Patañjali is the compiler of the Yoga S?tras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice. According to tradition, the same Patañjali was also the author of the Mah?bh??ya, a commentary on K?ty?yana's v?rttikas on P??ini's A???dhy?y? and of an unspecified work of medicine.
Patanjali's place of birth is held to be "Gonarda", a "country in the east" and he described himself as a "Gonardiya" throughout his life. This corroborates Tirumular's Tirumandhiram, which describes him as hailing from Then Kailasam, and he famously visited the Thillai Nataraja Temple, Chidambaram, where he wrote the Charana Shrungarahita Stotram on Nataraja. In recent decades, the Yoga Sutra has become quite popular worldwide for the precepts regarding practice of Raja Yoga and its philosophical basis. "Yoga" in traditional Hinduism involves inner contemplation, a system of meditation practice and ethics.