sutra
सूत्र sutraA maximally compressed aphoristic statement, and the terse compositional style in which the Vedangas and much early Sanskrit learning were composed.
Where this term appears
- Shruti and Smriti: what counts as Hindu scripture? Scriptures
The tradition built its highest theology on three foundational texts: the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras, and the Bhagavad Gita.
- What are the Upanishads? Scriptures
The texts were systematized into the Brahma Sutras , a terse summary of Upanishadic teaching, and the great teachers wrote their commentaries on those sutras and on the Upanishads themselves, each reaching a di…
- What is the Bhagavad Gita? Scriptures
The Gita is one of the three foundational texts of Vedanta, the prasthanatraya , the "three points of departure": the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras , and the Gita.
- Charvaka: the Indian materialists Philosophy
Tradition also points back to Brihaspati , the sage to whom the lost foundational aphorisms, the Brihaspati Sutra , were ascribed.
- Dharma, Karma and Rebirth Essentials
Those two, together with the Brahma Sutras , make up the prasthana-traya , the threefold foundation that every school of Vedanta sets out to interpret.
- Is yoga Hindu? Is it a religion? Yoga
Patanjali and classical yoga If one figure stands at the centre, it is Patanjali, who around the early centuries CE compiled the Yoga Sutras , the foundational text of classical yoga.
- Ishta-Devata: Choosing a Personal Deity Deities
In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the classical manual of yoga compiled in the early centuries of the Common Era, the second chapter lists what each discipline of practice yields.
- Ishvara, Bhagavan and Brahman: How Hinduism Conceives God Essentials
Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutras (1.24), gives the leanest definition in the tradition: Ishvara is a special purusha , a distinct consciousness, untouched by affliction, by action, by the fruits of action, and by …