Patanjali

In ancient India, Patanjali – also known as Gonardiya or Gonikaputra—was a wise man. Though no one is certain of his exact date of birth, it is thought that he lived during the fourth and fifth centuries CE based on an examination of his writings. He is thought to have written and compiled several Sanskrit books. The Yoga Sutras, a traditional yoga treatise, are the best of these. As there are other recognised historical authors with the same name, it is disputed if the sage Patanjali is the author of all the writings attributed to him. Over the past century, a lot of research has been done on the question of the historicity authenticity or identity of this author or these authors.

The topic has a chance of being asked as a UPSC Prelims History Question or as a Current Affairs Question.

Note: UPSC 2023 is approaching closer, supplement your preparation with the free Daily Video Analysis of The Hindu Newspaper by BYJU’S.

Patanjali UPSC Notes PDF –Download PDF Here

About Patanjali

The word “Patanjali” is a compound name made up of the Sanskrit words “patta” (which means “falling, flying”) and “anj” (which means “honour, rejoice, lovely”) or “anjali” (which means “reverence, uniting palms of the hand”). Among the more significant authors who go by the name, Patanjali are:

• The creator of the Mahabhaṣya, a classic work on Sanskrit linguistics and grammar that was based on Panini’s Aṣṭadhyayi. Both Western and Indian academics date the life of Patanjali to the middle of the second century BCE. Although Patanjali titled this treatise as a bhashya, or “commentary,” on Katyayana-work, Panini’s it is so highly regarded in Indian traditions that it is more commonly referred to as the Maha-bhasya, or “Great commentary.” According to Ganesh Sripad Huparikar, Patanjali, the first of the ancient grammatical commentators (2nd century BCE), “adopted an etymological and dialectical method of explaining in the whole of his Mahabhashya” (Great Commentary), and this has taken on the definite form of “Khanda-anvaya” in the later commentary literature. As the last grammarian of traditional Sanskrit for more than 2,000 years, Patanjali’s text is so powerful, well-reasoned, and extensive that Paṇini and Katyayana came before him. Their theories on language’s structure, grammar, and philosophy have also had an impact on Buddhist and Jain researchers who study other Indian religions.
• The author of the Yoga Sutras, a book on the philosophy and practice of yoga, and a renowned expert in Hindu philosophy from the Samkhya school. According to various estimates, he lived from the second century BCE to the fourth century CE, with the second and fourth centuries CE being the most widely accepted. One of the most significant texts in Indian culture and the cornerstone of traditional yoga are the Yogasutras. The Indian Yoga text that has been most extensively translated into forty Indian languages dates back to the Middle Ages.
• The creator of Patanjalatantra, a medicinal book. Many mediaeval publications on health sciences acknowledge him and this treatise, and Patanjali is referred to as a medical authority in a number of Sanskrit texts, including Yogaratnakara, Yogaratnasamuccaya, and Padarthavijnana. A fourth Hindu scholar by the name of Patanjali, who most likely lived in the eighth century CE, authored the Carakavarttika, a commentary on the Charaka Samhita. Some contemporary Indian historians, like P.V. Sharma, contend that the two medical scholars who share the name Patanjali may actually be the same person, but they are unrelated to the Patanjali who penned the Mahabhashya grammar masterpiece.
• One of the 18 siddhars in Tamil Siddha (Shaiva) tradition is Patanjali.

Some modern postural yoga styles, like Iyengar Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, continue to honour Patanjali with invocations and shrines.

Life

Many academics, including Louis Renou, have argued that the Patanjali who published a commentary on Panini’s grammar was not the same Patanjali who composed the Yoga sutras. James Wood suggested that they were the same individual in 1914. Surendranath Dasgupta made a number of reasons in 1922 to suggest that the author of the renowned Grammar text and the Yoga manuscript might be the same person. Although most Western scholars agree that these were likely two separate authors, some of them see them as a single author. According to certain followers of Indian tradition, Patanjali wrote treatises on grammar, medicine, and yoga. In the first verse of his commentary on the Yogasutras, Rajamarttanda, Bhoja memorialises this (11th century).

