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This chapter aims to tell the story of how the term yoga came to acquire its broadly assumed meanings. We look at historic mentions of practices that would become (part of) yoga , while also tracing the gradual shifts in the meaning of the word yoga on the other. As a narrative device, we place the beginning of classical yoga at the finalizing of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra (the combined Yogasūtra and Yogabhāṣya ). Its creator identified a common factor among various spiritual practices around him; he decided to create a unified system of practice backed up by a unique philosophy, and he employed the word yoga to encompass all the practices that he integrated into this system. Two major components of this unified yoga were Brahmanical yoga expounded in the Upaniṣads and elements from Buddhist systems of practice, which, too, were called yoga . The philosophical framework of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra was also an attempt to integrate different philosophical strands, including that of Sāṃkhya, of the grammarians, and that of Buddhists.
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