{"id":8562,"date":"2026-08-26T05:16:40","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T05:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/?p=8562"},"modified":"2026-09-04T13:50:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T13:50:37","slug":"classical-era-patanjali-yoga-sutras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/classical-era-patanjali-yoga-sutras\/","title":{"rendered":"The Classical Era of Yoga: Pata\u00f1jali’s Yoga S\u016btras"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What makes the classical era a turning point?<\/h2>\n

Because here, for the first time, yoga ceases to be a loose collection of practices and becomes a system.<\/strong> What had lain scattered for centuries across hymns, asceticism and poetry now receives an order, a structure and a declared goal.<\/p>\n

Previously we looked at the pre-classical era with the \u015arama\u1e47as and the Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Building on S\u0101\u1e43khya and Buddhist influences, yoga as we know it today began to develop as an independent philosophy. The S\u0101\u1e43khya, whose philosophy shared many similarities with yoga, differed primarily in that \u2013 like the Buddhists \u2013 they were atheistic and rejected the existence of a para-puru\u1e63a, \u012b\u015bvara, that is, God.<\/p>\n

Yoga, by contrast, took a distinct path as a theistic philosophy<\/strong> and accepted devotion to a personal God as one way towards sam\u0101dhi.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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What is written in Pata\u00f1jali's Yoga S\u016btras?<\/h2>\n

Pata\u00f1jali created what is probably the most significant work for yoga as we know it today \u2013 the Yoga S\u016btras. These s\u016btras (meaning \"thread\") are a guide along the path of R\u0101ja Yoga, mentioned earlier in the Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101. Broadly, the s\u016btras describe what yoga is, its path and its practice, and beyond that the mystery of reality.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the second chapter \u2013 the most important one for us \u2013 Pata\u00f1jali refers to the yogic discipline of tapas (literally \"heat\") as the force capable of awakening Kriy\u0101\u015bakti, the power of action. This Kriy\u0101\u015bakti is the precondition for overcoming the causes of suffering (kle\u015bas) and reaching sam\u0101dhi.<\/strong> Tapas refers back to that spirit of complete sacrifice practised by the \u015arama\u1e47as. In a sense, Pata\u00f1jali Yoga is a refined further development of the ascetic \u015arama\u1e47a traditions.<\/p>\n

In the chapter S\u0101dhana-P\u0101da (chapter 2 of the Yoga S\u016btras), Pata\u00f1jali explains eight consecutive stages of self-knowledge as the eight limbs of yoga. Within this system, self-knowledge is attained through the gradual development of discernment (viveka), which can distinguish between the world and its unchanging eternal perceiver.<\/p>\n

Because Pata\u00f1jali's yoga emphasises the eight (a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga) limbs as stages of insight, it is often regarded as Ashtanga Yoga. The Tantras, which arose some 500\u2013800 years later, absorbed these teachings into their corpus and developed them further into what we know today as Hatha Yoga (the yoga of force).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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What are the eight limbs of yoga?<\/h2>\n

The eight limbs (a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga) are Pata\u00f1jali's answer to the question of how a person arrives, step by step, at self-knowledge: yama<\/strong> (how we meet others), niyama<\/strong> (how we meet ourselves), \u0101sana<\/strong> (seat\/posture), pr\u0101\u1e47\u0101y\u0101ma<\/strong> (breath), praty\u0101h\u0101ra<\/strong> (withdrawal of the senses), dh\u0101ra\u1e47\u0101<\/strong> (concentration), dhy\u0101na<\/strong> (meditation) and sam\u0101dhi<\/strong> (absorption).<\/p>\n

What stands out is how little space physical posture occupies:<\/strong> \u0101sana is only one of eight limbs, and Pata\u00f1jali describes it with remarkable brevity. What is commonly called \"yoga\" in the West today is, in a sense, one eighth of what he meant. How these eight limbs work together in a contemporary practice is a central theme of our yoga teacher training<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Ignorance can be removed by cultivating an uninterrupted discernment between consciousness and the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

P\u0101ta\u00f1jala-Yoga-\u015a\u0101stra (2:26)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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What are the Upanishads?<\/h2>\n

The Upanishads are an essential part of the Vedic tradition and are often described as its conclusion \u2013 the Ved\u0101nta, as the philosophy of the Upanishads is called. There are 108 significant Upanishads forming the canon Muktik\u0101, the collection of freedom. The term Upani\u1e63ad derives from the word upade\u015ba, meaning \"teacher\"<\/strong>, indicating that the teachings within them are living and active.<\/p>\n

The very first Upanishad to name yoga as we use the word today was the Ka\u1e6dhopani\u1e63ad, written around 300 BCE. Like the earlier Vedas it uses the image of the chariot to represent the person striving for liberation. In this image, the person standing in the chariot is the \u0101tman, the soul. The buddhi, or intellect, is the charioteer, and the mind (m\u0101nas) is represented by the reins. This mind controls the senses (indriya), which are the horses, and the object of the senses is the very road they travel.<\/p>\n

The Ka\u1e6dhopani\u1e63ad explains that it is yoga itself which tames this mind<\/strong>, so that the reins are held in the interest of the soul and the right path can be found.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Why does the image of the chariot keep returning?<\/h2>\n

Because it may be the clearest description of what yoga actually does. We already met it in the very first article of this series<\/a>, where the word yuj<\/em> denoted the yoking of chariot and horses \u2013 and here, centuries later, the same image reappears, now as a complete teaching.<\/p>\n

This recurrence is no accident. The image holds fast to the fact that yoga suppresses nothing, but guides.<\/strong> The horses are not killed, the senses not abolished. They are given a direction. This is precisely where the yogic path differs from the pure asceticism of the \u015arama\u1e47as.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Through this uninterrupted practice the Parichaya state is attained. V\u0101yu, through tireless practice together with the power of fire, awakens the Ku\u1e47\u1e0dalin\u012b and then enters the Su\u1e63umn\u0101 without interruption. When the Citta flows together with Pr\u0101\u1e47a into the Su\u1e63umn\u0101, consciousness reaches the high throne through the power of Pr\u0101\u1e47a.<\/p>\n

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Yoga-Tattva Upanishad (81\u201383)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In the next article the classical era continues \u2013 with the Tantras (\u0100gamas) and the worship of the divine.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Pata\u00f1jali’s Yoga S\u016btras, the eight limbs of yoga and the Upanishads \u2014 how yoga became a system in the classical era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized-de"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogamatsya.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}