Issues concerning the theological element of classical Yoga Philosophy and their reassessment in two contemporary readings of the Yogasūtra.

In the present paper we examine the theological element of the Yogasūtra and two of the newest provocative interpretations put forward about this issue. Considering initially a few authors whose works were regarded as authoritative during the XXth century, we analyse their critical opinions on the subject. After discussing the main passages in which the notion of īśvara appears in the Yogasūtra, we examine two relatively recent readings of the Yogasūtra that have a direct bearing on the question of how Patanjali’s introduction of īśvara should be understood. We discuss Maas’ possition, who, developing a hypotesis originally introduced by Bronkhorst, suggests that the Yogasūtra and Vyāsa’s Yogabhāṣya (together known as the Pātanjalayogaśāstra) should be taken as constituting a unified whole compiled and composed by a single author, possibly Patanjali. We also take into consideration Bryant’s translation and commentary on the Yogasūtra, where he asserts that Patanjali was a devotee of a personal god like Kṛṣṇa, and that his notion of īśvara-praṇidhāna can be understood as “devotion to God”. We briefly discuss, finally, the mutual compatibility of these interpretations.