Patañjali (
Devanagari ???????) (fl. 150 BCE
[1] or 2nd c. BCE
[2][3]) is the compiler of the
Yoga Sutras, an important collection of aphorisms on
Yoga practice, and also the author of the
Mahabha?ya, a major commentary on
Panini's Ashtadhyayi. However, whether these two works are that of the same author or not remains in some doubt.
In recent decades the Yoga Sutra has become quite popular worldwide for the precepts regarding practice of Raja Yoga and its philosophical basis. "Yoga" in traditional Hinduism involves inner contemplation, a rigorous system of meditation practice, ethics, metaphysics, and devotion to God, or Brahman. At the same time, his Mahabha?ya, which first foregrounded the notion of meaning as referring to categorization, remains an important treatise in Sanskrit linguistic philosophy.
Whether these two works are by the same author has been the subject of considerable debate. The authorship of the two are first attributed to the same person in Bhojadeva's Rajamartanda, a relatively late (10th c.) commentary on the Yoga Sutras[4], as well as a large number of subsequent texts. As for the texts themselves, the Yoga Sutra iii.44 cites a sutra as that from Patanjali by name, but this line itself is not from the Mahabha?ya. However, certain themes such as the unity of the constituent parts appear common to both. Sources of doubt include the lack of cross-references between the texts, and no mutual awareness of each other, quite unlike other cases of multiple works by (later) Sanskrit authors. Also, some elements in the Yoga Sutras may date from as late as the 4th c. AD[3], but such changes may be due to divergent authorship, or due to later additions which are not atypical in the oral tradition. In the absence of any concrete evidence for a second Patanjali, and given the approximately same time frame for the origin of both texts, and the traditional ascription of both to a Patanjali most scholars simply refer to both works as "by Patanjali".
In addition to the Mahabha?ya and Yoga Sutras, the 11th c. text on Charaka by Chakrapani, and the 16th c. text Patanjalicharita ascribes to Patanjali a medical text called the Carakapratisamskritah (now lost) which is apparently a revision (pratisamskritah) of the medical treatise by Charaka. Some have cited the Patanjali reference in Yoga Sutra as possibly being from this text. Were he to be the author of all three works, it would be quite amazing, although such diversity would not be very uncommon in many early civilizations, as in the work of Pingala or Katyayana, both grammaticians who also worked in mathematics, or their contemporary Aristotle, say.
