Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
The Six Branches of Yoga is a technical manual that identifies and categorizes the six essential components of yogic practice. The text lists these limbs as pratyāhāra (withdrawal of senses), dhyāna (meditation), prāṇāyāma (breath control), dhāraṇā (concentration), anusmṛti (recollection), and samādhi (meditative absorption). By framing these practices as a cohesive system, the work commits the reader to a structured methodology of mental and physiological discipline. The text is presented as a transmission from Śavarīśvara to Mahā Vibhūticandra, the latter of whom served as the translator into Tibetan. The work functions as a concise instructional guide, establishing the nomenclature and the foundational framework required for the practitioner to engage in the six-limbed yoga system.
Provenance
About this text
Defining the six limbs of yoga as pratyāhāra, dhyāna, prāṇāyāma, dhāraṇā, anusmṛti, and samādhi, the Yogaṣaḍaṅga is a work attributed to the Indian author Śābaripāda. The text is presented as a transmission from Śavarīśvara to the paṇḍita Mahā Vibhūticandra, who translated the work into the Tibetan language. Preserved in the Tengyur, volume པ, the Tibetan version is titled rnal 'byor yan lag drug pa and is situated within the Non-dual Tantra collection of the classical Tibetan period. Spanning two pages in this edition, the work enacts a system of mental and physiological discipline, specifically addressing the cessation of outer and inner conceptualizations and the movement of the ten winds into the dhūtī through threefold immobility. A scholar or serious reader consults this text today to examine its structured methodology of yogic practice and its identification of the essential components required for the practitioner to engage in the six-limbed yoga system.
Cite thisAnuvāda, “The Six Branches of Yoga” (Toh 1375), machine draft, 2026.https://naxiai.com/tibetan/works/toh1375
Summary & commentary
Significance
This work is significant for its preservation of the specific terminology of the six limbs of yoga within the Indo-Tibetan tradition. It illustrates the process of self-translation and the transmission of technical yogic knowledge from Indian masters to Tibetan scholars.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1
Introduction and Listing
Provides the title in Sanskrit and Tibetan, offers an invocation to Vajradhara, and enumerates the six limbs of yoga.
2
Colophon
Identifies the original speaker, Śavarīśvara, and the translator, Mahā Vibhūticandra.
Themes
Yogic Methodology (1)
Translation and Transmission (2)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
In the language of India: Yoga-ṣaḍaṅga-nāma. In the language of Tibet: Rnal ’byor yan lag drug pa zhes bya ba (The Six-Limbed Yoga). Homage to the glorious Vajradhara.
Pratyāhāra, dhyāna, prāṇāyāma, as well as dhāraṇā, anusmṛti, and samādhi—these are taught as the six limbs of yoga.
Through the threefold immobility, the ten winds enter the dhūtī; when outer and inner conceptualizations cease and the signs arise, this is the limb of pratyāhāra.
When the signs are seen to be stable, the wisdom of investigation and analysis, joy, bliss, one-pointedness, immobility, and non-conceptuality are the limbs of dhyāna.
By the ten winds entering the central channel, the winds themselves move within the drops of the four cakras; this is the limb of prāṇāyāma.
As the life-wind enters the drops, the wind and mind are held within the haṃ drop at the wheel of great bliss; this is the limb of dhāraṇā.
Through the power of the wind and mind being held in the drops, the light of the inner heat (caṇḍālī) appears and a sublime bliss-warmth arises; this is the limb of anusmṛti.
When the ten signs are perfected, the appearance of the great drop arises. Within the manifold great drop, the image of a black line appears. Then, the six classes of beings and so forth, as well as the extremely subtle nirmāṇakāya and numerous saṃbhogakāyas, are seen; these are the various reflected forms of the clear light (ābhāsvara).
When the mind dissolves into that, the limb of samādhi is perfected.
The Six-Limbed Yoga.