Foundations of Yoga: Meaning, History, Aims, Schools and Yogic Texts
What this domain tests
This unit asks you to define yoga, trace its historical layers, state its aims, name the schools (paths), and attribute Sanskrit definitions to the correct text - Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, the Hatha manuals, or the Bhagavad Gita. The commonest question format is a match-the-following between a Sanskrit line and its source.
Core concepts
- Etymology: from yuj, "to join or yoke" - union of individual consciousness with universal consciousness; also equanimity (samatva).
- Patanjali, YS 1.2: yogash chitta-vritti-nirodhah - yoga is the stilling of the modifications of the mind. The work has four padas: Samadhi, Sadhana, Vibhuti, Kaivalya.
- Ashtanga (eight limbs): yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, samadhi. The first five are outer (bahiranga), the last three inner (antaranga).
- Yamas: ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmacharya, aparigraha. Niyamas: shaucha, santosha, tapas, svadhyaya, ishvarapranidhana.
- Bhagavad Gita: yogah karmasu kaushalam (2.50) - yoga is skill in action; samatvam yoga uchyate (2.48) - equanimity is called yoga. Chapter 6 is the yoga of meditation.
- Hatha texts: Svatmarama's Hatha Yoga Pradipika (15th century) and the Gheranda Samhita use a six-limb (shatanga) scheme - purification, asana, mudra/bandha, pranayama, meditation - not eight.
- Schools: Jnana (knowledge), Bhakti (devotion), Karma (action), Raja (Patanjali's meditation path), Hatha (force/body), Mantra, Laya.
Worked example
A question quotes yogah karmasu kaushalam and asks for source and path. Reasoning: the phrase is Gita 2.50, spoken by Krishna to Arjuna; its subject is action performed with skill and detachment, so the path is Karma Yoga. It is not Patanjali, whose signature definition is the vritti-nirodhah line.
Traps
Giving chitta vritti nirodhah to the Gita; calling asana the first limb (it is third); mixing Patanjali's eight limbs with Hatha's six; reducing yoga to physical exercise.