An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c9.65

c9.65

§ 149. The manual of the Yoga system, the Yoga-sūtra, is attributed to Patañjali, and for centuries it was held that the reference was to the grammarian of the second century B.C., and consequently the Yoga-sūtra was believed by European scholars to be the earliest of the philosophic manuals. But since the sūtra shows a more developed system than anything that appears in the epic or in the Yoga Upanishads, and since the Vijñānavāda of Buddhism is criticized in it,¹ it is now recognized that the author must have been another Patañjali, and that his date cannot be earlier than the middle of the fourth century A. D. It is probable that the writing of the Sāṅkhya-kārikā and its great success led to the production of the Yoga-sūtra.² The rise of the Vijñānavādin, or Yogāchāra,³ system within Buddhism, about A. D. 300, would also be a challenge; for Yoga holds a large place in it.