Patañjali

Almost nothing is known of Patañjali beyond the Yoga Sūtras, the seminal text of the Yoga tradition, and even its date can only be inferred from its contents. Most scholars date it to around the first or second century CE, though some put it centuries earlier; it is certainly no later than the fifth century, when the first commentary, by Vyāsa, was written. A later tradition, first found in the eleventh century, identified him with the grammarian Patañjali.

Yoga practices are far older than the text, and the Yoga Sūtras share much vocabulary with Buddhist writings. Patañjali’s Yoga is closely tied to the Sāṅkhya school, whose metaphysics it shares; Sāṅkhya reasons its way to liberation, while Yoga meditates its way there, attending to the mind and to consciousness. His Yoga has been described as a renewed Sāṅkhya, updated to engage the more technical philosophy of its day, Buddhist philosophy above all.