Patanjali's
Yoga
Sutras
Yoga Meditation: The Ancient Vedic and Buddhist Translation
Table of Contents, Preface, & Introduction (below)
Endnotes Appendices Sources PDF (to download)
|
|
by Richard Jewell
TABLE of CONTENTS
(7-26)
PREFACE: (below): Three famed parts of the Sutras
including "30 Ways" to find the clear mind of samadhi
CHAPTER 1:
SAMADHI–THE
"CRYSTAL-CLEAR MIND”
Title & Sutras 1.01-1.03: What is yoga's goal?
1.04-1.11: Whirlpools--what are subtle energy forms?
1.12-1.16: Practice vs. old desires
1.17-1.22: Reaching for pure awareness or gnosis
1.23-1.29: The universal being, and saying its sound
1.30-1.40: Resolving blockages of the clear mind
CHAPTER 2-A:
KRIYA YOGA–"ACTION PSYCHOLOGY"
Title & Sutras 2.01-2.02: What is Kriya "action" Yoga?
2.03-2.09: What are major personality problems?
2.10-2.16: How can you handle these problems?
CHAPTER 2-B:
EIGHT-LIMBED ASTANGA YOGA–FIRST FIVE OUTER LIMBS
Title & Sutras 2.28-2.29: What are Astanga Yoga's eight limbs?
2.30-2.32: What are the first two, yamas and niyamas?
2.33-2.39: What are the yamas of ethical guidelines?
2.40-2.45: What are the niyamas of personal guidelines?
2.46-2.48: What is the third limb of asana (posture)?
2.49-2.53: What Is the fourth limb of pranayama (breathing)?
2.54-2.55: What is the fifth limb of pratyahara (sense control)?
CHAPTER 3-A:
EIGHT-LIMBED ASTANGA YOGA–LAST THREE INNER LIMBS
Title & Sutras 3.1-3.3: What are Astanga's final three Limbs?
3.04-3.08, Samyama: What do the final three Limbs do?
3.09-3.16, Parinama: What is the transformation to new vistas?
CHAPTER 3-B: SIDDHIS–SIDE EFFECTS (POWERS OF YOGA) (TBA)
CHAPTER 4: KAIVALYA OR INNER FREEDOM–THE PATH OF MASTERY (TBA)
ENDNOTES:
FOR CH. 1, 2-A, 2-B, & 3-A
APPENDIX:
A. Who was the author, Patanjali?
B. How should his sutras be interpreted?
E. How do you meditate after Ch. 4's dharma megha?
F. What is ultimate dharma megha?
---
Preface: Three Famous Features of the Yoga Sutras (17 July 2026)
The Yoga Sutras, written about 2000 years ago in India, was the first long guide solely about yoga meditation. Its three most famous features in this new millenium have become:
(1) How to gain samadhi or the "clear mind"--30 Ways shown below
(2) Ancient Astanga Yoga (“Eight-limbed” Yoga, like Buddha's 8-fold Path, Ch. 2-B & 3-A)
(3) The “supernatural powers” of yoga (Chapter 3-B, not yet published here).
The "30 Ways" are listed below for quick reference, with their chapter and sutra numbers.
Mental Focuses
1.2, 1.6-11, &
1.18-19: Calming
the waves of
thought, memory,
emotion,
and desire
1.12-16:
Avoiding waves
of thought,
memory, emotion,
and desire
1.17 (two
focuses): Logic
or insight
1.20 (two
focuses):
Remembering or
higher intuition
(gnosis)
1.35, 1.37 (two
focuses): A
physical or
mental object
1.38 (two
focuses): On a
dream or a
memory of blank,
dreamless sleep
1.43-45 (three
focuses): On
label-free
outer, inner, or
unformed objects
Psychological or
“Feelings”
Focuses
1.17: Joy
1.20 (two
focuses):
Assurance or
eager energy
1.21:
Cheerful strong
will
1.33 (four
focuses):
Empathy,
compassion,
rejoicing, and
seeing all
sides
2.1, 2.38, &
2.43 (one
focus): Burning
away
psychological
impurities
Spiritual
Focuses
1.16-17: Knowing
your True Self
(Atman, Spark of
God)
1.20: Samadhi
itself
(absorption)
1.23-1.25:
Yoking with the
External/Transcendent
Presence (God)
1.36: Seeing a
spiritual Light
1.39: Practices
from other
religions/spirituality
Physical-Body
Focuses
Sutras 1.27-29:
Humming/chanting
1.34: Breath
2.1, 2.38, &
2.43 (one
focus): Warming
or heating
exercise
---
Introduction: A
Practical
Classic
(10 July 2026)
About two thousand years ago, a Hindu sage in India named Patanjali (commonly, “puh-TAWN-juh-lee”) wrote the Yoga Sutras. His handbook describes how you can “yoga” or “yoke” to a higher state of Presence or your deepest inner Self by clearing your mind. The textbook drew on many ancient sources, Hindu and Buddhist, and started the yoga movement that spread from India into Southeast Asia in medieval and modern times. It still is hailed as a masterpiece of concise instructions for meditating.
