There is however another theory which identifies the writer of the great commentary on Pa@nini called the Mahabha@sya with the Patanjali of the Yoga sutra.  This theory has been accepted by many western scholars probably on the strength of some Indian commentators who identified the two Patanjalis.  Of these one is the writer of the Patanjalicarita (Ramabhadra Dik@sita) who could not have flourished earlier than the eighteenth century.  The other is that cited in S’ivarama’s commentary on Vasavadatta which Aufrecht assigns to the eighteenth century.  The other two are king Bhoja of Dhar and Cakrapa@nidatta,

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[Footnote 1:  Weber’s History of Indian Literature, p. 223 n.]

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the commentator of Caraka, who belonged to the eleventh century A.D.  Thus Cakrapa@ni says that he adores the Ahipati (mythical serpent chief) who removed the defects of mind, speech and body by his Patanjala mahabha@sya and the revision of Caraka. Bhoja says:  “Victory be to the luminous words of that illustrious sovereign Ra@nara@nigamalla who by composing his grammar, by writing his commentary on the Patanjala and by producing a treatise on medicine called Rajam@rga@nka has like the lord of the holder of serpents removed defilement from speech, mind and body.”  The adoration hymn of Vyasa (which is considered to be an interpolation even by orthodox scholars) is also based upon the same tradition.  It is not impossible therefore that the later Indian commentators might have made some confusion between the three Patanjalis, the grammarian, the Yoga editor, and the medical writer to whom is ascribed the book known as Patanjalatantra, and who has been quoted by S’ivadasa in his commentary on Cakradatta in connection with the heating of metals.

Professor J.H.  Woods of Harvard University is therefore in a way justified in his unwillingness to identify the grammarian and the Yoga editor on the slender evidence of these commentators.  It is indeed curious to notice that the great commentators of the grammar school such as Bhart@rhari, Kaiyya@ta, Vamana, Jayaditya, Nages’a, etc. are silent on this point.  This is indeed a point against the identification of the two Patanjalis by some Yoga and medical commentators of a later age.  And if other proofs are available which go against such an identification, we could not think the grammarian and the Yoga writer to be the same person.

Let us now see if Patanjali’s grammatical work contains anything which may lead us to think that he was not the same person as the writer on Yoga.  Professor Woods supposes that the philosophic concept of substance (dravya) of the two Patanjalis differs and therefore they cannot be identified.  He holds that dravya is described in Vyasabha@sya in one place as being the unity of species and qualities (samanyavis’e@satmaka), whereas the Mahabha@sya holds that a dravya denotes a genus and also specific qualities according as the emphasis or stress is laid on either side.  I fail to see how these ideas are totally antagonistic.  Moreover, we know that these two views were held by