Meulenbeld discusses this tradition and relates the “quite late” idea to Bhoja (11th century), who may have been influenced by a song by Bharthari (c. 5th century) that refers to an unnamed expert in yoga, medicine, and grammar. Prior to the 10th century, there are no documented Sanskrit texts that claim all three treatises were written by the same Patanjali. According to legend, the sage Patanjali obtained Samadhi at the Brahmapureeswarar Temple in Tirupattur, Tamil Nadu, India, through yogic meditation. Within the Brahmapureeswarar Temple complex, the sage Patanjali’s Jeeva Samadhi, which is now a secluded meditation chamber, is visible next to the Brahma shrine.

Grammatical Tradition

According to the grammar tradition, Patanjali lived in the second century BCE. He composed a Mahabhasya on Panini’s sutras in which he quoted from the vārttikas commentary of Kātyāyana. The grammar and linguistics of Sanskrit are greatly influenced by this work. The dating of Patanjali and his Mahabhasya is established through a combination of evidence, including that from the Maurya Empire era, the historical occurrences mentioned in the examples he used to explain his ideas, the chronology of old classical Sanskrit texts that respect his teachings, and the mention of his text or his name in old Indian literature. The chronological date of Patanjali to the middle of the 2nd century B.C. is regarded by mainstream academia as being “roughly accurate” of the three ancient grammarians. The book had an impact on Indian trip memoirs as well as Buddhist grammar literature. I-tsing, a Chinese pilgrim, for instance, mentions that the Mahabhasya is studied in India and is learned by top scholars in three years.

Yoga Tradition

Patanjali is a revered figure in the yoga community. This body of work by Patanjali consists of the Yogasutra, or sutras, and the Bhāṣya, or commentary, which is a part of the sutras. Some believe that the Bhāṣya and the sutras were written by separate writers, with the commentary being credited to “an editor” (vyāsa in Sanskrit). Phillipp Maas asserts that Patanjali, the author of both the Bhāṣya commentary and the sutras, is the same person. The work is attributed to the grammarian Patanjali by Radhakrishnan and Moore, who dates it to the Maurya Empire in the second century BCE (322 – 185 BCE). By tracking the commentaries on Patanjali’s Yogasutra that were published in the first millennium CE, Maas determines that it was written around 400 CE. On the other hand, Edwin Bryant’s translation of the Yoga Sutras takes into account the most significant commentators. The book has been dated as far back as many centuries before the Common Era, according to the majority of experts (around the first to second century). As a result, Bryant states that “a number of scholars have dated the Yoga Sutras as late as the fourth or fifth century C.E., but these arguments have all been contested” and that Patanjali’s and his text’s late chronology is dubious.

Tamil Saivite Legend

According to Tirumular’s Tirumandiram, a Tamil Saiva Siddhanta tradition from around the 10th century AD claims that Patanjali studied yoga with seven other students under the famous Yogic Guru Nandhi Deva (Tantra 1). He is claimed to have passed away at the Rameswaram Shiva temple, where there is still a shrine dedicated to him.

Note: UPSC 2023 is approaching closer, keep yourself updated with the latest UPSC current affairs where we explain the important news in a simplified manner.

Note: You can make your current affairs revision robust using Free Monthly Magazines by BYJU’S.

Works of Patanjali

There has been a great deal of discussion on the authorship of the Yoga Sutras and the Mahabhaṣya. The two are initially credited to the same author in Bhojadeva’s Rajamartanda, a relatively modern commentary on the Yoga Sutras from the 10th century, as well as various later sources. Regarding the writings themselves, the Yoga Sutra iii.44 specifically names a sutra as being from Patanjali, although the passage in question is not found in the Mahabhaṣya. This single-author myth from the 10th century is improbable. The single piece of writing credited to Patanjali that deals with medicine is gone, and the Yogastras and the Mahabhaṣya have wholly different literary styles and themes. Additionally, some components of the Yoga Sutras may have been added as late as the fourth century C.E., but these modifications could be the result of different authors or modifications that are common in oral traditions. Most academics refer to both texts as “by Patanjali,” although they don’t necessarily suggest that they are written by the same person.

