ପତଞ୍ଜଲି ଶ୍ଲୋକଃ

One verse, and it is the invocation recited before study of any of the three subjects it names. By yoga, the impurity of the mind; by grammar, the impurity of speech; and by medicine, the impurity of the body — the one who removed these, that best and foremost of sages, Patanjali, I bow to with my hands joined. What makes it more than a courtesy is the claim buried in its symmetry: it treats the author of the Yoga Sutras, the author of the great commentary on Panini, and the author of a medical work as one man, and gives him a single purpose in three fields. Whether they were one man is disputed and always has been. The verse settles it by grammar rather than by argument, and is recited at the opening of yoga classes to this day.