The Yoga Sutras: Text, Meaning, Purpose

Harvard FAS

The brief Yoga Sutras (only 195 sutras) of Patanjali (c 100 BCE-100 CE) is a vastly influential and fundamental text of yoga. It is the focus of the course, along with its primary commentary (Vyasa’s Bhasya), notes on other commentaries, and with some attention to BKS Iyengar’s famous Light on the Yoga Sutras. What was Patanjali up to? What are the Sutras for? What do the Sutras tell us about the meaning and purpose of yoga then and now? Though not a course about the practice of…