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Patanjali PDF
Patanjali PDF
By P. R. Kannan
SAGE PATANJALI, NATARAJA & MAHABHASHYAM
A well known prayer to Sage Patanjali, written by Bhojaraja refers to his major contributions in
three distinct fields.
“ च ।
“
“I bow with folded hands before Patanjali, the foremost among sages, who removed the defect of
mind with Yoga, that of words with grammar and that of body with medicine.”
Sage Patanjali‟s Yoga Sutras are well known. Yoga has spread all over the world. However
Patanjali is also credited with many other extraordinary achievements, as can be noted in the
above verse. He is said to have written a work of reference on Ayurveda; this book is not available
now, though some scholars think that Charakasamhita was indeed Patanjali‟s work. He is more
famously known for his authorship of „Mahabhashyam‟, a great commentary on Panini‟s Sutras on
Sanskrit grammar, the Ashtaadhyayi. Above all, he, along with another great sage Vyaghrapada,
had the first darshan of Lord Nataraja at Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu.
A woman by name Gonika, daughter of a certain sage, was offering Arghya to Surya. Adi Sesha
took the form of a small snake and dropped down from the sky in her palms and on to the ground
along with the Arghya waters. As he dropped from the cupped palms of the woman, he came to be
known as Patanjali- - . The serpent form changed instantly into a boy with
upper part of the body human and the lower, serpent. He left for forest in order to perform
penance. After a long time Siva appeared in the form of Brahma and offered him the boon of lofty
Siddhis (supernatural powers) and Vidyas. Patanjali declined and persisted in his aspiration to
have darshan of Nataraja. Siva then asked him to proceed to Chidambaram. Patanjali pierced the
ground, reached Nagaloka and came up through a Biladvara (mouth of cave) to Chidambaram. He
established a Sivalinga in the western part of the town and worshipped intensely. This deity,
known as Ananthiswara is ensconced in a small nice temple, adjacent to a tank called Nagacheri
tank even today.
At the same time another sage known as Vyaghrapada was also praying with all his heart to Siva
for darshan of Nataraja. He established and worshipped a Sivalinga, known as Sri Moolanatha.
This shrine is situated inside the main Nataraja temple and can be seen even today.
Vyaghrapada, who was earlier called Madhyandina, was the father of the famous sage
Upamanyu. Mahabharata credits Upamanyu with praying to Siva even as a small child for milk and
“ ।
- ॥“
“Lord Nataraja sounded his Damaru fourteen times at the close of his dance. He thus brought out
the Siva Sutras with a desire to uplift Siddhas like Sanaka and others.”
१. अ इ उ | २. ऋ ऌ | ३. ए ओ | ४. ऐ औ | ५. ह य व र | ६. ल | ७. ञ म ङ ण न |
१३. श ष स | १४. ह |
These Maheswara Sutras are regularly chanted during Vedarambham at the time of Upakarma. It
is interesting that these very brief and esoteric assemblages of sounds yielded to two different
interpretations leading to two streams of thought. One was the pinnacle of spirituality and Advaita
Vedanta, and Kashmir Saivism. A commentary, known as Kaasika, of the Siva Sutras explaining
this spiritual import was written by Nandi himself. Explanation of the first Sutra from Nandi‟s
Kaasika is given below as an example.
“The letter अ represents Brahman, who is without attributes, even while pervading all objects.
When Brahman unites with consciousness represented by the letter इ, he becomes Iswara,
The second interpretation relates to Sanskrit grammar. Panini, believed to have been born in
Gandhara (Khandahar in present-day Afghanistan), wrote his famous commentary of the Siva
Sutras, called Ashtadhyayi, which consists of 3,959 sutras or rules, distributed among eight
chapters, each subdivided into four sections or padas. This is regarded as the seminal and path-
breaking text on Sanskrit grammar. Celebrated as extremely compact without sacrificing
completeness, it would become the model for later specialist technical texts. It takes material from
Once Patanjali completed his masterpiece, he decided to teach it to a large number of disciples. At
Chidambaram he gathered a thousand students and asked them to sit in front of a screen during
classes and he used to sit behind the screen and teach, unseen by them. They had been
instructed strictly by the teacher never to attempt to pull the screen and see him during the class.
As teaching proceeded, the students noted that the teaching and clarification of doubts was so
individual student-oriented that they developed serious doubts as to how this is humanly possible
for a single teacher. Hence curiosity prevailed over discipline and some students pulled the screen
away during the class one day. All of them were instantly reduced to ashes by the poisonous
breath from the thousand-hooded serpent Adi Sesha, who was actually teaching them with a
thousand different mouths. One student luckily had gone out for answering the call of nature, but
he had left the class without the teacher‟s permission. When he returned, he found all his class-
fellows in ashes and begged for mercy of the teacher. Patanjali cursed him to become a Brahma-
rakshasa, as he had violated the disciple‟s discipline of not leaving the class while in progress
without permission. On the student‟s pleading, Patanjali relaxed the curse saying that he would be
freed from the curse, if he found a student in turn, who could answer a tricky question in Sanskrit
grammar. Patanjali now taught him the rest of the Mahabhashyam and allowed him to go his way.
the usual question: “ ”- “What is the past participle of the root ”. Instead of the
incorrect answer given by others, Chandra Sarma gave the correct answer . The
brahmarakshasa was relieved of the curse immediately. He then taught the entire Mahabhashyam
to Chandra Sarma. In later years, the former student of Patanjali, who was freed of the terrible
curse owing to Patanjali‟s mercy, proceeded to Badrinath and became the great teacher of Advaita
Vedanta, Gowdapada. He wrote the famous Mandukya Karika, an explanatory treatise on
Mandukya Upanishad. Chandra Sarma, who was in fact Patanjali, became Govinda
Bhagavatpada, the illustrious disciple of Gowdapada. Govinda Bhagavatpada in turn became the
teacher of Adi Sankaracharya.
curved symbol like in . It is interesting that Patanjali has composed a wonderful Stotra, which
has a lilting tune of the jingle of the bells in the Dancing Nataraja‟s anklet, without using the two
commonly used features of grammar. The first stanza is given below.
-
-
- -
“Worship in your heart Nataraja, who is adored by the virtuous; has a raised leg with bent foot;
wears beautiful bracelets making a jingling sound; who is like the purifying collyrium for the eyes of
Patanjali; free from impurities; with feet which do not move; who destroys (cycle of) births;
beautiful like the kadamba tree; who has sky as garment; supreme; whose throat resembles
cluster of rain bearing clouds; jewel in the ocean of consciousness; Sun blossoming the lotus-
heart of the wise; who dances in the most sacred Chidambaram (or, in the heart-space of the
pure).” (1)
May Sage Patanjali bless us with good and strong health, deep scholarship of languages and
subjects, and intense devotion at the feet of Lord Nataraja.