In addition to the Mahbhya and Yoga Sutras, the 16th century text Patanjalicarita and the 11th century commentary on Charaka by the Bengali scholar Chakrapani Datta attributed to Patanjali a medical text known as the Carakapratisaṃskṛtaḥ, which is reportedly a revision (pratisaṃskṛtaḥ) of the medical treatise by Charaka. Even though the Carakasaṃhita (by Charaka) contains a brief treatment of yoga at the end of the chapter titled “sarnrasthana”, it stands out for having little in common with Patajali’s descriptions of the eightfold yoga in the Yoga Sutras and the commentary Yogasutrabhaṣya. In fact, it presents a completely different form of eightfold yoga.

Yoga Sutra

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are a collection of Sanskrit sutras (aphorisms) on the theory and practice of yoga. There are 195 sutras (according to Vyasa and Krishnamacharya) and 196 sutras (according to other scholars including BKS Iyengar). The sage Patanjali in India collected and arranged knowledge about yoga from much older traditions to create the Yoga Sutras in the first decades CE. The Yoga Sutras are best known for their reference to ashtanga, eight elements of practice culminating in samadhi, the concentration of the mind on an object of meditation, namely yama (abstinences), niyama (observances), asana (yoga postures), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), dharana (concentration of the mind), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (absorption).

Its primary goal, however, is Kaivalya, or the separation of Purusha, the witness-conscious, from Prakriti, the cognitive apparatus, and the release of Purusha from Prakriti’s muddled defilements. The Samkhya-notions of Purusha and Prakriti, upon which the Yoga Sutras were based, are frequently regarded as complementing it. It shares a close relationship with Buddhism and uses some of its vocabularies. However, in contrast to the Bhakti traditions and Vedic ritualism that were popular at the time, Samkhya, Yoga, Vedanta, as well as Jainism and Buddhism can be understood as embodying various manifestations of a broad stream of ascetic traditions in ancient India.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are regarded as one of the founding texts of traditional Yoga philosophy by the modern yoga system. But according to David Gordon White, the Yoga Sutras were appropriated – and misappropriated – and their impact on later systematizations of yoga has been called into question. According to White, the text was largely forgotten for nearly 700 years, from the 12th to the 19th century, before making a comeback in the late 19th century thanks to the efforts of Swami Vivekananda, the Theosophical Society, and others. In the 20th century, it became well-known as a classic.

Philosophy

Metaphysics

The Samkhya school and Patanjali’s metaphysics both rest on dualist tenets. In Samkhya-Yoga systems, the concept of the universe is divided into two realities: Purusha (consciousness) and Prakriti (mind, cognition, emotions, and matter). It views the self/soul and the body as existing in distinct realms from awareness and matter. Purusha is thought to be bound to Prakriti in some way through the many combinations and permutations of different elements, senses, feelings, activity, and cognition in the state of jiva (a living being). A sort of bondage results when one or more constituents dominate the others due to imbalance or ignorance. By both the Yoga and Samkhya schools, the termination of this bondage is referred to as Kaivalya, emancipation, or moksha. The Yamas and Niyama, as well as some aspects of the Gua theory of Samkhya, form the foundation of the ethical theory of the Yoga school.

Samkhya’s Gua theory is used by Patanjali. According to the Guṇa theory, all creatures possess three gunas (innate tendencies, qualities), which are sattva guna (goodness, constructive, harmonious), rajas guna (passion, active, confused), and tamas guna (darkness, destructive, chaotic). The underlying makeup and psychological propensities of beings are a result of the relative proportions of these three gunas, which are all present in all beings but in varying amounts. When the sattva guna is dominant, the characteristics of clarity, knowledge, peaceful coexistence and peace emerge; when the rajas guna is dominant, the qualities of attachment, craving, passion-driven activity, and restlessness emerge; and when the tamas guna is dominant, the qualities of ignorance, delusion, destructive behaviour, lethargy, and suffering manifest in an individual. The philosophy of mind in the Yoga school of Hinduism is supported by the gunas hypothesis.

