Sutra Meaning: What a Sutra Is, and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
A sutra (Sanskrit: सूत्र, sūtra) is a short, compressed statement of a teaching, and also the name for a whole text built from such statements. The word means "thread". In yoga the best known example is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 195 short lines that set out what yoga is and how to practise it.
What does sutra mean?
The word comes from the Sanskrit root siv, "to sew". A sūtra is what you sew with: a thread or a string. The same old root sits behind the English words sew and suture, the surgeon's stitch.
From "thread" the word came to mean two related things:
- One line of teaching. A rule or aphorism, cut down to as few words as possible. Yoga Sutra 1.2 is four words in Sanskrit: yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ, usually translated as "yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind".
- A whole text of such lines. The lines are strung one after another like beads on a thread, each one building on the last. That is why the title is plural in English: the Yoga Sutras.
In English, a sutra is usually translated as an aphorism, a rule or a verse. None of these fits perfectly. A sutra is often shorter than a sentence, and it can be close to meaningless without an explanation.
Why sutras are so short
Sutras were made to be learned by heart and chanted. In ancient India, teaching passed from teacher to student by voice, and a short line is easier to remember than a paragraph. Sanskrit grammarians had a saying that a sutra writer was as happy to save half a syllable as to have a son.
The price of that brevity is that a sutra needs a teacher. Almost every sutra text comes with commentaries, called bhashya, which unpack each line. For the Yoga Sutras the oldest one is attributed to Vyasa, and much of what we think the sutras mean comes from reading them through it. When two modern translations of the same sutra disagree, this is usually why: the Sanskrit is terse, and each translator follows a different commentary.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
The Yoga Sutras are 195 sutras in four chapters, called padas:
- Samadhi Pada (51 sutras): what yoga is, and absorption in meditation.
- Sadhana Pada (55 sutras): the practice. Kriya yoga, the causes of suffering and the eight limbs.
- Vibhuti Pada (55 sutras): concentration, meditation and the powers said to come from them.
- Kaivalya Pada (34 sutras): liberation, the freedom of the self.
Some editions count 196, because one line is split or added. The text opens with atha yogānuśāsanam, "now, the teaching of yoga", and the next line gives the definition quoted above. Two ideas carry much of the first chapter: abhyasa, steady practice, and vairagya, letting go of attachment (1.12). In the second chapter Patanjali names what practice is for: to avoid duhkha, suffering, that has not yet come (2.16).
The eight limbs in the Yoga Sutras
The part most yoga students meet first is the list in sutra 2.29: the eight limbs of yoga, or ashtanga (ashta, eight, anga, limb). It is one list in the second chapter, and its explanation takes up about 30 of the 195 sutras.
- Yama, restraints: ahimsa (non-harming), satya (truthfulness), asteya (non-stealing), brahmacharya (celibacy or restraint of the senses) and aparigraha (non-grasping). Sutra 2.31 calls them a "great vow" that holds for everyone, at every place and time.
- Niyama, observances: shaucha (cleanliness), santosha (contentment), tapas (discipline, literally "heat"), svadhyaya (self-study and study of sacred texts) and ishvara pranidhana (devotion to Ishvara, the Lord).
- Asana, the seat. Sutra 2.46 says only that it should be steady and easy: sthira sukham āsanam.
- Pranayama, regulation of the breath: working with the pause and length of the inhale and exhale.
- Pratyahara, drawing the senses in from their objects.
- Dharana, concentration: holding the mind on one point.
- Dhyana, meditation: an unbroken flow of attention on that point.
- Samadhi, absorption, when the sense of a separate observer falls away.
Note how little the text says about postures. Asana in the Sutras means a stable seat for meditation. The standing poses and flows of a modern class come from much later hatha texts such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and from 20th century teachers.
