Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

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Definition: Tradition says that at one point, Patanjali’s manuscript—which he had written on lotus leaves, a common version of paper then—was lost, and he had to rewrite it. Another tradition tells the story that after Patanjali was gone, the leaves became jumbled; then someone else put them together again—but out of order.

Any reader plainly can see that Chapter 2 of the Yoga Sutras has two very different sections. The first half, 2.1-2.27, is titled “Kriya Yoga.” However, 2.28-2.55 is named “Astanga Yoga.” Yet more confusing, the Astanga yoga section reappears in the first fifteen sutras of Chapter 3. What happened? To help make more sense of it all, this translation divides Chapter 2 into two parts, “A” and “B.” This present section, Chapter 2-B, is all about Astanga yoga.

Astanga means “eight-limbed.” This type of yoga consists of eight basic methods or practices that the chapter says are necessary for long-term progress in meditation. The five “limbs” in Chapter 2-B consist of ethical guidelines, personal behaviors, and methods of posture, breathing, and mental focus. In short, this Astanga yoga section appears to suggest that once you’ve had your initial spiritual breakthrough experiences as in Chapter 1—and you’ve started having progress as a meditator—you also should begin following an overall plan. That plan, Astanga, helps moderate your life to make it healthier and more attuned for meditation.

As it turns out, Astanga is closely related to Buddhism. Six of the “limbs” closely resemble parts of Buddha’s famous Eightfold Path to Enlightenment.* Buddha developed his eight “folds” long before Patanjali wrote the Yoga Sutras. On top of that, a third major Hindu religion, Jainism, described the same ethical guidelines of Astanga yoga’s first limb, and named them the vratas or “Five Vows”*--again, long before the Yoga Sutras were written.

Did all three sources separately invent such similar guidelines? It is unlikely. Rather, Buddha and the Jainists created their religions from many of the same sources as Patanjali did his sutras. That source was the oral tradition of the ancient Hindu Vedas.

In addition, it’s quite possible that Patanjali made his list of eight limbs after consulting Buddha’s Eightfold Path and, perhaps, the Jains’ Five Vows. He also would have been aware of them in the India’s marketplaces, which for many hundreds of years in his time were melting pots of many religions, cultures, ideas, beliefs, and practices. All those influences were shared not only on the streets, but also among yogis, scholars, and monks in public and private.

Thus the simplest historical interpretation may be that Patanjali decided to add an updated yoga version of the Eightfold Path and/or the Five Vows. Perhaps he felt his own list would be more in keeping with Hindu scripture, or even that it might work better for common use after the hundreds of years since Buddha and the Jains created theirs.

Comment: Translators and scholars have a variety of explanations for how the Astanga yoga section of the sutras was added to the book. Some argue, for example, that someone else added them (some say it was Vyasa, the book’s first known editor). Another argument is that Patanjali himself may have written them when he was a young meditator and then added them much later as he wrote the Yoga Sutras.

Almost all translators agree, though, that the precepts of Astanga yoga, each taken separately, were taught by the ancient Vedic gurus and wisdom teachers many centuries before Buddha, Jainism, and Patanjali. The Vedic scriptures themselves speak, in their symbolic language, of several possible “folds” of eight. They contain, for example, an eight-footed path or method for the earth’s eight points of guidance, and also eight wheels, cows, steeds, and chariots.

Two other reasons exist to believe the eight limbs were not written at the same time as the other sutras. First, the Astanga section—especially the first five limbs—uses a plainer, simpler style than the other parts of Patanjali’s book. In addition, the first five limbs often repeat suggestions from other parts of the sutras; outside of this section, chapters show little repetition.

However, the Astanga section does fit well at this point in the Yoga Sutras—whether Patanjali inserted it himself from something he wrote at a much younger age, or someone else added them. The eight-limbs sutras emphasize that no matter how many spiritual experiences a seeker may have had, at some point he or she must bring a reasonable moderation to their ethics, inner discipline, and physical regimens. The limbs as described in the Yoga Sutras also reveal deep roots in ancient Vedic mystical practices that are windows to even earlier times and spiritual methods.

