A guide to Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika

If you've ever been to a yoga class, you've likely heard references to the 'eight limbs', to dharma, to the breath as a gateway to stillness. These ideas don't arise from a single tradition — they come from three distinct texts, each written centuries apart, each asking different questions about what yoga is and who it's for.

Understanding where these teachings come from doesn't just satisfy intellectual curiosity. It changes how you practise. Here's a guide to the three foundational texts taught in most hatha yoga teacher trainings.

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

~ 400 CE  ·  The philosophical foundation

The Yoga Sutras are the first text to distil and codify yoga as a distinct school of thought. Written around 400 CE, they draw on Buddhism, Jainism, and shamanic traditions — a synthesis that reflects the richness of the philosophical world Patanjali was working within.

The text consists of 196 sutras: short, cryptic, esoteric statements. Their brevity is intentional. They are designed not to be read once and understood, but to be unpacked slowly, in conversation with a teacher, over years of practice.

What it actually says about asana

Perhaps the most surprising thing for modern practitioners: the Yoga Sutras mention asana in only three sutras. According to Patanjali, posture should be steady and comfortable, effortless, with single-pointed awareness of the infinite. That's it. The elaborate physical practice we associate with yoga today is not the focus here.

The philosophy underneath

The Sutras work within a dualistic metaphysical framework called Samkhya philosophy. It draws a distinction between Purusha — pure consciousness, your essential unchanging nature — and Prakriti — the material world, the play of the self in everyday life.

In this view, suffering arises because we identify with our egoic attachments and mental fluctuations rather than recognising our deeper nature. Patanjali's famous definition of yoga — the stilling of the changing states of the mind — follows from this diagnosis. Liberation is not something to be achieved, but recognised. Our essential nature is always there; we are simply unaware of it.

The famous eight limbs offer a structured path toward that recognition. But Patanjali offers far more nuance than the eight-limb framework alone — the text rewards deep, sustained engagement.

The Bhagavad Gita

300 BCE – 400 CE  ·  Yoga in the world

The Bhagavad Gita is not a standalone text — it forms part of the Mahabharata, one of India's great epic mythologies. The setting is striking: on the eve of a battle between two related families, the warrior Arjuna turns to his advisor Krishna and refuses to fight.

His crisis is genuine. As a member of the warrior caste, battle is his duty — his dharma. But fighting means killing his own relatives. Krishna's response to this moral paralysis forms the entire text.

The core teaching

Krishna's argument unfolds in stages. First, the metaphysical grounding: souls are eternal, so death is not the ending it appears to be. Second, the ethical challenge: if Arjuna were facing strangers, he would not hesitate. His reluctance is driven by personal attachment — which is precisely the problem.

The key teaching is this: you must act in the world, but without attachment to outcomes. Only intention matters. Win or lose, the commitment to one's duty — undertaken without clinging to results — is what breaks karmic cycles and leads toward liberation (moksha). Equanimity in the face of action: this is yoga, according to the Gita.

Three paths

The Gita presents three interconnected paths to liberation:

• Jnana Yoga — not intellectual knowledge, but being in right relationship with universal nature.
• Karma Yoga — acting for the good of the whole, seeing the interdependent relationship between ourselves and the world.
• Bhakti Yoga — devotion from the heart, cultivated without agenda or expectation of return.

The crucial difference

Perhaps the Gita's most significant departure from the Yoga Sutras is its claim about access. Whatever your caste, whatever your circumstances, you too can practise yoga and reach liberation. This is a radical democratisation compared to the Sutras' focus on renunciates.

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika

15th century  ·  The body as the path

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika (HYP) arrives more than a thousand years after the Yoga Sutras, composed by Svatmarama in the 15th century. It is described as a compilation of earlier hatha yoga texts and systems — and Svatmarama himself acknowledges it to be incomplete and imperfect.

Despite this, it holds enormous influence in modern yoga, largely because of its emphasis on physical practice — the dimension of yoga that most contemporary students encounter first.

What it covers

The HYP is comprehensive in scope:

• Asana — physical postures
• Pranayama — breath practices
• Shatkarmas — purification methods
• Bandhas — energetic locks
• Mudras — whole-body gestures and seals
• Meditation and samadhi

Every practice in the text is oriented toward using the body as the primary vehicle for transformation. The approach is somatic: work through inner-body sensation, cultivate the mind-body relationship, and let that become the pathway inward.

The goal

The HYP's ultimate aim is the achievement of sattva: a quality of overall wellbeing in which body and mind are stable, clear, and calm. It is a more immediate and tangible goal than the Sutras' vision of pure consciousness — which may be part of why it resonates so strongly with modern practitioners.