Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Yogasutra
The mind's habitual fluctuations can be systematically stilled through an eight-limbed discipline of ethical restraint, posture, breath control, and meditative absorption, and this stilling, not belief or ritual, reveals the true, separate nature of consciousness.
- yoga defined as stilling the fluctuations of the mind
- the eight limbs (ashtanga) of yogic discipline
- builds on Samkhya dualism of consciousness and matter
- compiler's identity and date both unresolved
A terse collection of about 195 aphorisms in four chapters, foundational to the classical Yoga school, building on the older Samkhya school's dualism of consciousness (purusha) and matter (prakriti) while adding a practical discipline for realizing it. It opens by defining yoga as 'the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind' and lays out the eight limbs (ashtanga) of practice, from ethical restraint through concentration to absorption. Both the date and the identity of its compiler are unresolved; some scholars doubt he is the grammarian who commented on Panini. Its place of composition, like its compiler's identity, is genuinely unknown.
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