The limbs are simple—yes. But they remain relevant in all times as living guidelines for a good life. As such, they stand with other perennial-wisdom guides in the history of world religions, whether Buddhist or Jain; or, for example, the Abrahamic Ten Commandments of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam*; or those of other long-lived cultures.

- Social and Inner Guidelines,
Posture, Breathing, and Sense Withdrawal;
Attention, Focus, and Absorption -

Sutra 2.28: Yoga-aṅga-anuṣṭhānād

aśuddhi kṣaye jñāna-dīptir ā viveka-khyāteḥ

Literal translation: “Yoking the body members in dedicated performance, error dwindling, gnosis blazing all the way up to recognizing knowing”

Meaning: “Yoga’s [eight] limbs, with dedicated practice, will wear away your faults, leading to a blazing and wise knowing by you that will go all the way up to recognizing (as in sutra 26) the difference between the Experiencer (your Self) and the experience.”

A chant in English: “Eight Limbs practice will cleanse your unneeded swirls so your Self or Presence can shine.”

Definition: “Astanga yoga” means “eight-limbed” or “eight-part yoking.” Each limb supports the other seven in the mind and body of a meditator. All eight are a guide for a person’s True Self learning to live in the world and become more spiritual. This sutra points out that by adopting these eight standards, you not only live a better life but you also actually develop the pure, clear mind that Patanjali has so thoroughly discussed in Chapter 1. Whatever your level or stage of spiritual awareness, the eight limbs can help you.

Comment: An interesting question about Astanga’s eight limbs is whether the author meant them as steps to follow, one at a time, or as a group of actions a meditator uses whenever they are needed during a person’s lifetime of spiritual growth. Which are they?

On the one hand, the similar Eightfold Path of Buddhism often is understood as a series of improvements that must be completed as individual steps accomplished in their specific order, first to last. On the other, five of the best-known English translators of the Yoga Sutras, Feuerstein, Hariharananda, Hartranft, Iyengar, and Satchidananda, for example, argue that the eight limbs are what might be called eight points on a compass that you must develop continually, review regularly, and develop in yourself slowly during a lifelong practice of meditation.

Hariharananda, an early-1900s, cave-dwelling yoga mystic, says specifically, “Many think that Yamas...have to be practiced first, then Niyamas” (Limb One and Limb Two). “That is wrong. “From the very beginning, Dharana [the sixth limb] favourable to [the first five] has to be practiced.”*

Part of answering the “steps vs. compass points” question revolves around another problem: what perhaps should be called “the myth of the single enlightenment.” In this myth, many beginners assume that when a meditator finds samadhi, nirvana, satori, a “born-again” descent of light, or some other such awakening, that person is changed forever and no longer needs to worry about guidelines or further personal growth. He or she thus, according to the myth, can dispense with following such guidelines as the Eight Limbs, the Eightfold Path, the Ten Commandments, or other written standards.

However, that simply is not true. Buddha came out of his first nirvana after seven weeks. Jesus of Nazareth said on the cross, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Every mystic who ever has lived will tell you (and many do, through their writings) that inner growth continues, even to the day you die. Thus the classic written and oral guidelines such as Astanga yoga still help everyone, even those with decades of meditation practice.

In this regard, there is the old story of a Hindu yogi living alone in the desert for many years, who decided he was advanced enough to make a trip to the nearby town without becoming corrupted. When he arrived, a parade was proceeding in the street. He stood, watching, behind a youth, when suddenly the boy stepped backward onto the yogi’s bare foot, causing the older man great pain. In frustration, the yogi raised his hand to strike the boy. But then the older man became aware of what he was about to do. He stopped himself, turned around, and immediately began the journey back to his desert home. As he travelled, he said to himself, “The corruption I feared is not in the town. It is in me. I still need more years of meditation to rid myself of such impulses.”

Sutra 2.29: Yama niyama-āsana prāṇāyāma
pratyāhāra dhāraṇā dhyāna samādhayo' aṣṭāu-aṅgāni

“1. Yama: Social guides—Using a code of support for yourself when interacting with others

2. Niyama: Inner guides—Using a code of support for your own inner life with helpful observances, rituals, and/or spiritual or psychological practices

5. Pratyahara: Sense withdrawal—Going inward from and managing your world of the senses

8. Samadhi: Absorption—Integrating into, merging with, or joining the True Self [Atman] Ultimate Presence [Brahman/God], or Super-Consciousness

Astau-angani: Eight Limbs—[These are yoga’s] eight limbs, members, parts, or components”

A chant in English: “The dance of meditation has eight limbs: Four are goodness without, goodness within, useful posture, and breathing well. Another four are going within, mindfully focusing, finding your vision, and merging with Self or Presence.”