Other sutras: Hindu, Buddhist and Jain
Sutra is a genre, and the Yoga Sutras are one text in it. Other Sanskrit sutras include Panini's grammar (the Ashtadhyayi), the Brahma Sutras of Vedanta, the Nyaya and Vaisheshika sutras on logic and the nature of things, the Dharma Sutras on law and duty, and the Kama Sutra, a manual on pleasure and the art of living, of which sex is one part.
Buddhism uses the word differently. A Buddhist sutra, sutta in Pali, is a discourse attributed to the Buddha, often opening with "Thus have I heard". The Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra are famous examples. Many are long and full of repetition, the opposite of a terse Hindu sutra. Jain scriptures also use the word, as in the Tattvartha Sutra.
How the sutras are used in yoga practice
There are three common ways in:
- Chanting. Students learn the sutras in Sanskrit, line by line, often in call and response with a teacher. Many sessions start with Om and an invocation to Patanjali.
- Study. Reading one sutra slowly with a commentary, and asking what it means for how you practise and live.
- Reflection. Taking a single line into the day. Sutra 2.46 on the mat: is this pose steady, and is it easy?
If a sutra sounds like nonsense on first reading, that is normal. It was meant to be heard many times and explained.
Where sources disagree
Who Patanjali was. Almost nothing is known about him. Tradition often treats him as the same Patanjali who wrote the great commentary on Panini's grammar, around the 2nd century BCE, and some also credit him with a text on Ayurveda. Most historians doubt that one person wrote all three. Devotional accounts present him as an incarnation of Adishesha, the serpent on which Vishnu rests.
When the Yoga Sutras were written. Estimates run from around 200 BCE to around 400 CE. Several recent scholars, among them Philipp Maas, argue that the sutras and the commentary under Vyasa's name were put together as one work, the Patanjalayogashastra, around 400 CE, and that "Vyasa" may be Patanjali himself. Others keep the sutras older than the commentary. What most agree on: the text gathers ideas that are older than the book.
Hindu or something else. The Yoga Sutras belong to the Yoga school of Hindu philosophy and lean on Samkhya ideas, yet they share a lot of vocabulary with Buddhist texts of the same period. The old habit of calling the yamas "the ethics of Hinduism" is too narrow. Patanjali presents them as a vow for anyone.
How to read brahmacharya. The classical commentaries read it as celibacy. Many modern teachers read it as moderation, the right use of energy. Both readings are in use. The first is closer to the text.
To hear the sutras chanted and explained one at a time, start with our introduction to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, a two-week program with Clare Nicholls, or the first lesson, Samadhi Pada, sutras 1, 2 and 3.
Frequently asked questions
What does sutra literally mean?
Thread or string. It comes from the Sanskrit root siv, to sew, which is related to the English words sew and suture. A text of sutras is a set of teachings strung together like beads on a thread.
What do we call sutra in English?
Usually an aphorism, a rule or a verse. None of these fits exactly, because a sutra is often shorter than a full sentence and was written to be explained by a teacher. Many translators keep the word sutra.
What is known as sutra?
Two things. A single short line of teaching, such as Yoga Sutra 1.2, and a whole text made of such lines, such as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the Brahma Sutras or Panini's grammar. In Buddhism, sutra means a discourse of the Buddha.
What are the four sutras?
The question usually refers to the four chapters of the Yoga Sutras: Samadhi Pada on absorption, Sadhana Pada on practice, Vibhuti Pada on the results of concentration, and Kaivalya Pada on liberation. Together they hold 195 sutras.
How many Yoga Sutras are there?
195 in most editions: 51, 55, 55 and 34 across the four chapters. Some editions count 196, because they split or add one line in the third chapter.
What is the difference between a sutra and a mantra?
A sutra is a line of teaching, meant to be understood. A mantra is a sound or phrase repeated for its effect in chanting or meditation, such as Om. A sutra can be chanted, and many students do, but its job is to carry an idea.
Is the Kama Sutra a yoga text?
No. The Kama Sutra, attributed to Vatsyayana, is a text on pleasure, love and social life, and only part of it is about sex. It shares the word sutra with the Yoga Sutras because both are written in the same terse sutra style.