Its author left little historical trace. We only know he probably lived sometime between 400 BCE - 400 CE.
Hindu tradition, however, suggests more: that Patanjali lived about 150 BCE in what is now the southeast Indian state of Tamil Nadu amidst rugged hills, winding rivers, and sandalwood forests. He first attained the pure awareness of samadhi (similar to Hindu moksha, Buddhist nirvana, and Zen satori) in an ancient temple in Tirupattur, about a week’s hike west of India's eastern coast on the Bay of Bengal, Pacific Ocean. He lived in a time when Hindu yoga was gaining popularity, and so was Mahayana Buddhism. According to an increasing number of scholars, up to half of his Sutras fit both Hindu and Buddhist scriptures.
Legend says he wrote each sutra on a palm leaf, then a common form of paper. Unfortunately, no ancient copy exists, just years or centuries of very careful memorization in chants. The first printed version that history records was handwritten c. 400 CE by a person named “Vyasa” (a word meaning “editor”), along with Vyasa’s own commentaries about the sutras. Scholars have argued since then about the dating of the Yoga Sutras and who wrote the 400 CE version we now have.
The standard versions of the Yoga Sutras contain 195 or 196 (depending on the edition) brief, pungent aphorisms in pure, clear, song-like Sanskrit chants. They were written specifically so that their sound aided memorization at a time when very few people could read or write. They are meant to develop your awareness so it can become ever clearer.
A special brilliance of the book is its precision. Patanjali’s sutras manage to summarize much of the Hindu wisdom about meditation that previously had been scattered—often vaguely—in such places as the Bhagavad Gita, in Buddhist teachings, and in even older scriptures such as the Rig Veda. In addition, while many of those earlier recommendations for a spiritual life demanded an almost harsh asceticism, Patanjali’s way—like Mahayana Buddhism developing then—is kinder and gentler.
Clearing the Mind
I discovered Patanjali’s book in my third year of college. In my first year, I had several strong experiences in meditation that no book on psychology or spirituality was able to explain. Then I read Chapter One of the Sutras and found I had intensely experienced Patanjali’s “clear mind.” During that six-week event and after, I saw little husks of ideas outside my head that looked like seeds. I learned that I could push them away or focus on them. When I did the latter, they blossomed in my head as ideas. I discovered that Patanjali described them precisely and called them “burnt seeds.” His descriptions of them were a relief and a revelation. Today, decades later, the sutras continue to explain many other practical elements in my inner life. Just three examples include Patanjali’s discussion of the psychological self and its multiple selves, his description of meditative physical bliss, and a more-practical version of Buddha’s Eightfold Path.
The basic thrust of the Yoga Sutras is that you can achieve an emptied awareness, and that doing so even in part will give you increased peace, mental strength, and joy. What is this “clear mind”? It is—when you wish—free of thoughts, memories, emotions, desires, and unwanted automatic habits. Following Patanjali’s instructions, you gradually dissolve what he calls negative, troubling, or repetitive “whirlings” or “stirrings” within you.
Patanjali offers about thirty methods for reaching this clarity. (See the “Table” at the beginning of this book for a complete list.) And he provides dozens of specific techniques, many of them like those of mystics around the world throughout time. They are practical psychological, physical, and ethical methods of focus and good habits to develop that make your path easier.
How is this translation different?
(1)
A
Buddhist-friendly
translation:
Most previous
translations and
commentaries,
from the first
in 400 CE
through the 20th
century, do not
recognize the
deep
contribution of
Mahayana
Buddhist
teachings to
this Hindu
textbook. In
fact, if
Patanjali
authored the
Sutras c.
150 BCE, many
cultures still
considered
Buddhism a part
of “school” of
Hinduism, and
Mahayana
Buddhism and
Hindu yoga
meditation
developed
together,
perhaps often as
one.
University
of California,
Santa Barbara,
USA’s David
Gordon White
says that the
Yoga Sutras
appear to have
been accepted by
some Buddhists
in Patanjali’s
time as part of
their religion.
He adds that
Patanjali’s
language “is
often closer
to…’Buddhist
Hybrid
Sanskrit’…than
to the classical
Sanskrit of
nearly every
Hindu scripture”
of that time.*
Pradeep
Gokhale of
Savitribai Phule
Pune University,
Pune, India,
argues that
“more than 50
per cent of the
Yogasutra’s
aphorisms can be
said to have a
background in
Buddhism.” He
adds that many
terms can be
“understood with
greater clarity”
using “their
Buddhist
background.”**
Karen
O’Brien-Kop,
University of
Roehampton, UK,
cites numerous
scholars who,
since 1900, have
offered new
linguistic and
historical
studies. They
point to the
Buddhist roots
of the Sutras.***
In short,
the Sutras,
for about
two thousand
years, have were
classified as a
strictly Hindu
work. However,
many of
its meditative
states are the
same as those in
Buddhism 2000
years ago.
