Patañjali. A 2nd.-c. BCE Indian philosopher. Author of Books I-III of the Yoga-sūtras, the earliest systematic treatise on yoga. He did not claim to be the inventor of the yogic techniques but merely to have collected and systematized the early doctrinal traditions and practices of the mystics and ascetics of India.

Geddes MacGregor, Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, New York: Paragon House, 1989