The conception of Yoga as we meet it in the Maitrayana Upanishad consisted of six angas or accessories, namely pranayama, pratyahara, dhyana, dharana, tarka and samadhi (1).

Comparing this list with that of the list in the Yoga sutras we find that two new elements have been added, and tarka has been replaced by asana. Now from the account of the sixty-two heresies given in the Brahmajala sutta we know that there were people who either from meditation of three degrees or through logic and reasoning had come to believe that both the external world as a whole and individual souls were eternal. From the association of this last mentioned logical school with the Samadhi or Dhyana school as belonging to one class of thinkers called shashvatavada, and from the inclusion of tarka as an anga in samadhi, we can fairly assume that the last of the angas given in Maitrayani Upanishad represents the oldest list of the Yoga doctrine, when the Samkhya and the Yoga were in a process of being grafted on each other, and when the Samkhya method of discussion did not stand as a method independent of the Yoga.

The substitution of asana for tarka in the list of Patanjali shows that the Yoga had developed a method separate from the Samkhya. The introduction of ahimsa (non-injury), satya (truthfulness), asteya (want of stealing), brahmacaryya (sex-control), aparigraha (want of greed) as yama and shauca (purity), santosha (contentment) as niyama, as a system of morality without which Yoga is deemed impossible (for the first time in the sutras), probably marks the period when the disputes between the Hindus and the Buddhists had not become so keen. The introduction of maitri, karuna, mudita, upeksha is also equally significant, as we do not find them mentioned in such a prominent form in any other literature of the Hindus dealing with the subject of emancipation. Beginning from the Acarangasutra, Uttaradhyayanasutra, the Sutrakritangasutra, etc., and passing through Umasvati’s Tattvarthadhigamasutra to Hemacandra’s Yogashastra we find that the Jains had been founding their Yoga discipline mainly on the basis of a system of morality indicated by the yamas, and the opinion expressed in Alberuni’s Patanjal that these cannot give salvation marks the divergence of the Hindus in later days from the Jains. Another important characteristic of Yoga is its thoroughly pessimistic tone. Its treatment of sorrow in connection with the statement of the scope and ideal of Yoga is the same as that of the four sacred truths of the Buddhists, namely suffering, origin of suffering, the removal of suffering, and of the path to the removal of suffering (2).

Again, the metaphysics of the samsara (rebirth) cycle in connection with sorrow, origination, decease, rebirth, etc. is described with a remarkable degree of similarity with the cycle of causes as described in early Buddhism. Avidya is placed at the head of the group; yet this avidya should not be confused with the Vedanta avidya of Shankara, as it is an avidya of the Buddhist type; it is not a cosmic power of illusion nor anything like a mysterious original sin, but it is within the range of earthly tangible reality. Yoga avidya is the ignorance of the four sacred truths, as we have in the sutra “anityashuciduhkhanatmasu nityashuciduhkhatmakhyatiravidya” (II. 5).

The ground of our existing is our will to live (abhinivesha). “This is our besetting sin that we will to be, that we will to be ourselves, that we fondly will our being to blend with other kinds of existence and extend. The negation of the will to be, cuts off being for us at least (3).”

This is true as much of Buddhism as of the Yoga abhinivesha, which is a term coined and used in the Yoga for the first time to suit the Buddhist idea, and which has never been accepted, so far as I know, in any other Hindu literature in this sense. My sole aim in pointing out these things in this section is to show that the Yoga sutras proper (first three chapters) were composed at a time when the later forms of Buddhism had not developed, and when the quarrels between the Hindus and the Buddhists and Jains had not reached such a stage that they would not like to borrow from one another. As this can only be held true of earlier Buddhism I am disposed to think that the date of the first three chapters of the Yoga sutras must be placed about the second century B.C. Since there is no evidence which can stand in the way of identifying the grammarian Patanjali with the Yoga writer, I believe we may take them as being identical (4).
1: pranayamah pratyaharah dhyanam dharana tarkah samadhih sadanga ityucyate yoga (Maitr. 6 8).
2: Yoga sutra, II. 15, 16. 17. Yathacikitsashastram caturvyuham rogo rogahetuh arogyam bhaishajyamiti evamidamapi shastram caturvyuhameva; tadyatha samsarah, samsarahetuh mokshah mokshopayah; duhkhabahulah samsaro heyah, pradhanapurushayoh samyogo heyahetuh, samyogasyatyantiki nivrittirhanam hanopayah samyagdar`sanam, Vyasabhashya, II. 15
3: Oldenberg’s Buddhism.
4: See S.N. Das Gupta, Yoga Philosophy in relation to other Indian systems of thought, ch. II. The most important point in favour of this identification seems to be that both the Patanjalis as against the other Indian systems admitted the doctrine of sphota which was denied even by Samkhya. On the doctrine of Sphota see my Study of Patanjali, Appendix I.

ahimsa, anga, asana, dhyana, karuna, niyama, patanjali, pranayama, samadhi, satya, sex control, tarka, upanishad, yoga sutras