Conceptual Adaptation across Traditions: Al-Bīrūnī’s Rendering of Nidrā as Ruʾyā

1. Introduction

While translating and annotating Bātanjal al-Hindī fī al-Khalāṣ min al-Irtibāk by Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī into Persian (2011), I encountered a number of interpretive challenges, some of which have gradually become clearer over the years. The present article is devoted to one such issue: Why did al-Bīrūnī render the Sanskrit term nidrā, not with its linguistically precise and semantically appropriate equivalent “sleep,” but instead as ruʾyā (“dream”)?

At a lexical and semantic level, this equivalence is demonstrably incorrect. In Sanskrit literature—both classical and commentarial—the term nidrā unequivocally refers to “dreamless sleep,” while a separate and well-attested term, svapna, denotes “dream.” The two concepts are consistently distinguished in Indian philosophical texts, including the Yoga Sūtras themselves. As such, rendering nidrā as ruʾyā cannot be regarded as a justifiable translation from a philological standpoint.

Yet it seems unlikely that al-Bīrūnī—or the ascetic from whom he may have received the original teachings—would have made such a basic mistake unintentionally. This raises a more nuanced and historically significant question: Could this mistranslation reflect not a failure of comprehension, but rather a deliberate act of conceptual reconfiguration—one grounded in an alternative philosophical framework, namely, Islamic philosophical psychology?

This article seeks to explore that question and examine the interpretive dynamics behind al-Bīrūnī’s translation. Crucially, this is not merely a matter of terminological error; rather, it may reveal a distinctive lens through which al-Bīrūnī engaged with yogic philosophy and, more broadly, with Indian metaphysical systems. Reassessing this interpretive decision may, in turn, open up new perspectives on al-Bīrūnī’s broader intellectual project.

In addition to its philological and historical dimensions, the problem at stake is also methodological and belongs squarely to comparative philosophy: it concerns how concepts migrate across traditions. In this study, “translation” is treated not as lexical equivalence but as conceptual transposition, whereby Yogic citta-vṛtti—consciousness fluctuations—are re-typed within the Avicennian framework of quwā al-nafs. On this view, the question of provenance (direct Sanskrit sources versus intermediaries) is secondary to the philosophical logic of the mapping, which turns on what counts as a faculty and an active state in Peripatetic psychology and thus frames nidrā → ruʾyā as a principled reconstrual rather than a philological lapse.

This study argues that al-Bīrūnī’s rendering of nidrā as ruʾyā was not a simple mistranslation, but a deliberate philosophical adaptation—reflecting a structural reinterpretation of Yogic psychology through the epistemological lens of classical Islamic philosophy.

2. The Concept of Citta-vṛtti in Patañjali’s Sūtras

The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, composed over two millennia ago, stands as one of the foundational works in the tradition of practical Indian philosophy and remains the most authoritative source on self-realization in the spiritual heritage of ancient India. Representing the practical dimension of the Sāṃkhya school—one of the six classical systems (ṣaḍdarśana) of Indian thought—it offers a systematic approach to self-realization and spiritual transformation through the restriction of the fluctuations of consciousness and the attainment of liberation. For this reason, modern scholars such as Surendranath Dasgupta and Georg Feuerstein have described the Yoga Sūtras as a work of both philosophical and psychological depth.

At the outset of the text, Patañjali defines yoga as follows:

Yogaḥ citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ[1]

“Yoga is the cessation (or restraint) of the fluctuations (vṛtti) of citta.”

The compound citta-vṛtti constitutes one of the most pivotal concepts in Patañjali’s system. To fully grasp this definition, the two key terms—citta and vṛtti—require clarification.

The term vṛtti is derived from the Sanskrit root √vṛt, meaning “to turn” or “to whirl.” In this context, it generally denotes fluctuation, cycle, or modification. The word citta, from the root √cit, meaning “to be conscious” or “to shine,” has been rendered variously as “mind-stuff” or “thinking principle.” Georg Feuerstein regards citta as one of the most challenging Sanskrit terms to translate with precision. He critiques the common rendering as “mind” and instead suggests “consciousness,” since citta refers to the entire structure of awareness and cognition in the human being, not merely the surface mental faculties (Feuerstein 1989, 26).

In Patañjali’s system, the fluctuations of consciousness (citta-vṛttis) are considered the root of all phenomenal experience, including the dualities of pleasure and pain[2]. Even fluctuations that are afflicted (kliṣṭa)—those colored by emotional disturbance—or non-afflicted (akliṣṭa)—those free from overt suffering—are considered obstacles on the path to liberation. Patañjali affirms that only through the complete cessation of all such fluctuations can one attain absolute spiritual freedom[3].

