Darshana #4 of 6 · c. 2nd century BCE – 4th century CE
योग
Yoga Darshana
Yoga
Founder: Maharshi Patanjali
Root text: Yoga Sutras (योगसूत्र)
Central thesis
Patanjali takes Sankhya's metaphysics and adds a practical, eight-limbed (ashtanga) method for actually attaining kaivalya. Yoga is the cessation of the modifications of the mind — yogah cittavritti nirodhah.
Summary
Where Sankhya gives the map, Yoga gives the road. The Yoga Sutras open with the famous definition yogah cittavritti nirodhah — yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind — and set out the eight limbs (ashtanga): yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, samadhi. Patanjali accepts the entire Sankhya cosmology of purusha and prakriti but adds Ishvara, a special purusha untouched by any klesha (affliction), whose contemplation (Ishvara-pranidhana) is offered as one direct path to samadhi. The school provides the canonical eight-limb model that every later Hindu and Buddhist meditative tradition either adopted, modified, or argued against.
Key concepts
- ●Cittavritti nirodha — cessation of mental modifications
- ●Ashtanga — the eight limbs (yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, samadhi)
- ●Five kleshas — avidya, asmita, raga, dvesha, abhinivesha
- ●Ishvara-pranidhana — surrender to Ishvara as a direct path
- ●Samyama — the combined practice of dharana, dhyana, samadhi yielding siddhis
Accepted pramanas
Means of valid knowledge
- · Pratyaksha (perception)
- · Anumana (inference)
- · Shabda (verbal testimony)
Liberation path
Kaivalya — same goal as Sankhya, but reached by sustained ashtanga practice culminating in nirbija samadhi (seedless absorption), after which the citta dissolves back into prakriti and purusha abides alone.
Key texts
- · Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
- · Vyasa Bhashya
- · Tattva Vaisharadi of Vachaspati Mishra
- · Hatha Yoga Pradipika (later)
Modern relevance
The global modern yoga movement, whatever its asana focus, descends directly from Patanjali's eight limbs. Mindfulness, breathwork, and contemplative-neuroscience research all map back to the citta-vritti–nirodha framework.