The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

What sutra means

Sutra comes from the Sanskrit root siv, to sew, and means a thread. In Indian literature it became the name for a particular kind of writing: very short statements, often only a few words, meant to be memorised and then unpacked by a teacher, the role the word guru names, or by a written commentary. A collection of sutras is a thread of ideas, each one tied to the next.

The form is so compressed that a single sutra can carry a whole argument. That is why the Yoga Sutras are almost always read with commentary, and why beginner yoga lessons can open the practice without any of the text at all.

The word has a second life in Buddhism, where sutra (sutta in Pali) means a discourse of the Buddha, often long. Same word, different shape of text.

What the Yoga Sutras are

The Yoga Sutras are the classical text of yoga as a system of meditation. They are attributed to Patanjali, about whom almost nothing is known. Scholars have dated the text anywhere from the second century BCE to the fifth century CE. Many now place it around 400 CE and argue that the sutras and the earliest commentary, traditionally credited to Vyasa, were composed as a single work.

The text opens with its definition. In Charles Johnston’s 1912 rendering of the second sutra: “Union, spiritual consciousness, is gained through control of the versatile psychic nature.” Most modern translations put it more simply, as yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind.

The four chapters

• Samadhi pada, on absorption: what the mind is, what disturbs it, and the deepest states of meditation, explained on the page about samadhi, the eighth limb.
• Sadhana pada, on practice: the obstacles that cause suffering, the store of samskaras, the impressions left by action, and the eight-part method for removing them.
• Vibhuti pada, on powers: concentration, meditation and absorption together, and the unusual abilities the text says can follow, along with a warning not to be distracted by them.
• Kaivalya pada, on liberation: the freedom of awareness from what it observes.

The eight-part method of the second chapter is the best-known part of the text, and it has its own page on the eight limbs of yoga. The first of those limbs begins with ahimsa, non-harming.

How the text travelled

The Yoga Sutras were widely studied in medieval India, commented on many times, and even translated into Arabic by the scholar al-Biruni in the eleventh century. Later the text fell out of wide use, and it returned to prominence in the late nineteenth century, when Swami Vivekananda’s Raja Yoga, published in 1896, presented it to English readers. Today it is a standard part of many teacher trainings.

How it shows up in a modern practice

Few studio classes quote the Sutras directly, but a handful of lines turn up again and again: the definition of yoga, the call for practice and non-attachment, and the short line on posture, which Johnston gives as “Right poise must be firm and without strain.” A few of these lines, in public-domain translations, are collected on the page of yoga quotes from the classical texts.

Using the Sutras in practice

The line on posture is the most practical: steady and comfortable, firm and without strain. It is a good test for any pose. If you would like to read the text itself, start with a translation that has a short note under each sutra, and read a few sutras at a time.