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The original language of yoga is Sanskrit. Quite often it is difficult to give a one-word translation in English for various Sanskrit words. One often-used solution to this is simply not to translate, but just to use the Sanskrit word. That's fine if you are a Sanskrit scholar, but for the ordinary yoga student this can be a bit of a problem - until you are familiar with the terminology.

So I thought it would be handy to provide a quick-reference page, explaining the meanings of the words which I personally considered to be important, or found it hard to get a grip on, and which turn up quite often in any study of the main texts of yoga philosophy, such as Patanjali's Yoga Sutras or the Bhagavad Gita. I will add to the page from time to time, and if you out there would like me to add a definition, let me know.

I have used Feuerstein, The Yoga Tradition, as my main source of reference, because his definitions are easy to understand. I have also used Desikachar, Heart of Yoga, for the same reasons, and sometimes refer to this book for a fuller discussion of some of the concepts. Wikipedia is also a useful reference source when you are on-line.

advaita vedānta – (advaita = non-dualist) One of the schools of Indian philosophy. Basically it teaches that there is no distinction between Brahman and ātman. See the chapter on vedānta in Yoga Phil, or the article on this topic in Wikipedia,

ahaṃkāra – ("I-maker") The sense of individuation or Self; the faculty that can discriminate between subject and object.

ātman – ("self") (i) Oneself; (ii) The transcendental Self, which is identical with the Absolute (brahman), according to the nondualist schools of thought. (See also puruṣa, cit.)

avidyā – "incorrect comprehension". For a full discussion, see Heart of Yoga, Chapter 2.

bhakti yoga - (bhakti = devotion) signifies a blissful, selfless and overwhelming love of God. This is essentially a Vedanta term, rather than a Classical yoga term.

brahman – The transcendental ground of existence, or innermost essence of all reality. In the Vedanta philosophy, Brahman is the Absolute, or sole reality.

buddhi – (="awareness, wisdom") The higher, intuitive mind. or faculty of wisdom. This term is also used to denote "thought" or "cognition". (See also manas, citta.)

cit – ("awareness, consciousness") Pure Awareness, or the transcendental Consciousness beyond all thought; the eternal witness. (See also ātman, puruṣa, draṣṭar)

citta – ("consciousness, mind") The finite mind, psyche or consciousness, which is dependent on the play of attention, as opposed to cit. It is linked through the senses to the outer world, and the puruṣa perceives through the mind. (See also buddhi, manas, drastr, puruṣa.)

dhāraṇā – ("holding") Concentration - the sixth limb of Patanjali's aṣṭāṅga yoga (eightfold yoga). The state of mind in which the attention is focused on one point.

dharma – ("bearer") This word has many layers of meaning. The main meanings are: (i) the cosmic law or order; (ii) duty, morality or virtue - this is a worldly manifestation of the cosmic law; (iii) teaching, doctrine.

dhyāna – ("meditation") The seventh limb of Patanjali's aṣṭāṅga yoga (eightfold yoga). It is a deepening of concentration (dhāraṇā) and leads on to samādhi ("ecstasy" - q.v.)

draṣṭar – ("seer") That which sees. (See also buddhi, manas, cit, puruṣa).

duḥkha – ("suffering") Conditioned or finite existence is inherently sorrowful or painful.

guṇa – ("strand", "quality") The three guna are the primary constituents of nature or prakṛti. They are: rajas (dynamism), tamas (inertia) and sattva (lucidity). The constant interaction between them creates the entire manifest and unmanifest cosmos, including citta, the mind.

jñāna - (“knowledge”) - Jñāna is the opposite of avidyā. In Bhagavad Gita it’s direct spititual illumination, as contrasted with vijñāna. According to Advaita Vedānta it’s the only means to liberation.

karma – ("action") The subtle effect caused by the actions and wishes of an unenlightened individual, which is responsible for his/her rebirth, and for his/her experiences in this life and future lives.

karma yoga – Yoga in which action is done as a duty, without any concern for success or failure. See also Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2

kleśa – ("affliction") The five aspects of perception which make yogic progress difficult. See Heart of Yoga, Chapter 2.

koṣa – ("sheath", "casing") A Vedanta concept. There are five bodily envelopes: (i) annamaya koṣa, the sheath composed of food; (ii) prāṇamaya koṣa, the sheath composed of life force; (iii) manomaya koṣa, the sheath composed of thought; (ib) vijñānamaya koṣa sheath composed of understanding; (v) ānandamaya koṣa, the sheath composed of bliss.

manas – ("mind") The lower mind, which is understood as a relay station for the senses (indriya) and which is itself regarded as one of the senses. (See also buddhi, citta.)

māyā – ("measuring") (i) The measuring , divisive power of the divine; (ii) illusion; the illusory nature of phenomenal reality. (A Vedanta concept.

prakṛti – ("creatrix") Nature, which is insentient, consists of an external, transcendental ground (called pradhāna or alinga) and various levels of subtle (sūkshma) and gross (sthūla) manifestation. The lowest level is the visible material realm with its myriad objects. Nature is composed of three types of qualities or forces (guṇa). (See also ātman, puruṣa.) There is more about prakṛti in Heart of Yoga, Chapter 10.

prāṇa – ("life") (i) The life force sustaining the body; (ii) the breath as the external manifestation of the life force. See also Heart of Yoga, Chapter 6.

puruṣa – ("male") In the Yoga and Samkhya traditions, the transcendental Self, Spirit, or pure Awareness (cit), as opposed to the finite personality (jiva). (See also prakṛti.) Also translated as "the perceiver" (i.e. same as draṣṭar, q.v.).There is more about puruṣa in Heart of Yoga, Chapter 10.

raja yoga – (“royal yoga”) also known as aṣṭāṅga yoga, this is the system presented in the Yoga Sutras. It’s an eightfold system of yoga, leading to the state of samādhi which in its turn leads to kaivalya or liberation.

sādhana – ("realising") The path of spiritual realisation; a particular spiritual practice.

samādhi – ("ecstasy") The eighth and final limb of Patanjali's aṣṭāṅga yoga (eightfold yoga). In this state there is idendtification of the subject and the contemplated object.

sāṃkhya – one of the six schools of Indian philosophy. Its main teaching is the duality of the universe. Originally its teachers found no place for a creator God, as the existence of a creator God could not be proved. Later, however, followers of Samkhya adopted theism and included Ishvara (“the Lord”) within the system. See the chapter on Sāṃkhya in Yoga Phil, and the article in Wikipedia.

saṃsāra – (“flowing together”) The birth-death cycle of reincarnation See also Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2

saṃskāra – ("activator") Habitual movement of the mind. Every action lays down a deposit in the mind, which conditions the mind and leads on to a new activity, thus keeping the doer enmeshed in the world of change.

vedānta – See advaita vedānta

vijñāna – the detailed rational knowledge of the principles of existence. Contrasts with jñāna.