The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali

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Patanjali, the presumed author of the Yoga Sutras is often identified with an Indian grammarian who lived in the 2nd century BC. Modern scholars content that the work as we have it cannot have been completed before the 4th century AD. The authorship of the Sutras is therefore doubtful. But certain is that the work has become the classic on yoga.

Alfred Scheepers, the translator, was born in Amsterdam in 1951. After finishing Highschool, he started studying philosophy in the Free University of Amsterdam in 1969. There he developed his interest in Asiatic thinking. Having obtained his 'doctorandus' (MA) degree he started working on his PhD thesis in the University of Leiden, 1980. The thesis was completed under the name Adhyasa (projection), a comparison between the Advaita Vedanta of Shankara and the phenomenology of Edmund Hussserl (which is the literal translation of the original Dutch title). From 1989 he is working as an author, and is connected on free lance basis to the India Instituut (institute) in Amsterdam. From 1996 he is also working as a philosophy teacher for the Iyengar Yoga Center in Amsterdam. He wrote A Survey of Buddhist Thought and An Orientation in Indian Philosophy.

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Page:

007 - Sanskrit Pronunciation
009 - Preface
013 - Introduction
025 - Part I: Absorption
030 - Part I: Samadhi-pada (Sanskrit text)
031 - Part I: Absorption (English text)
041 - Part II: Practice
046 - Part II: Sadhana-pada (Sanskrit text)
047 - Part II: Practice (English text)
057 - Part III: Attainments
064 - Part III: Vibhuti-pada (Sanskrit text)
065 - Part III: Attainments (English text)
077 - Part IV: Independence
086 - Part IV: Kaivalya-pada (Sanskrit text)
087 - Part IV: Independence (English text)

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This translation concentrates on the sutras themselves. It does not get lost in endless commentaries, instructive though these sometimes may be. The bilingual left-right page Sanskrit-English edition facilitates a continuous reading of both the original classical text and the English. For better understanding an introduction is added to the work as a whole and to each of its chapters. In doing so attention is mainly directed to the wold-view behind the sutras, which to the European mind may be bewildering, because it is not compatible with primary school level Newtonian cosmology.

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