someone sent me an email and in it they talked about patanjali being the father of yoga. My understanding is that patanjali is the first to put yoga into writing, but that yoga was before patanjali and passed down through word of mouth, teacher to student, or something like that. anyone have any thoughts/insight?
seeker
Yoga philosophy arises from the Vedas; this is the foundation to Patanjali’s sutras.
Rashmi speaks to this well (including dates) in this thread: http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/f16/vedas-yoga-meditation-1970.html
It would be impossible to be the father of anything unless you were only one person, eh?
Yoga has been around alot longer than patanjali. But he was the first to put it into such concrete terms/schedule/practice material. He is famous for his accurateness and detailed guidelines, not for inventing yoga.
The first signs of Yoga are fare older than the sutras , but a lot of people call Patanjali the founder of the classical Yoga or Raja Yoga he was the first to bring this teaching down into written form but still it`s based on the vedas and the upanshiads.
Alll the best
Lars