Yoga Sutra · योग सूत्र
Compiled somewhere between the second century BCE and the fourth century CE, the Yoga Sutras are terse to the point of obscurity — sūtra means thread, and each line is meant to be unpacked by a teacher rather than read alone. Of the 196, exactly three concern physical posture.
Ashtanga · अष्टाङ्ग
Limbs, not steps — aṅga, the parts of a body, which grow together rather than in sequence. But the order is not arbitrary either: each one makes the next possible.
यम
How you treat everything that is not you
Five restraints, and the first limb for a reason: the text will not let you begin with posture. A person who is cruel and dishonest does not become less so by touching their toes.
Ahimsa — non-violence
अहिंसा
Not harming, in act, word or intention. Everything else in the list is a special case of this one.
Satya — truth
सत्य
Truthfulness — but subordinate to ahimsa. A truth told in order to wound is not satya.
Asteya — non-stealing
अस्तेय
Not taking what is not given. Includes time, credit and attention, not only property.
Brahmacharya — right use of energy
ब्रह्मचर्य
Often narrowed to celibacy; more accurately, not squandering vital energy on what does not matter.
Aparigraha — non-grasping
अपरिग्रह
Not hoarding, not clinging. The freedom of not needing to hold on to a result.
नियम
How you treat yourself
Five observances, turned inward. Where the yamas govern conduct toward others, the niyamas describe the daily habits that make a practitioner out of a person who practises occasionally.
Saucha — cleanliness
शौच
Of body, surroundings, food and thought. The shatkarmas of Hatha Yoga belong here.
Santosha — contentment
सन्तोष
Not resignation. The capacity to be at ease with what is, while still working.
Tapas — discipline
तपस्
Literally heat. The friction of doing the practice on the days you do not want to.
Svadhyaya — self-study
स्वाध्याय
Study of the texts, and of oneself — the two being harder to separate than they look.
Ishvara pranidhana — surrender
ईश्वरप्रणिधान
Offering the fruit of the action. Available to the devout and the sceptical alike, as letting go of outcome.
आसन
Steady and comfortable seat
Sthira sukham āsanam. Three words, and the whole of the physical practice unfolds from them. Note what is absent: no list of postures, no mention of flexibility, no suggestion that difficulty is the point. In Patanjali's text, asana is a seat you can hold long enough to forget about.
प्राणायाम
Extension of the life-force
Once posture is steady, the breath is regulated — that order is explicit and it matters. Pranayama practised in an unstable seat teaches the body to associate breath control with strain, which is the opposite of the intention.
प्रत्याहार
The senses turning inward
The hinge of the whole system: the first four limbs face outward, the last three face in, and this is the turn between them. Not blocking the senses but ceasing to be pulled by them — the tortoise drawing in its limbs, in the image the texts use.
धारणा
Binding attention to one place
Holding the mind on a single object — a point, a sound, the breath, the place where finger meets thumb. Attention will slip, repeatedly. Dharana is the returning, not the staying.
ध्यान
Unbroken flow of attention
When the returning is no longer needed — when attention flows toward the object continuously, like oil poured from one vessel to another. Dhyana cannot be done, only allowed. It is what dharana becomes.
समाधि
The observer and the observed, no longer two
The last limb, and the only one that cannot be practised. The three inner limbs together are called saṃyama, and Patanjali is careful never to promise samadhi as a result of technique — the first seven limbs remove what is in the way, and that is all technique can do.
Four padas
समाधि पाद
51 sutras
Opens with a definition and never improves on it: yoga is the settling of the movements of the mind. The chapter then describes what the mind does when it is not settled, the nine obstacles that keep it unsettled, and the two things that address them — abhyāsa, steady practice, and vairāgya, the willingness to let go of the result.
साधन पाद
55 sutras
The practical chapter, and the one most students actually live in. It names the five kleśas — the afflictions that cause suffering — and then lays out the eight limbs, of which asana gets exactly three words and pranayama not many more. The proportions tell you something about where the emphasis was meant to sit.
विभूति पाद
56 sutras
Describes the last three limbs — concentration, meditation and absorption — and then the siddhis, the powers said to arise along the way. Patanjali lists them at length and then, in a single sutra, calls them obstacles to samadhi. That reversal is the most quietly devastating line in the text.
कैवल्य पाद
34 sutras
The philosophical close. It deals with the nature of mind and perception, and with kaivalya — aloneness, in the sense of no longer being mixed up with what one is not. Shorter than the others, and the least often quoted, because it describes a place the reader has probably not reached.
Twelve sutras
Given in Devanagari with transliteration, a plain translation and a short note. These are the sutras a student is most likely to be given first, and the ones most often quoted out of context.
योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः
yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ
Yoga is the settling of the movements of the mind.
The definition, given second and never revised. Note nirodha — a settling or stilling, not a suppression. The mind is not to be beaten into silence.
तदा द्रष्टुः स्वरूपेऽवस्थानम्
tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe'vasthānam
Then the seer rests in its own nature.
The reward for the settling is not a new state but the absence of interference. Nothing is gained; something stops being obscured.
अभ्यासवैराग्याभ्यां तन्निरोधः
abhyāsa-vairāgyābhyāṃ tan-nirodhaḥ
That settling comes through practice and non-attachment.
Two wings, and the text insists on both. Practice without letting go becomes grasping; letting go without practice becomes drift.
स तु दीर्घकालनैरन्तर्यसत्कारासेवितो दृढभूमिः
sa tu dīrgha-kāla-nairantarya-satkārāsevito dṛḍha-bhūmiḥ
Practice becomes firmly grounded when attended to for a long time, without break, with sincerity.
Three conditions, all necessary. Long time, no gaps, done with care. Most practices fail the second one.
व्याधिस्त्यानसंशयप्रमादालस्याविरतिभ्रान्तिदर्शनालब्धभूमिकत्वानवस्थितत्वानि
vyādhi-styāna-saṃśaya-pramāda-ālasya-avirati-bhrānti-darśana-alabdha-bhūmikatva-anavasthitatvāni
Illness, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, craving, false perception, failure to reach a stage, and instability — these are the obstacles.
Nine, named in order, in a single compound. The list is descriptive rather than moral — these are conditions to be recognised, not sins to be confessed.
मैत्रीकरुणामुदितोपेक्षाणां सुखदुःखपुण्यापुण्यविषयाणां भावनातश्चित्तप्रसादनम्
maitrī-karuṇā-muditā-upekṣāṇāṃ sukha-duḥkha-puṇya-apuṇya-viṣayāṇāṃ bhāvanātaś citta-prasādanam
The mind becomes clear through friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the suffering, gladness at the virtuous, and equanimity toward the wicked.
A complete practical psychology in one line. Note the fourth: not forgiveness, not condemnation, but the decision to disengage.
तपःस्वाध्यायेश्वरप्रणिधानानि क्रियायोगः
tapaḥ-svādhyāya-īśvara-praṇidhānāni kriyā-yogaḥ
Discipline, self-study and surrender — this is the yoga of action.
The short version, for those who will not manage eight limbs. Three of the niyamas, offered as a complete path in themselves.
हेयं दुःखमनागतम्
heyaṃ duḥkham anāgatam
The suffering that has not yet come is to be avoided.
The shortest sutra in the text and arguably the most practical. Past suffering cannot be undone; present suffering must be met. The future kind is the only one there is anything to do about.
स्थिरसुखमासनम्
sthira-sukham āsanam
Posture should be steady and comfortable.
The entire instruction on asana in the Yoga Sutras. Every posture on this site is answerable to these three words.
तस्मिन्सति श्वासप्रश्वासयोर्गतिविच्छेदः प्राणायामः
tasmin sati śvāsa-praśvāsayor gati-vicchedaḥ prāṇāyāmaḥ
That being established, pranayama is the regulation of the movement of inhalation and exhalation.
"That being established" — the seat first. The order in this sutra is the reason the pranayama page on this site asks you to sit properly before anything else.
तत्र प्रत्ययैकतानता ध्यानम्
tatra pratyayaikatānatā dhyānam
The unbroken continuity of that attention is meditation.
Ekatānatā — one continuous thread. Meditation is defined by the absence of gaps, not by the content of what is attended to.
अहिंसाप्रतिष्ठायां तत्सन्निधौ वैरत्यागः
ahiṃsā-pratiṣṭhāyāṃ tat-sannidhau vaira-tyāgaḥ
When non-violence is established, hostility is abandoned in that presence.
Not that the practitioner stops feeling hostile — that others do, near them. The claim is about the effect a settled person has on a room.
A note on translation
These translations are offered for clarity rather than scholarly authority. Sanskrit compounds carry several meanings at once, and no single English or Telugu sentence holds all of them. For serious study, read Vyasa's commentary, or a modern edition with facing commentary — Swami Satyananda Saraswati and B. K. S. Iyengar are both good starting points. Better still, read it with a teacher.
"Atha yogānuśāsanam — now, the teaching of yoga."
Sutra 1.1
The whole weight of the text sits on one word: atha, now. Not once you are ready. Not when things settle down. Now.