Patanjali c. 200 AD – c. 250 AD

Patanjali was the Indian sage to whom the Yoga Sutras, the foundational text of the Yoga school of Indian philosophy, are attributed. The Sutras present a concise and systematic account of the practice and goal of yoga, defined at the outset as the stilling of the fluctuations of consciousness. Drawing on the Samkhya metaphysics of two ultimate principles, purusha and prakriti, the work outlines an eightfold path of ethical discipline, posture, breath control, withdrawal of the senses, and progressive states of meditative absorption. The text remains the touchstone of classical Yoga to this day.

Patanjali is the traditional name attached to the author of the Yoga Sutras, the foundational text of classical yoga. Indian tradition has often identified him with the grammarian Patanjali of the Mahabhashya commentary on Panini, but most modern scholarship treats them as distinct figures and dates the Yoga Sutras between roughly the second century BC and the fourth century AD. Of the historical individual almost nothing reliable is known.

The Yoga Sutras consist of 196 short aphorisms in four chapters: on samadhi or contemplative absorption, on the means of practice, on the supernormal powers, and on liberation. The text takes the metaphysical framework of Samkhya — the dualism of consciousness (purusha) and primal matter (prakriti) — and turns it into a practical psychology of mental cultivation. The classical commentary by Vyasa, the Yoga Bhashya, is the standard companion.

Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga — yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi — gave the tradition its enduring map of disciplined practice, and the Yoga Sutras have become, alongside the Bhagavad Gita, the most widely translated philosophical text of India. Through medieval Yoga schools and the modern global yoga movement, his influence is felt far beyond the Indian subcontinent.