Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

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Foreword The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are the standard Text on Yoga and these Sutras constitute a philosophy as well as a practical technique of meditation. The present edition is a result of the labour of love extended by Dr. Sita Nambiar, a recognised scholar in Sanskrit literature and Indian philosophy. The author has carefully selected relevant Sutras from the original Text and has given her annotations which are highly useful to beginners seeking, to gain knowledge of this majestic production of Sage Patanjali, which is one of the Six Darshanas or systems of philosophy in India.

Here I would like to mention that Sutras I. 17 "Vitarkavicharananda-smitarupanugamat samprajnatah," and III. 42 "Bahirakalpita vrittih mahavideha tatah prakashavarnakshayah" are not properly explained by commentators who mostly gloss over these Sutras with a few words of remark as if the whole thing is very clear. I feel that these two Sutras are the high watermark of the meditational technique, the meaning of which cannot be understood by mere intellectual scholarship.

Introduction "He who removed the impurities of the mind by (the teaching of) Yoga, of speech by (his exposition of) Grammar and of the body by (composing his treatise on the science of medicine) unto that doyen of sages, I bow with joined hands."

This verse shows that the author of the above mentioned three treatises is one and, the same Patanjali. This view is not well established. When Patanjali lived is also not known. Scholars guess that Patanjali wrote the Yoga Sutras somewhere between 4th C.B.C. and 4th C.A.D. The Yoga doctrine was known to the authors of the Upanishads much before Patanjali. Patanjali perhaps restated them in the sutra form and gave a philosophy of his own. His philosophy is dualistic. But modern scholars like Swami Vivekananda and Swami Krishnananda from their own experience perhaps, say that in its ultimate stage the experience is non-dualistic only. According to them the Ultimate Consciousness is only one. There cannot be a Purusha separate from the other Purushas and separate from Prakriti.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages