The source text
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
196 short aphorisms, compiled somewhere between 200 BCE and 400 CE, that define what yoga actually is. Three of them mention posture.
Patanjali did not invent yoga and probably did not write the Sutras alone. He compiled an existing oral tradition into four short books — the padas — in a compressed style meant to be memorised and then unpacked by a teacher. This is why the text feels terse to the point of unhelpfulness on first reading, and why almost nobody reads it without a commentary.
Its second verse is the whole definition, and it says nothing about the body: yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ — yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind. Everything else in the text is method or consequence.
The four books
Book I · Samadhi Pada · 51 verses
What yoga is, what the mind does instead, and the states of absorption available to someone who stops it. Written as if for a reader already practising.
Book II · Sadhana Pada · 55 verses
The practical book: the causes of suffering, and the eight limbs. This is where posture appears, in three verses, described only as a steady and comfortable seat.
Book III · Vibhuti Pada · 56 verses
Concentration, meditation and absorption — and a long catalogue of resulting powers, which Patanjali then warns are obstacles rather than achievements.
Book IV · Kaivalya Pada · 34 verses
The philosophical close: the nature of mind and matter, and liberation as the end of identification rather than the gaining of anything.
The eight limbs
Ashtanga — literally eight limbs. The word names this structure, long before it named a sequence of postures.
- 1 · YamaHow you treat others. Non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, restraint, non-grasping.
- 2 · NiyamaHow you treat yourself. Cleanliness, contentment, discipline, self-study, surrender.
- 3 · AsanaA seat that is steady and comfortable. That is the entire instruction given.
- 4 · PranayamaRegulation of the breath, and through it the regulation of attention.
- 5 · PratyaharaWithdrawing the senses from what they habitually chase.
- 6 · DharanaConcentration — holding attention on one thing, deliberately.
- 7 · DhyanaMeditation — when that holding becomes continuous and no longer needs effort.
- 8 · SamadhiAbsorption, in which the separation between observer and observed drops away.
Why it matters to a Tuesday class
If posture is one of eight limbs and gets three verses out of 196, then a practice built entirely on it is not wrong — it is simply small. Most teachers in this index will tell you the same thing in their own words.
Where to start reading
Read a translation with commentary, not a bare one. Bare translations of a deliberately compressed text produce confident misreadings.
Read Book II first, then Book I. Book III's list of powers derails most first readings, and Book IV means little until the rest has settled.
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