The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali

The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali

158 Pages

October 2020

ISBN: 9781479804139

PDF Download Free Arabic PDF

$35.00

Hardcover

Authors

Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (d. ca. 442/1050) was an accomplished Iranian scholar and polymath.

Mario Kozah is Assistant Professor of Islamic History and Civilization at the Department of Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University. His publications include a monograph on al-Bīrūnī titled The Birth of Indology as an Islamic Science: Al-Bīrūnī’s Treatise on Yoga Psychology.

A brilliant cross-cultural Arabic interpretation of a key text of yoga philosophy

The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali is the foundational text of yoga philosophy to this day and is still used by millions of yoga practitioners and students worldwide. Written in a question-and-answer format, The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali deals with the theory and practice of yoga and the psychological question of the liberation of the soul from attachments.

This book is a new edition and translation into English of the Arabic translation and commentary on this text by the brilliant eleventh-century polymath al-Bīrūnī. Given the many historical variants of the Yoga Sutras, his Kitāb Bātanjali is important for yoga studies as the earliest translation of the Sanskrit text. It is also of unique value as an Arabic text within Islamic studies, given the intellectual and philosophical challenges that faced the medieval Muslim reader when presented with the intricacy of composition, interpretation, and allusion that permeates this translation.

A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

Reviews

  • "The style of the English translation by Mario Kozah is clear and readable . . . a valuable contribution that will be appreciated by anyone interested in the history of philosophy and religion across cultures."

    Speculum