("yoga
aphorisms") A collection of short sayings attributed to the sage Patanjali
that serve as the basic texts for the Yoga school, one of the six schools of
Hindu philosophy.
The sage Vyasa's commentary on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is
often read alongside the text, and it has been considered as an important
component of the book.
The Yoga Sutras are split into four sections, each of which focuses on a different theme:
- The first part is about concentration (samadhi),
- the second part is about the mechanics of spiritual development (sadhana),
- the third part is about various attainments (vibhuti), including magical powers (siddhi),
- and the last part is about yogic isolation (kaivalya), which the text calls liberation.
The Yoga school is often considered the
"practical" articulation of Samkhya theory, and the text presupposes
the cosmology taught by the Samkhya school, another of the six schools.
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