the epitome of acceptance of all methods and of broad-mindedness of approach. He did not limit his instructions to one particular technique, to members of any particular religion, philosophy, or in any other way. He gave general principles and used specifics only as examples. – Sri Swami Satchidananda