ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Patañjali, through his theory of Yoga, tries to synthesize two stories of suffering and emancipation: the empirical-psychological story rooted largely in Buddhism and the story based on Sāṅkhya metaphysics. The chapter explains how Patañjali integrates the two stories by using different ways or tricks. Three such ways are pointed out: (1) giving a phenomenological shape to the metaphysical terminology of Sāṅkhya, (2) making many abstract categories of Sāṅkhya the objects of meditation and (3) arranging the categories of the two systems hierarchically such that Sāṅkhya categories get prominence and general acceptance at the metaphysical level. Hence, the chapter argues that although Patañjali adopts so many inputs from the Buddhist story of suffering and emancipation, he tries to situate them in the realist and eternalist Sāṅkhya framework. While showing how Patañjali’s empirical and psychological account of suffering, emancipation and meditation is largely influenced by the Buddhist account, the chapter points out how the Vyāsa’s commentary many times deviates from Patañjali’s intended meaning, which naturally follows from the aphorisms or which can be understood clearly and consistently in the light of Buddhism.
