How to Study the Yoga Sutras

For about 45 minutes before Patricia Walden’s Friday night class in Cambridge, we study the yoga sutras.  We do this in different ways. 

• We chant the yoga sutras sometimes.  Patricia often has guest Sanskrit scholars to help us with Sanskrit pronunciation and vocabulary. 
• We pick of set of sutras to study each semester.  This term she has assigned many of us a sutra to study and bring ideas back to the class.  She emphasizes the terms we should know.  We relate the sutra back to our lives. 
•   Patricia says that we should study with several translations as I’m doing here.  She says it is useful to look how different translators interpreted the sutras.  This can give deeper meaning. 

• She also says to study the sutras in a meditative way.  She says after studying a sutra you should meditate on it. 
• Sutras are meant to read backwards.  Start with the last word in the sutra and move backwards.  Many translations list the translation of each word.  It is interesting to see how the translator came up with the translation from each of the words, their meanings, and how they are put together. 
  

I have studies with non-traditional teachers that don’t emphasize the sutras.  But I am seeing that much of what they say in their teachings is still from the sutras, not in the same language, but there just the same.

Comments

[Webmaster-Translations]

It is the meaning of the sutras that is important. A word to word translation is indeed important to know the correct meaning of the words. But it is the overall implied or intended meaning of the verse that is most important. Some words have peculiar meanings when used in a particular way. A word to word translation may not help here. The translator must be familiar with the conventions of spoken Sanskrit language, to translate it to its most appropriate meaning.

Webmaster-Translations:
http://freetranslationblog.blogspot.com

[Chris]

I agree with the above comment. The combination of the words in the sutra is often greater than the individual meaning of the words.

[Sharon Frost]

We spent a lot of time with the sutras in my teacher training -- which was interesting. We used several translations: Iyengar, Betty Stoller Miller, Satchidananda. Fascinating to compare. Even so, whenever I pick up the sutras I go on a mental ramble with one of them and the ramble is very different each time. And sometimes I draw them. The sutras make a really interesting springboard. I find I don't draw in with the sutras, I fall out. Not that that has anything to do with the sutras themselves.

[Donna]

I was looking today for links to study the sutras and was so pleased to find your site. I read the blog (way back in March) on how to study the sutras and was very surprised to read that the sutras should be read backwards. Can you tell me anything else about that. Does that mean we should interpret them backwards, or what! Thanks for your help. I love your site.

[Chris]

I'm not sure exactly why we were meant to read them backwards but I think it has to do with the sanskrit language. If you start with the last word and go backward you get the core words then the descriptive words.

I personally read them forwards and backwards.