Patañjali · पतञ्जलि

Compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, one hundred and ninety-six terse lines that define the whole enterprise in the second of them: yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ — yoga is the stilling of the mind's turnings. What follows is an eight-limbed method, ethics first and absorption last, laid out with the dryness of a technical manual and none of the ecstasy of the poets. Its Jewish counterpart in function is the practical Kabbalah's own instruction literature — Abulafia's breathing and letter-permutation, the graded ascent of the palaces, Nachman's hitbodedut. Both traditions eventually produced someone willing to write the technique down plainly, and both were criticised by their own for doing it.