6. The eight-limbed yoga system of Patanjali (c. 250 CE)

The best-known text on yoga is the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, in which is to be found the ashtanga ('eight-subsidiary'/'eight-limbed') yoga system. The Yoga Sutra has 195 verses, which are divided into four sections (padas).

About 1500 CE, a system of six orthodox, philosophical views (darshanas) was formulated by Brahmans; the yoga system was included, paired with the Samkhya system of philosophy, which essentially posits a fundamental distinction between what might be called the constituents of consciousness (which includes the external world), and a faculty of pure awareness that observes those constituents.

It should be emphasized that in the Indian philosophical tradition, maintaining a particular philosophy was traditionally not a merely abstract exercise: it also entailed adopting a particular way of life associated with the system, which included specific rules of diet and dress.

The Yoga Sutra is believed to have been composed around 250 CE, and is traditionally studied with the most important of its commentaries, the Yoga Sutra Bhashya of Vyasa (c. 500/600 CE).

Other influential commentaries were written by Vacaspati Mishra (c. 850 CE), King Bhoja (c. 1050 CE), and Vijnana Bhikshu (c. 1550 CE). Pantanjali was possibly not the author of the Yoga Sutra, but may perhaps have been a compiler of popular aphorisms on yoga. It is only in the tenth century CE that the Yoga Sutra is first attributed to Patanjali (3).

Very little is known about Patanjali. Almost certainly another Patanjali (c. 250 BCE) composed a work on grammar; and another Patanjali was the author in probably the eleventh century of manuals of temple ritual at the south Indian Nataraja temple at Chidambaram.

Although Patanjali's ashtanga yoga system is sometimes equated with raja yoga ('royal'/’best' yoga), the term raja yoga does not appear in the Yoga Sutra.

Some scholars believe that the section in the Yoga Sutra detailing the eight limbs (II.29) could be a quotation or a later interpolation into the original text (4).

It is possible that the Yoga Sutra was originally a commentary on a six-limbed yoga system, which is common to both Brahmanical and Tantric Buddhist traditions. Most of the six-limbed systems lack the first three angas (yama, niyama, asana), and introduce tarka ('reason/'logic') in Brahmanical systems, or anusmrti ('remember'/'recollect') in the Buddhist Tantras (5).

However, the Yoga Sutra that has come down to us presents a coherent and integrated system that presents a defined path of practice.

At II.29 in the sutra, Patanjali lists the eight limbs: "yama-niyama-asana-pranayama-pratyahara-dharana-dhyana-samadhi...".

External limbs: 1. yama (‘restraints’), 2. niyama (‘observances’), 3. asana (‘posture’),
4. pranayama (‘breath control’), 5. pratyahara (‘withdrawal of senses’).

Internal limbs: [= samyama yoga (‘yoga of self-control’)]: 6. dharana ('concentration on an object'), 7. dhyana (‘meditation’), 8. samadhi (‘trance’).

(For a summary of the eight limbs and the main concepts of the Yoga Sutra, see the page on Patanjali's yoga system.)

Patanjali defines yoga in the second verse of the sutra: "Yoga is the cessation of the vrttis ('fluctuations'/'’turnings'/'modifications') of the mind". By practising what amounts to moral virtues (yamas and niyamas) as a prerequisite, restraining the senses (pratyahara), and by sitting still and comfortably, which assists control (and, ultimately, stopping nirodha) of the breath (pranayama), mental activity may cease, eventually resulting in the uncovering of the shining of the inner light and samadhi (which might be best translated as 'trance' or 'enstasy'); this may lead to liberation, which Patanjali calls kaivalya ('alone-ness').

One-pointed concentration (ekagraha) can eliminate the distractions of consciousness, caused by sense impressions and unconscious influences from the previously acquired or inherited tendencies (samskaras) of consciousness. Patanjali defines kriya yoga (II.1) as comprising asceticism (tapas), self-study and devotion to the Lord (ishvarapranidana).

Two significant features of the Yoga Sutra may be noted. Firstly, although asana ('posture') is one of eight limbs of Patanjali's system, the term asana only occurs twice in the sutra: at II.29, in a list of the eight limbs; and then at II.46, where there is a comment that asana should be 'steady and comfortable' (sthira-sukham-asanam). (Also in the classical Upanishads, asana does not feature as a yogic practice.)

Although the Yoga Sutra does not mention postures, Vyasa, in the earliest available commentary (c. 500–700 CE) on the Yoga Sutra, lists eleven postures that may aid sitting steadily and comfortably.

Secondly, about a quarter of the Yoga Sutra is devoted to siddhis (‘attainments’) or
vibhutis (‘supernatural powers’). The third section of the Yoga Sutra (the Vibhuti Pada) summarises the vibhutis, which include, amongst others: knowledge of previous births (III.18); knowledge of another's consciousness (III.19); invisibility (III.21); knowledge of the world, the sun, the stars and their movement of planets (III.26–28); the non-adhesion to water, mud or thorns (III.39); traversing the ether (III.42); mastery over the elements (III.44); and the perfection of the body and the indestructibility of its constituents (III.45).

Supernatural powers are not necessarily a distraction from the practice of yoga, but are a by-product of it. At III. 37, Patanjali says: "In samadhi these [supernatural] powers are epiphenomena (or, possibly, obstacles, upasargas) in ordinary awareness.

However, in this remark, Patanjali is not referring to all of the powers, but only to the experiences mentioned in the two previous verses: knowledge of the self, and flashes of sensory illumination. Patanjali also states (IV.1) that supernatural powers may be the result of birth, [ingesting] herbs, mantra-recitation, asceticism or enstasy.

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