Yoga Journal — June, 2007 RICHARD ROSEN

When you study a Sanskrit text like Patan­jali's Yoga Sutra, you're forced to rely, for the most part, on an English translation. Unfortunately, most of the Sutra's San­skrit words can't be directly translated into English. As a result, rendered manuscripts seem somewhat flat relative to Patanjali's original passages. One solution is to com­pare several translations so that the text's fuller meaning is gradually revealed through different interpretations. The problem is, you can end up flipping tediously back and forth through a tall stack of books.

Fortunately, Salvatore Zambito, a yoga teacher since 1968 from Washington State, has devised an almost perfect solution to this dilemma. In this, his first book, he has collected a dozen translations of the sut­ras, or threads of knowledge, published between 1890 and 1995. The translators' commentaries that usually accompany the sutras in other volumes have been elimi­nated, thus making the sutras "unadorned."

In Zambito's collection, each sutra includes the original Sanskrit with its Eng­lish transliteration and the breakdown of the individual Sanskrit words into their constituent elements, followed by 12 Eng­lish interpretations. For example, sutra I.2, which defines yoga as citta-vrtti-nirodha, has several interpretations, including citta as "thinking principle" or "consciousness"; vrtti as "thought-waves" or "activities"; nirodha as "cessation," "quieting," "sup­pression," or "subjugation."

The translations are as diverse as the scholars who wrote them: Georg Feuer­stein, Vyaas Houston, and Swami Veda Bharati (formerly Pandit Arya), who wrote the foreword to the book; distinguished swamis Vivekananda and Satchidananda; Theosophist sympathizers Alice A. Bailey and M.N. Dvivedi. Along with its infor­mative essays in the appendixes, this book is an essential reference for serious Yoga Sutra students. Let's hope that volume 2, with translations made since 1995, is com­ing soon.

What we need (in Yoga studies) is a figurative touchstone—like the stone once used to test the quality of gold—that will help us make educated evaluations of all the Yoga-Sutra translations and their accompanying commentaries. This dictionary, conceived by Salvatore in his dedicated lifelong pursuit to disseminate authentic yoga wisdom and prepared with the help of master Sanskritists, is such a tool.  For those of us who are Sanskrit-mad, this dictionary is a most valuable gift, to be kept close to hand and studied often, and not just in regard to the Yoga Sutra.  Since Patañjali’s work is a foundation for many subsequent schools, you’ll find his terminology popping up again and again—chitta, samadhi, vairagya, pranava, avidya, and of course yoga—as your studies deepen and widen.  This dictionary, I’m convinced, is bound to become another absolutely essential reference work for yoga students.

Richard Rosen