Patanjali - Yoga Sutra

Writing a book takes timea long timeand the number of people that end up contributing something to its progress is remarkable.

First and foremost, I need to thank my family, particularly my parents, for their love and support. Of course, exceptional thanks goes to my dog Maggie: it is very difficult to describe what one owes to someone who is so faithful and forgiving. My partner Andrea Yandreski has been a continual source of support and inspiration for this book. Her persistence in practising and thinking about yoga has always stimulated me to think harder about what Patajali would say in response to all manner of questions.

My cousin Dr Sudhakshina Rangaswami deserves special thanks for her encouragement and support as I pursued my research and for the role she played in helping me see this book to publication. Likewise, I must thank her friend and former colleague, Prof. Jyotirmaya Sharma, for his support in helping me see this book to publication.

I would like to thank my editors, Ravi Singh and R. Sivapriya of Penguin India, for their easy, reassuring manner and the professionalism that made the editing of this book a sheer pleasure. This is not the first book I have written and seen to publication, but it is the first time that I have felt as though I was not abandoned to my own devices.

I need to recognize the help that Ben Wood of the University of Toronto played in finalizing this text. Like a miracle, Ben appeared in the last minute to help me proof the Sanskrit. I would not have known of Bens help if it were not for the help of my friend Ajay Rao of the University of Toronto. Since I met Ajay a year ago, I have had the good fortune to discuss with him Indology and the trials and tribulations of being a junior scholar. As well, I have on more than one occasion benefited from his expertise in Sanskrit, which he always shared graciously.

I also need to thank my friend Eddie Stern and many of his students at Asthtanga Yoga New York. I was nominally Eddies philosophy teacher for some time, and the Yoga Stra was one of the texts that we covered, but my conversations with Eddie always caused me to think harder and reconsider my views about yoga and my translation. Thus I am most fortunate to have had his feedback in the formation of this book. Likewise, I owe a debt of gratitude to his most dedicated students. Coming to know them provided me an unparalleled opportunity to talk about Patajalis text with people who are superlatively serious about yoga.

Finally I would like to thank Patajali (who ever that is) for this wonderful text. I began translating the Yoga Stra as I was sharpening my views on translation, which I eventually defended in my PhD dissertationTranslating Evaluative Discoursein philosophy at York University. My reading for that degree in the early stages, at least, consisted of a diet of analytic philosophy of language, theoretical ethics and translation studies material. Patajalis stunning vision provided me with a respite from the ivory tower and the perfect opportunity to learn first hand what translation is really like. And in turn, the lessons I learned while translating this text influenced my work as a philosopher of language and translation theorist, which in turn caused me at points to rethink and revise my translation. Patajali was thus oddly a conscripted interlocutor in the dialectic that was the development of my dissertation. Thus, I need to thank him for helping me with that as well.