History
As early as around 300 B.C., yoga was able to attain an important place in the Mahabharata and was regarded as a practical counterpart to the theoretical Sânkhya. While Kapila and others were named as the founders of yoga in the Mahabharata and in the older texts (puranas), more recent puranas designate Patanjali as the creator or the yoga system. However, it can be assumed that Patanjali integrated the traditional yoga teachings in the 2nd or 4th century A.D. His work consists of 194 short mnemonics (sutras) that are divided into four books.

Originally, yoga was presumably a purely spiritual practice that focused primarily on enlightenment through meditation. The many asanas developed over time, and their primary objective was to strengthen and mobilise the body so that it could spend the longest possible time seated in a meditation position without discomfort – which generally meant seated in lotus position. With time, the positive effects of the physical exercises on a person’s overall well-being were increasingly recognized. The asanas were expanded, and physical activity in yoga gained increasingly more importance. This development saw its first obstacle in the emergence of hatha yoga. The “Hatha Yoga Pradipika,” a 15th century text, lays down the foundations of this rather body-focusedschool of yoga. Raja yoga is a school of yoga that is based on hatha yoga, in which spiritual objectives are stressed.

Patanjali was an Indian scholar who is said to have written the yoga sutras that have been entirely preserved until today. Not much is known about the life of Patanjali; no one even knows when he lived. It is not even a certainty that he was a historical person. The Indians equate him with a grammarian of the same name who lived during the 2nd century A.D. However, because the vocabulary of the grammarian and the writer deviate greatly from each other, Indologists assume that the two are not one and the same. They are more of the opinion that because of certain formulations in the text that are also found in Late Buddhism, the work was written somewhere around the 4th or 5th century A.D.

Literally translated the word sutra means “thread.” The yoga sutra is thus effectively a sort of guide for yoga which has no background story other than the Bhagavadgita and which was also not sung. The yoga sutra of Patanjali is comprised of 195 Sanskrit verses which contain the essence of yoga in highly concentrated format. It is the oldest existing work about yoga. This form of yoga is designated as raja yoga or ashtanga yoga (eight limbs yoga).

According to the Indian scholar Patanjali, yoga is divided into eight limbs.

The Eight Aspects of Yoga

The externally focused SEARCH

1. YAMA: General ethical principles = non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, chastity and non-acquisitiveness.

2. NIYAMA: Rules of conduct regarding lifestyle: cleanliness, contentment, ardour, self-study, and self-surrender.

3. ASANA: Attitude. A state of complete balance of body, mind, and soul. By practicing ASANAS, the body is strengthened and cleansed in order to be a suitable vessel for the mind.

The internally focused SEARCH

4. PRANAYAMA: (Prana means breath, life, energy, and ajama means length, elongation/stretching.) Pranayama is thus the elongation/stretching and control of breathing (even with random pauses).

5. PRATYAHARA: When engaged in deliberate and rhythmic breathing, the senses turn inward and are brought under control, which allows the thoughts of external matters to be released.

The search for the SOUL

6. DHARANA: “When the body has been curbed by the asanas, when thoughts have refined themselves in the fire of the pranayama, and the senses have been brought under control through pratyahara, that is when one achieves dharana; it is here that one completely concentrates on one single topic or one task.” (P.42)

7. DHYANA: Meditation or unbroken concentration; the body, breathing, senses, consciousness, understanding, and self are integrated into the object of the contemplation, the universal spirit. 

8. SAMADHI: The objective of the search by practicants of yoga, a state beyond consciousness that is achieved through deep meditation. The practicant becomes one with the object of the meditation.

The overview is based on the introduction to the book “Light on Yoga” by B.K.S. Iyengar; Linzenzausgabe der Bertelsmann Club GmbH: 1993, p.13-47.