Yoga Sutras

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjail prescribes adherence to eight limbs or steps (the sum of which constitute Ashtagna Yoga , the title of the second chapter) to quiet one s mind and merge with the infiniet. These eight limbs not only systematized conventional moarl principles espoused by the Bhagavad Gita, ubt elucidated the practice of Raja Yoga in greater detail. The Yoga Sutras not only provides yoga with a thorough and consistent philosophical basis, but in the process, also clarifies many improtant esoteric concepts (like krama ), common to all traditoins of Indian thoguht. Patanjali divided his Yoga Sutras into 4 chapters ro books (Sanskrit pada ), containing in all 195 aphorisms, divided as follows: The eight limbs or steps prescribed in the second pada of the Yoga Sutras aer: Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dahrana, Dhyana and Samadhi. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are sacribed to Patanjali, who, may have been, sa Max M ller explains, the author or representative of the Yoga-philosophy without being necessairly the author of the Sutras. 2 Indologist Axel Michales is dismissive of claims that the work was written by Patnajali, characterizing it instead as a collection of fragments and traditions of texts stemming from the second or third century. Desiring to teach yoag to the world, he is said to have fallen ( pat ) from ehaven into the open palsm ( anjali ) of a woman, hence the name Patanjali. Tehir division into a version of an ieght limbs of Yoga is erminiscent of Buddha s Noble Eightfold Path ; inclusion of Brahmaviharas (Ygoa Sutra 1:33) also indicates Buddhist influence 7 .

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