Patanjala Yoga Sutras
with Dr. H. V. Nagaraj Rao · Traditional Sanskrit Scholar, MysoreA complete verse-by-verse study of all four chapters of the Yoga Sūtras, taught from within the Mysore Sanskrit tradition by a scholar formed at the heart of that community.
About Mysore LineageThe Yoga Sūtras are the philosophical backbone of everything you practice. Every breath linked to movement, every instruction to still the mind, every idea of what yoga is actually for: all of it traces back to this text. Yet most practitioners have never studied it directly, verse by verse, with a scholar who has spent a lifetime inside it.
Guided by Dr. H. V. Nagaraj Rao, a senior Sanskrit scholar from the heart of Mysore's yoga culture, you will receive a rare and unhurried education in this text. Throughout, Dr. Rao draws on the allied texts, the Sankhya Kārikā, the Upaniṣads, and the Bhagavad Gita, so you see how the Yoga Sūtras stand at the center of a much larger conversation in Indian thought. Yet his explanations are grounded and clear: real-life examples, psychological insights, and down-to-earth stories that show how yoga actually works in daily life.
His gift is making the subtle clear without making it simple.
Samādhi is often taught in the West as something you've never been to, you don't know anybody who's been there, and you may never get there in this lifetime. But several speakers here said you've probably touched samādhi before, if only briefly. Jayashree said, when have you lost yourself? Have you had that extreme moment of bliss? That was samādhi. It's reshaping the way I consider things I've been taught in the past.
What You Will Learn
- Walk verse by verse through all four chapters of the Yoga Sūtras, so you learn the whole text, not just a few famous lines.
- Understand how Patañjali organizes yoga as a complete path: from the nature of the mind and its fluctuations to practice, ethics, meditation, and liberation.
- Recognize the roots of suffering in your own life and see clearly how abhyāsa (steady practice), vairāgya (letting go), devotion, and meditation actually work to still and clarify the mind.
- Integrate the yamas and niyamas (yoga's ethical foundations), the eight limbs, and Kriyā Yoga (the yoga of action) as practical tools you can apply in daily life, not just concepts you have heard in class.
- See the Yoga Sūtras through the eyes of a Mysore Sanskrit scholar, in a way that is deeply connected to the roots of Ashtanga Yoga and the very community that gave this practice to the world.
Sometimes just the ability to listen to them and hear them articulate something that I have felt and experienced but have never had the means to say or communicate myself was mind-blowing. It just opened my heart. I was like, yeah, okay, that's what that was. That's that feeling. That's what happened.
When You Enroll
Every lesson comes in three formats (video, audio, and written notes) so you can study in whatever way suits you. Twenty-five hours of teaching across all four chapters, with the allied texts brought in wherever they illuminate the Sūtras.
The course is yours to keep, with no expiry and no repurchase to come back to a lesson five years from now. On completion you receive a certificate from the Samskriti Foundation, and Yoga Alliance registered teachers can apply the course toward their continuing-education requirements.
Your Teacher
Vidvān H. V. Nagaraj Rao is a Sanskrit grammarian trained in both traditional and modern methods. His specialty is Vyākaraṇa and Alaṅkāra, Sanskrit grammar and poetics, the disciplines that allow him to speak with authority on what any Sanskrit text actually means.
He began his career as a researcher at the Oriental Research Institute in Mysore and has published many original works in Sanskrit, with English and Kannada translations. He has lectured in Thailand, Hong Kong, the United States, Israel, and England; taught Sanskrit at the University of Chicago as a visiting professor; and was invited as a fellow to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He delivered an address in pure classical Sanskrit at the World Sanskrit Conference in Edinburgh in 2006, and his translations have been honored by the Sahitya Akademi, India's national academy of letters. He has subsequently been recognized by the President of India for his contributions to Sanskrit scholarship. He serves as honorary editor of Sudharma, the only Sanskrit daily newspaper in the world.
After a lifetime inside these texts, Dr. Rao still teaches with razor-sharp wit and infectious humor, shedding new light on the Yoga Sūtras, Bhagavad Gita, and the Upaniṣads with a passion for logic and an extraordinary ability to communicate in English. Students leave his presentations with a feeling of liberation from the mundane and inspiration to strive for higher goals in life.
Listening, watching the presence of each speaker, you can feel their yoga. You can feel their lightness and their presence and their care, everything just emanating from them.
Questions first? Write to andrew@ashtangayogastudio.com
or WhatsApp +1 (405) 503-7779
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The Yoga Sūtras, Bhagavad Gita, and Sankhya Kārikā are the three texts that form the complete philosophical foundation of yoga, each taught verse by verse by scholars from within the living Mysore tradition. Studied together they become something rare: a complete philosophical education in the tradition that gave modern yoga to the world. All three courses include video, audio, and written notes with permanent access.
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