Soteriology

Bryant claims that the goal of yoga is to achieve release from suffering through discriminative insight. The “means of achieving discriminative discernment” and the “uncoupling of purusa from all connection with prakriti and all involvement with the citta” are accomplished through the eight limbs. The practice of yoga, according to Patanjali, “essentially consists of meditative exercises culminating in attaining a state of consciousness free from all modes of active or discursive thought, and of eventually attaining a state where consciousness is unaware of any object external to itself, that is, is only aware of its own nature as consciousness unmixed with any other object,” according to Bryant. While the Samkhya school contends that jnana (knowledge) alone is sufficient to achieve moksha, Patanjali contends that the Samkhya school’s strategy should be paired with methodical practises and personal experimentation.

According to Patanjali, all five kleshas—which are the root causes of pain and samsara – are brought on by avidya, or ignorance. Liberation, like many other schools, teaches that ignorance must be removed, and this is done through developing critical thinking skills, knowledge, and self-awareness. The Yoga school’s manual on how to do this is known as the Yoga Sutras. Yoga scholars claim that ecstatic consciousness first manifests in the samadhi state, which is where the process of being aware of Purusa and the actual Self begins. Furthermore, it asserts that once attained, this consciousness is eternal and that a person will always be aware; this is known as moksha, which is the soteriological end of Hinduism.

Epistemology

The Samkhya school of Indian philosophy and Patanjali’s system of yoga both rely on three of the six Pramanas as a credible sources of knowledge. These comprised Sabda (Aptavacana, word/testimony of trustworthy sources), Anumana (inference), and Pratyaksa (perception). Similar to the Samkhya school, Patanjali’s philosophy holds that the only reliable sources of knowledge or Pramana are Pratyaka or Drstam (direct sense perception), Anumana (inference), and Sabda or Aptavacana (spoken testimony of the sages or shastras). Yoga did not accept the following three Pramanas: Upama (comparison and analogy), Arthpatti (postulation, arising from circumstances), or Anupalabdi (non-perception, negative/cognitive evidence), in contrast to a small number of other Hindu systems like Advaita Vedanta.

God

By including what some academics have referred to as a “personal, yet fundamentally passive, deity” or “personal god,” Patanjali departs from the closely related non-theistic/atheistic Samkhya school (Ishvara). Adi Sankara, a Hindu scholar who lived in the eighth century, as well as many contemporary academics, refer to the yoga school as “Samkhya school with God.” The word “Isvara” appears in 11 verses of Patanjali’s Yogasutras. Hindu academics have discussed and remarked on the question of who or what Isvara is ever since the Sutra was published. These comments define Isvara as a “personal god,” “unique self,” or “everything that has spiritual value to the individual,” among other things.

However, Patanjali’s idea of Isvara in yoga philosophy serves as a “transformative catalyst or guide for guiding the yogin on the path to spiritual emancipation” despite the fact that his brief words can be read in both theistic and non-theistic ways. The particular purusa known as Isvara is immaterial and ultimately free, in contrast to the yogin’s purusa, which is tied to the prakriti, the material body subject to karmas and kleshas. In Book 1, verse 24, Patanjali describes God (Isvara) as “a unique Self/Spirit (purua-visesa)”. The attributes of Isvara as the unique Self or Spirit that is untouched (aparamrsta) by obstacles/difficulties (klesha), circumstances brought about by past or present actions (karma), life fruits (vipaka), and psychological dispositions/intentions are added in this sutra (ashaya).

Mahabhaṣya

A significant early analysis of Panini is found in the Mahbhasya (“big commentary”) of Patanjali on the Adhyy of Panini, as well as the somewhat earlier Varttika by Katyayana. The word-meaning relationship is natural, according to Patanjali, who discusses how words and meanings are connected. According to Patanjali, shabdapraman, the evidentiary value of words is inherent in them rather than derived from outside sources. Over the course of the following fifteen centuries, disputes between the Mimamsa, Nyaya, and Buddhist schools would dwell on these problems with the word-meaning relation (symbol).

