The Yoga-Sütras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary. By Edwin F. Bryant. New York: North Point Press 2009
PDF

How to Cite

Matthew R. Dast. (2022). The Yoga-Sütras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary. By Edwin F. Bryant. New York: North Point Press 2009: Journal of Vaishnava Studies. Journal of Vaishnava Studies, 18(2), 127–132. Retrieved from https://ivsjournal.com/index.php/jvs/article/view/203

Abstract

Edwin Bryant’s The Yoga Sütras of Patañjali sets out to present the Yogasütra and its rich commentarial tradition in a way that bridges two separate discourse-communities, those of professional Indic scholars and of intelligent lay-readers who are primarily interested in yoga practice (lix). Therefore in his translation and commentary, Bryant aspires to the twin (though generally conflicting) virtues of scholarly rigor and broad accessibility. He further seeks to creatively engage with the tradition by highlighting the tensions or achievements he thinks most important and by creative elaboration upon themes given in the text. Despite the ambitiousness of his project, Bryant’s text succeeds wonderfully. The Yoga Sütras of Patañjali is a compendium of traditional and modern commentarial
insight, woven together such that it reads easily, given the challenges inherent in the subject matter. When Bryant does comment in his own voice, the result is usually insight into the key nodes of Yogic thought.

PDF
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.