Key idea of the Yoga Sūtras
prajñā · wisdom
Direct insight born of absorption, which bears truth and knows the particular.
Prajñā is wisdom or insight, and in the Yoga Sūtras it is knowledge born of practice, not of study alone. It appears among the supports of absorption: faith, energy, memory, absorption and wisdom (1.20). In the clarity of 'beyond subtle thought' inner serenity arises, and there wisdom bears truth, ṛtaṃbharā (1.47–1.48). Its object differs from that of insight drawn from learning and inference, because its object is the particular (1.49). Vyāsa explains that words and inference deal in general kinds, while this insight sees the thing itself. The impression born of it blocks other impressions (1.50), and even that is finally stilled (1.51). For one with discernment, wisdom reaches the final ground in seven stages (2.27). In Book III the light of wisdom dawns from mastery of saṃyama (3.5). Wisdom is not opposed to learning: Vyāsa quotes a verse naming scripture, inference and eager practice as its three supports (on 1.48).
Vyāsa
“… the vision by the flash (sphuṭa) of insight which does not pass successively through the serial order [of the usual processes of experience] and which has as its intended-object the thing as it really is.”
Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya in J. H. Woods' translation (1914), p. 93.
How it has been read
Vyāsa spells out the seven stages of 2.27: four concern insight (what is to be avoided is known, its causes have dwindled, release is seen, the means is cultivated) and three concern the mind's own release.
A common misreading
Prajñā is sometimes treated as cleverness or learning. The text distinguishes it from knowledge drawn from testimony and inference (1.49): it is direct seeing in absorption.
Where the text defines it
- 1.20 For others, it is preceded by faith, energy, memory, absorption and wisdom.
- 1.48 There, wisdom bears truth.
- 1.49 Its object differs from that of insight drawn from learning and inference, because its object is the particular.
- 2.27 Its wisdom reaches the final ground in seven stages.
- 3.5 Mastering it, the light of wisdom dawns.