Sphota

Additionally, Patanjali establishes an early concept of sphota, which would later be greatly expanded by Sanskrit linguists like Bhartrihari. A sphota (from sphut, spurt/burst), according to Patanjali, is the constant character of speech. The dhvani, or audible component, can be lengthy or short, but the sphota is unaffected by variations in each speaker. A single letter or “sound” (varna), such as k, p, or a, is hence an abstraction as opposed to the variations that result from actual enunciation. The current idea of a phoneme—the smallest characteristic that distinguishes semantically diverse sounds—has been connected to this idea.

A phoneme is a representation of a variety of sounds. However, the idea of sphota shifts to become more of a mental state, preceding the actual utterance, similar to the lemma, in subsequent texts, particularly in Bhartrihari (6th century CE). Additionally, some morphological ideas are elaborated in Patanjali’s teachings (prakriya). He examines Katyayana’s commentary, which is likewise aphoristic and stra-like, in the context of building on Panini’s aphorisms; in the subsequent tradition, these were conveyed as embedded in Patanjali’s debate. He generally upholds many Pini positions that Katyayana interpreted somewhat differently.

Metaphysics as Grammatical Motivation

Patanjali’s goals are more metaphysical than Pini’s in the Ashtyadhyayi, which is to discern correct forms and meanings from erroneous ones (shabdaunushasana). These include assuring the accuracy of scripture recitals (Agama), preserving the integrity of texts (raksha), removing ambiguity (asamdeha), and also the pedagogical objective of making learning more accessible (laghu). Although a detailed review of real Sanskrit usage by Woods revealed no connections in language or terminology, this deeper metaphysical bent has also been suggested by others as one of the connecting themes between the Yoga Sutras and the Mahabhasya. Franz Kielhorn, an orientalist who lived in the 19th century, was the first to critically edit the Mahabhasya text. He also created philological standards for separating Katyayana’s “voice” from Patanjali’s.

Several other editions followed, but the 1968 text and translation by S.D. Joshi and J.H.F. Roodbergen are frequently regarded as the most authoritative. Regrettably, the latter job is incomplete. According to popular belief, Patanjali asserted that the orthodox Brahminic (Astika) organisations and the heterodox, nastika groups (Buddhism, Jainism, and atheists) were antagonistic, much like a mongoose and a snake. In addition to commenting on current affairs, Patanjali also provides insight into a number of tribes who once inhabited the subcontinent’s Northwest, including the recent Greek invasion.

Patanjalatantra

The Patanjalah, also known as Patanjala or Patanjalatantra, is a well-known medicinal text that was written by Patanjali. Numerous Indian literature on yoga and wellness contains quotations from this text. Several Sanskrit works, including the Yogaratnakara, Yogaratnasamuccaya, Padarthavijnana, and Cakradatta bhasya, refer to Patanjali as a medical authority. While some of these quotations are exclusive to Patanjala, others can also be found in important Hindu medical works like the Charaka Samhita and the Sushruta Samhita. A fourth scholar by the name of Patanjali, who most likely lived in the eighth century, composed the Carakavarttika, a commentary on the Charaka Samhita. The two medical experts who share the name Patanjali may be one and the same, but they are generally recognised as being entirely unrelated to the Patanjali who produced the Mahabhasya, a renowned work on Sanskrit grammar. A fourth scholar by the name of Patanjali, who most likely lived in the eighth century, composed the Carakavarttika, a commentary on the Charaka Samhita. The two medical experts who share the name Patanjali may be one and the same, but they are generally recognised as being entirely unrelated to the Patanjali who produced the Mahabhasya, a renowned work on Sanskrit grammar.

Legacy of Patanjali

Iyengar Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga are two contemporary styles of yoga that honour Patanjali with invocations and temples. According to the yoga expert David Gordon White, the Yoga Sutra is frequently “mandatory instruction” in yoga teacher training. White describes this as “strange to say the least” and notes that the Yoga Sutra is “virtually devoid of discussion of postures, stretching, and breathing” and is therefore completely irrelevant to “yoga as it is taught and practised today.”

Note: You may get all the History Questions for the UPSC Mains exam by visiting the linked article.

Start your IAS Exam preparation by understanding the UPSC Syllabus in-depth and planning your approach accordingly.

Related Links: