Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali (IAST: Patañjali yoga-sūtras) is a Sanskrit text on the theories and practices of the Yoga school (one of the six orthodox Hindu schools referenced in Buddhist texts). The Yoga Sutras was compiled in the early centuries CE, by the Indian sage Patanjali, who synthesized and organized knowledge about yoga from much older traditions.

Edwin Bryant states:

The tradition of Patañjali in the oral and textual tradition of the Yoga Sūtras is accepted by traditional Vedic schools as the authoritative source on Yoga, and it retains this status in Hindu circles into the present day. In contrast to its modern Western transplanted forms, Yoga 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, is only aware of its own nature as consciousness unmixed with any other object. This state is not only desirable in its own right, but its attainment guarantees the practitioner freedom from every kind of material pain or suffering, and, indeed, is the primary classical means of attaining liberation from the cycle of birth and death in the Indic soteriological traditions, that is, in the theological study of salvation in India. The Yoga Sūtras were thus seen by all schools, not only as the orthodox manual for guidance in the techniques and practices of meditation, but also for the classical Indian position on the nature and function of mind and consciousness, for the mechanisms of action in the world and consequent rebirth, and for the metaphysical underpinnings and description of the attainment of mystical powers.

Further reading

• Edwin Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Bryant, Edwin F. (2009), The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation and Commentary, New York: North Point Press, ISBN 978-0865477360 
• Tola, Fernando; Dragonetti, Carmen; Prithipaul, K. Dad (1987), The Yogasūtras of Patañjali on concentration of mind, Motilal Banarsidass 
• Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Wikipedia