| Maharishi
Patanjali is believed to have compiled
his Yoga Sutra around the 3rd
or 4th century BC but archeological
evidences and the study of ancient scriptures
suggest that yoga was practiced in ancient
India as early as 3000 BC. In
spite of the Yoga Sutra being
by far the most definitive text on
the philosophy of classical yoga,
very little is known about Patanjali
himself. In fact, the identity of
this sage scholar is still being debated
in academic circles. |
All
that one might say about him is that he was
a great philosopher and grammarian. Some also
believe him to have been a physician and attribute
a certain medical work to him. But even if
such a medical treatise did exist, it has
been lost to us through the passage of time.
Scholars tentatively put his time somewhere
around three centuries before Christ and though
the date of the Yoga Sutra's composition
is also a controversial issue, place it within
that broad time frame.
Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, which outlines
the sovereign path of Raja
Yoga, is composed of a total of 195
sutras or aphorisms. These sutras
are structured around four padas or
chapters:
•
Samadhi Pada,
• Sadhana Pada,
• Vibhuti Pada
and
• Kaivalya Pada.
Unlike
Western theoretical texts, which are often
self-explanatory, Indian classical texts are
mostly composed in the form of extremely terse
and self-contained aphorisms or sutras.
Sutras literally mean 'threads'—the
idea being that each individual blossoms of
thought are bound together to form the eventual
wreath of a complex philosophy. Such pithy
aphorisms, by their very nature invite a host
of commentaries and annotations for their
appropriate comprehension by the average learner—and
that has been the tradition of ancient Indian
scholasticism.
In this case, the six basic commentaries on
the Yoga Sutra are:
•
Yoga Bhashya by Vyasa,
• Tattva-Vaisharadi
by Vachaspati Mishra,
• Yoga-Varttika by
Vijnana Bhikshu,
• Raja-Martanda by
Bhojaraja,
• Bhasvati by Hariharananda
Aranya and
• Patanjala-Rahasya
by Raghavananda Saraswati.
Beside
these, there exist a number of tikas
or expositions on this exemplary text.
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