(2) The absence of a later Samkhya-translation bias. Most existing translations of the Sutras are based on two parts: the first written version we have, from about 400 CE; and the separate but attached commentaries that accompanied it. However, according to many scholars and to meditative experiences, the translation and the commentaries differ substantially at times. This is because the translation itself depends on what likely is an older manuscript more dependent on Buddhist and early Hindu scriptural practical advice, while the accompanying commentaries come from a later—and different—type of Hindu belief system called Samkhya. Sometimes the difference can be startling.
O’Brien-Kop, for example, repeats a question asked by one of her sources: “[W]hy [do the Yoga Sutras] contain so few Samkhya terms and so many that are apparently Buddhist” (7)? And she suggests from another source that it is even possible the Sutras may have been “mostly written by a Buddhist author” (6). Gokhale believes that Patanjali in his sutras, and the commentary writer in his analysis, have not “conceptualized yoga in the same way” (9).
Yet almost all current translations, ancient, medieval, and modern, use the commentator’s non-Buddhist, Samkhya-philosophy approach. In addition, this Samkhya interpretation often changes the almost entirely practical lessons into abstract ideas. The result in most future translations is not only less emphasis on experiences, but a lessening of the inherent joy in many of them.
(3) A "close reading." This version also performs what is called in literary studies a “close reading” In scriptural studies it is called “form criticism.” This method here involves comparing the Yoga Sutras’ uses of words, phrases, and sentences to similar texts of that time and earlier. In this case, the technique emphasizes root meanings of ancient Sanskrit words from the oldest scripture in particular, the Rig Veda, even older Indo-European oral sources, and Buddhist texts of the time.
(4) Six steps. Many translations offer just a quick translation of the sutras with short explanations. This translation offers six steps so that readers may discover the inner meanings in as simple or complex a way as desired:
Six Steps
The sutra itself: in Anglicized Sanskrit
Literal translation: English, in the same order of words as the Sanskrit
The Basic Meaning: A modern restatement
A Chant: A brief, songlike chant in early 21st-century English
Extended definition: What ancient texts and scholars say
Additional Comment: Comparisons to Eastern and Western yoga meditators’ experiences, and to modern psychology and science
In addition, close reading reveals that Patanjali chose raw, direct, and practical phrases that often use nature and simple rural and agricultural metaphors. For example, he talks of an important inner transition in meditating as “going around the bend of a river into sunlight.” In another, he writes about cultivating good plants, and digging up the weeds, in one’s own personality.
Patanjali’s writing style, in fact, suggests that he always kept his audience firmly in mind. He not only develops a brilliant summary of meditation and crafts it into beautiful chants; he also names the steps to a clear mind using simple but vivid metaphors that many plain-spoken seekers in his society would understand.
One special example of this is one of the most important words in his sutras: the Sanskrit vrtti or vritti. The original root means “swirl.” Patanjali uses it to describe how thoughts, memories, and images “swirl” in and around the mind like whirlpools in a river or whirlwinds in the air. These descriptions mirror how eddies of thoughts, feelings, and habits often appear in meditation. Many translators change vrtti to abstract or philosophical terms such as “mental modifications,” “changing states of the mind,” and “fluctuations,” all them paling in comparison to the real experience of feeling caught in a small or big whirlwind of thought or emotion.
In addition, consideration of Patanjali’s own meditation experiences solves another puzzle with which many translators have grappled: the order of his lessons. Some have argued that they jump back and forth between simple and advanced methods. However, as an adept and teacher, Patanjali ordered them according to the level of students. Chapter 1 introduces a variety of ways to start meditating. Chapter 2 offers more specifics in what can get in the way psychologically of good meditation, and how to improve your lifestyle to make meditating more successful. Chapter 3 explains and warns about experiences in deeper meditation called the “powers” that can happen—and that may sidetrack you. And chapter 4 provides further advice for advanced practitioners. He intended meditators to use the book for a lifetime.
Conclusion
The Yoga Sutras deservedly is ranked among the world’s classics of perennial-wisdom literature. Patanjali crafts poetically vivid images, sounds, and feelings as he lays out an architectural vision of meditation experiences in practical psychological terms. And when he is correctly interpreted, his words resound not in ascetic pain and withdrawal but rather with humor, caring, and joy.
Updated 10 July 2026
|
Sanskrit Text: Patanjali, c. 400 BCE-400 CE English Text © 2026 by Richard Jewell. 1st online edition Photographs © 2026 by Richard Jewell (except as noted) Contact: richard.jewell.net/contact.htm. - Free Use Policy Natural URL: https://www.richardjewell.org/YogaSutras/default.htm See other works by Richard at RichardJewell.org/Meditation |
About the Author |
|
11-17.png)