Yoga
योग
Union · Discipline · Practice
“What does Yoga mean?”
A family of disciplines aimed at steadying the mind — far older and far wider than the postural practice the word now names globally.
Overview
The root yuj means to yoke or join. Yoga is both the joining and the discipline that achieves it.
The Yoga Sūtra defines it in its second line as the stilling of the movements of the mind. Posture is one limb of eight, and receives about three lines.
Historical context
Ascetic and meditative practices appear across early Indian traditions; Patañjali's Yoga Sūtra systematises one strand of them.
Haṭha yoga develops the physical techniques from roughly the eleventh century onward, within a wider tantric framework.
Modern postural yoga takes shape in the twentieth century through an exchange between Indian teachers, Indian nationalism and European physical culture — a genuinely hybrid invention, not a straightforward inheritance.
Perspectives
There is no single answer here. Each reading comes from a different tradition and should be judged in its own terms.
Classical
A path of restraint, concentration and absorption, with a metaphysics of consciousness distinct from matter.
Devotional
In the Bhagavad Gītā, yoga is plural: paths of action, knowledge and devotion are all called yoga.
Contemporary global
Predominantly a movement and wellbeing practice, sometimes retaining contemplative aims, sometimes not.
Claims
4 of 4 carry a source · 100%
Each statement is held separately, with what supports it and how firmly.
Patañjali defines yoga as the stilling of the movements of the mind.
Attested in a primary textYoga Sūtra 1.2.
- Yoga Sūtra — Patañjali · c. 2nd–4th century CE
Posture is one of eight limbs in the classical scheme, and the sūtras say very little about it.
Attested in a primary textYoga Sūtra 2.29 lists the limbs; āsana receives only a few lines.
- Yoga Sūtra — Patañjali · c. 2nd–4th century CE
- Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā — Svātmārāma · 15th century CE
Posture-centred yoga as practised globally today took its present shape in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
DocumentedTraced in detail by historians of modern yoga; the older texts describe far fewer postures.
- Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice — Mark Singleton · 2010
- Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā — Svātmārāma · 15th century CE
The word shares a root with English 'yoke' — the sense is joining or harnessing.
DocumentedStandard Indo-European etymology recorded in the lexicons.
- A Sanskrit–English Dictionary — Monier Monier-Williams · 1899
- Oxford English Dictionary — current edition
Related ideas
Cited sources
Yoga Sūtra — Patañjali · c. 2nd–4th century CE
Defines yoga as the stilling of the movements of mind (1.2) and sets out the eight limbs (2.29), of which posture is one.
Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā — Svātmārāma · 15th century CE
Central text of haṭha yoga; describes a small number of postures compared with modern practice.
Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice — Mark Singleton · 2010
Traces how the posture-centred yoga practised worldwide today took shape in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Oxford English Dictionary — current edition
Used here for the recorded history of English senses and first attestations.
A Sanskrit–English Dictionary — Monier Monier-Williams · 1899
Standard reference for Sanskrit roots and their attested ranges of meaning.
Sources
Yoga Sūtra
Patañjali, c. 2nd–4th century CE.
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