Yoga and Buddha: What's the relationship?

Yoga scholars often differ in characterizing the exact relationship between Patañjali’s Yoga Sutras and Buddhism. Karen O’Brien finds the text weaving Buddhist strands into a Sankhya textile with the Buddhist terminology paralleling the Sankhya metaphysics. Pradeep Gokhale believes Sankhya and Buddhism to be the text’s primary influences with the Yoga Sutras fitting Buddhist psychology into a Sankhya framework. He sees Patañjali learning from Buddhists as Gautama learned from Brahmanists and hears echoes of the Buddhist Dhammapada rustling through Patañjali’s eight limbs.