Your feedback helps improve this website
Ask questions. Give comments. Your opinions and observations are a welcome addition to this website!
The process of making various translations and transliterations part of the website's database is ongoing. Content is added through traditional methods of human effort. In some ways, this helps give this website soul and character. But it can also be the reason for the occasional typographical error. For the latter, apologies are extended as well as a promise that the information presented here is constantly reviewed to be as accurate as the source from where it originated.
Comments and replies
Comment posted by David on December 6, 2019:
Hi. Is your website still active? It doesn't seem to be fully functional.
Eugene Ahn replied:
Thanks for your interest David. The website was under renovation for most of 2019 as part of being moved to a new server. The website is back to normal functionality now!
Comment posted by Leigh from Alaska on November 4, 2019:
I love your site! It is a huge gift!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I haven't been able to search lately because the drop down for the sutra menu isn't working for me on a few browsers.
Eugene Ahn replied:
Thank you Leigh! The website is being upgraded as part of its relocation to a new server. Let me know which browsers are causing issues for you. Thanks again!
Comment posted by Nandish Patel from London, UK on May 20, 2019:
First, thank you for you service. I have found the sutra and meaning I was looking for. If I may suggest, navigation can be improved. For example, add a Home button. Dhanyavaad.
Eugene Ahn replied:
Thank you Nandish. You offer an excellent suggestion. A home link has been added to the main menu. (Coincidentally, the website logo lotus graphic has always acted as a home button, although it is not explicitly labeled as such.) Thanks again!
Comment posted by juliana from middle island, ny on July 10, 2016:
very helpful site, I appreciate the hard work that went into "compiling" it---im sure it was a labor of love: isvarapranidhana!
Eugene Ahn replied:
Thank you juliana!
Comment posted by Adriana from Italy on April 29, 2016:
Searching on web other things I've arrived here! And i'm so pleased! Great work! Thank You for this effort! Grazie!
Eugene Ahn replied:
Thank you Adriana! It's been many years now that the website has been one of the Internet's secret yoga sutra resources! I am contemplating updating the website design so that the pages are more user-friendly for mobile users. I welcome any thoughts or feedback on this topic, from anyone who uses this website. Thank you.
Comment posted by Anjani from London on December 29, 2015:
You have done a great job. I wish you would or could include sound bytes for each chant recited by someone who knows Sanskrit pronounciatiations.
Eugene Ahn replied:
Sounds like a wonderful idea, thank you for the suggestion. Clips that allow us to hear the sutras as spoken Sanskrit would be useful. I'll definitely look into how Sanskrit sound clips could be included as a translation option.
Comment posted by Rachel from VA on December 26, 2015:
At a certain point in Pada 3 I believe, Desikachar's translation is always one off from all the other ones.....
Eugene Ahn replied:
Thank you. I've completed a careful review of the website's entries for Desikachar's translation of the third pada. Your feedback helped reveal that in sutra 3.27, Desikachar's commentary was being displayed instead of Desikachar's translation. This has been fixed, and the translation displays properly now.
Comment posted by Tricia from USA on December 17, 2015:
Very helpful. FYI: Sutra 2.26 by Satchidananda is missing. "Uninterrupted discriminative discernment is the method for its removal."
Eugene Ahn replied:
Thank you! You found a sutra that was not showing properly with others in its translation set. A bug in the database was found and fixed, and the sutra displays properly now. Good catch!
Comment posted by Claudia from Australia on January 31, 2014:
Thank you :)
Comment posted by Lisa Walford, Carmen Fitzgibbon from Pune, India on November 14, 2013:
Carmen is a YW teacher trainer, she teaches with Jeanne. I am one of the creators of the YW teacher training. We are currently in Pune studying with Shree Iyengar, and came upon your website. How absolutely wonderful! It is a great resource. I used it to help me write my blog. thank you so much! May the force be with you! .
Eugene Ahn replied:
Lisa, it is so great to receive your comment. The work you did to create the Yoga Works teacher training program made possible the experience that inspired this website. The teacher training program provided my first real contact with the yoga sutras, and looking back in reflection, that contact completely transformed my understanding and attitude to the practice of yoga. I am fortunate to say I have had the opportunity to practice yoga with both you at the Montana studio and Carmen at the Larchmont Village studio and am grateful to have access to such dedicated teachers. May you and Carmen experience wonderful things during your studies in Pune.
Comment posted by Edward Kemp from Germany on July 31, 2013:
Great job..Simply done ,clear, intense,compact,drops of concentrated human knowledge ready to be sucked in through skin osmosis which comes through the practise of asanas..Many thanks to you and of course to the great people who put this knowledge on paper....
Comment posted by Rachel from Lima on June 12, 2008:
I love your website. Thank you for making seemingly esoteric information available to the interested masses....
Comment posted April 18, 2008:
I appreciate the fact that the text is a readable size. Thank you.
Eugene Ahn replied:
The website's presentation goals are simple: Make the yoga sutras accessible. Make them readable. From anywhere. The pages are designed to be easily read on a mobile device. That means no bloated layouts, bells, whistles, extraneous graphics, or Flash. I tested the pages on an iPhone.
Comment posted March 22, 2008:
I added the Yoga Sutra Moment Facebook application and it doesn't have all the features here on the website. When will the two match each other?
Eugene Ahn replied:
Wise yogi observes: Walking down two paths at the same time with only one set of legs is a challenge. So the most honest answer is: I don't know. Soon? Most likely this lifetime.
Comment posted March 2, 2008:
Who is responsible for this website and how is it being funded?
Eugene Ahn replied:
This website is a labor of love. One Friday evening in the spring of 2006, I was sitting in the cavernous practice room at Center for Yoga in Los Angeles, attending a yoga teacher training session. My teachers, Jeanne Heileman and Natasha Rizopoulos, arranged the group in a large circle around a pile of books -- all various translations of Patanjali's yoga sutras. We spent the evening looking up sutra after sutra, exploring the different translations. Through this activity, a difficult text became accessible to me. Also, it marked the beginning of a new appreciation for the nuance and poetry of the yoga sutras. I continue to read the yoga sutras in this way, by consulting several texts simultaneously. Now, almost two years later, this website is an attempt to honor and replicate that original experience, and it is an important resource in my ongoing personal study of the yoga sutras.
Comment posted February 24, 2008:
What's the deal with the website name?
Eugene Ahn replied:
Great question. If you have a website or know someone with a website, then you know how difficult it is to get the domain name of your dreams. They've all be taken, seemingly, by cybersquatters, speculators, porn entrepeneurs, you name it. The sequence of letters -- A-T-H-A-Y-O-G-A-N-U-S-A-S-A-N-A-M -- was, remarkably, available for registration. By sheer coincidence, this happens to be a recognized transliteration of Patanjali's first yoga sutra, the one that kicks off the entire ancient text on yoga practice. Roughly translated, it means "Yoga happens now," and since that pretty much describes what happens on the website, the name fits perfectly.