Definition: These eight guides for living the meditative life—the life of yoga—were part of an ancient code of conduct. The ancient rishis of the Vedas established them perhaps as long ago 1500-2000 BCE and passed them down orally. When Jainism and then Buddhism, were developed—roughly about 500 BCE—they incorporated parts of these guidelines as the Five Vows (Jainism) and the Eightfold Path to Liberation (Buddhism). In the Hindu Yoga Sutras listing of them, they are called the Eight Limbs, reminiscent of ancient statues of the elephant avatar Ganesha or the warrior goddess Durga, holder of many weapons.

The first four limbs clearly have to do with life in the external world. They encourage you to develop an ethical way of life outwardly and inwardly, and to adopt a reasonable physical posture and breathing pattern that will help you become more inward.

The fifth limb serves as a bridge, a channel in meditation, between the outer and the inner world. In this practice, you gradually learn to ignore or not react—when you choose—to what your senses report. You do not give up using your senses. Rather, you learn to not worry about them, not even pay close attention to their constant data, when you wish. Meditating on a chosen subject—and also practicing mindfulness in the daily and hourly world—can take you there.

The final group of three limbs deliver you into the inward journey. First, you learn increasingly to nurture or build your focused attention on one “point”—a subject or experience of your choice as suggested by Patanjali in Chapter 1. Second, you learn to keep this continuously in mind, an attentive flow. Third, you submerge yourself in—merge increasingly more often with—the Self/Presence/Wholeness that develops or becomes discoverable from this flow of attention.

The steps may seem simple in theory. The practice of them will keep you busy for a lifetime.

Comment: Why did a later editor of the Yoga Sutras—or possibly Patanjali himself—add the eight limbs of Astanga to an otherwise complete book? The answer may lie in the society surrounding him. His times were dramatically different for teaching spiritual practices.

In the beginning of Hindu times in India, thousands of years ago, the ancient rishis—accomplished mystics—developed the oral stories that eventually would become the Vedas. The roots of the Eight Limbs—and of the Eightfold Path and Jain Five Vows—were established then. Gurus passed them down to disciples one or a few at a time, who then would pass them down to their followers. Quite possibly, a guru would take on a student as the beginning of his or her (female rishis and students existed, then) discipleship, requiring them to practice the early steps of ethics, inner disciplines, breathing, and posture first—for years.

However, in the centuries of Patanjali’s era,* written scriptures had spread. Society also had changed. Cities and towns were active supermarkets of many local and foreign goods, cultures, and spiritual techniques from several religions.

Some of the written scriptures were new medical texts, such as the Ayurveda. These health texts started the oldest practical system of healing in the world, India’s Ayurvedic medicine. It used dissection of corpses, surgeries, herbs, and other means to understand the human body systematically, cure diseases, and increase longevity. Ayurvedic medicine was organized in eight “anga” or “limbs,” which required that each aspect of scientific health balance with the other seven.

The Yoga Sutras were written, say most historians, after the appearance of the Ayurveda. Patanjali or a later editor of the Sutras would have been very aware of the new medicine’s eight-limbed system. This may have caused the elements of Astanga yoga to be gathered into eight equally important parts. Clearly the different aspects of Astanga existed in the oldest scriptures. But the Ayurveda may have hastened the gathering of Astanga into eight sections in the Sutras—like eight spokes of a wheel or compass points, keeping all steps balanced with each other.

Another reason for the addition of eight-limbed yoga to the Sutras may have been a greater need for meditators’ independence. All of the Yoga Sutras is a written set of instructions useful for individual meditators working on their own—a modernist change in a new age of the written word, circumscribing the need for passing down everything by oral instruction alone.

Sanskrit Text: Patanjali, c. 400 BCE-400 CE

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See also Meditationary.org, a Meditation Dictionary; and BodyMeditation.org, Introducing Yoga Meditation.

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