Dasgupta underscores this insight in his analysis:

“These states of mind (vṛtti) comprise our inner experience. When they lead us towards saṃsāra, into the course of passions and their satisfactions, they are said to be kliṣṭa (afflicted); when they lead us towards liberation, they are called akliṣṭa (unafflicted).” (Dasgupta 2015, 269)

As Dasgupta interprets this passage, it is possible that Patañjali considered the akliṣṭa type of vṛtti as a potential path toward liberation. Yet regardless of this possibility, the Yoga Sūtras unequivocally assert that liberation is achievable only through the complete cessation of all fluctuations—including those deemed akliṣṭa.

In Sūtra 1.6, Patañjali enumerates five kinds of vṛtti:

pramāṇa-viparyaya-vikalpa-nidrā-smṛtayaḥ[4]
“The five fluctuations of citta are: valid cognition, misconception, conceptualization, sleep, and memory.”

Among these, nidrā occupies a distinctive position: it is a state devoid of specific mental content yet is still classified as a fluctuation of consciousness. Patañjali defines it as follows in Sūtra 1.10:

abhāva-pratyaya-ālambanā vṛttir nidrā[5]

“Nidrā is the fluctuation based upon the presented-idea of the non-occurrence (i.e., the absence of other consciousness contents).[6]”

While this definition may initially appear simple, Feuerstein emphasizes its complexity. Contrary to interpretations by commentators such as I. K. Taimni, who render abhāva-pratyaya as a complete absence of content, Feuerstein argues that nidrā involves a subtle form of awareness of the absence of other cognitive activities. Drawing on Vyāsa’s classical commentary, Feuerstein contends that without some rudimentary form of experience or pratyaya, it would be impossible to recall having slept, or to describe the sleep as “good” or “bad.” Thus, nidrā must be regarded as a delicate fluctuation of citta grounded in an implicit awareness of non-occurrence (Feuerstein 1989, 33).

Etymologically, the term nidrā is traditionally traced to the verbal root √nidr, related to sleep, and is widely understood in classical Sanskrit lexicons to denote the state of deep, dreamless sleep (Monier-Williams 1899, 557; Apte 1957, 884). It is therefore commonly rendered simply as “sleep,” with no explicit reference to visual perception. Although one might be tempted to interpret nidrā as “non-seeing”—by linking ni- (indicating negation or downward motion) with the root √dṛś (“to see”)—such an etymology remains speculative and is not supported by classical Sanskrit sources. Traditional commentators—from Vyāsa to contemporary interpreters—have typically defined nidrā as a state of deep, dreamless sleep.

Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (973–1048 CE), one of the foremost scholars of the Islamic Golden Age, encountered the Yoga Sūtras during his extended stay in the Indian subcontinent in the early eleventh century. A skilled Sanskritist and keen observer of Indian metaphysical traditions, he rendered the text into Arabic under the title Bātanjal al-Hindī fī al-Khalāṣ min al-Irtibāk. Structured in a question-and-answer format, his translation reflects not only a philological undertaking but also a philosophical effort to recast Indian concepts within a framework accessible to an Arabic-speaking, Muslim audience. Internal evidence suggests that al-Bīrūnī was familiar with key commentarial layers of the Yoga Sūtras, particularly the Vyāsa Bhāṣya, and likely relied on a combination of textual study and oral instruction during his time in India (Ghaderi 2011, 18-20; Verdon 2024, 236–252).

The core interpretive problem that this article investigates concerns al-Bīrūnī’s decision to render nidrā as ruʾyā (‘dream’) rather than ‘sleep’ (Ritter 1956, 171; Ṣadūqī-Sohā 2001, 12). This is all the more significant considering that the Sanskrit term svapna, which unambiguously refers to “dreaming,” is treated separately in the Patañjali’s text and even juxtaposed with nidrā in certain contexts—thereby clearly distinguishing dream-laden from dreamless sleep[7].

If examined solely through a lexical lens, this equivalence might appear as a mistake or oversight. However, when analyzed in the broader context of al-Bīrūnī’s intellectual background and the frameworks of Islamic philosophy, it may be better understood as a deliberate act of philosophical adaptation. Interpreting this choice thus requires a careful inquiry into how al-Bīrūnī mapped citta-vṛtti onto the epistemological and psychological architecture of the Islamic philosophical tradition.

The following section will explore how al-Bīrūnī understood the concept of citta-vṛtti in his Arabic translation and how he reinterpreted it through the conceptual frameworks of Islamic philosophy.

3. Al-Bīrūnī’s Interpretation of Citta-vṛtti within the Framework of Islamic Philosophy

In translating the technical term citta-vṛtti, Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī did not merely seek a lexical equivalent within Indian Yogic philosophy, but rather rearticulated it through a familiar conceptual framework in Islamic philosophy—the faculties of the soul (quwā al-nafs). This interpretive move reveals a great deal about the philosophical paradigm through which al-Bīrūnī approached and reframed Patañjali’s thought. In this light, the shift from nidrā to ruʾyā is better understood not as a lexical error but as a strategic reorientation: al-Bīrūnī was repositioning Yogic citta-vṛtti (“fluctuations of consciousness”) within the Avicennian taxonomy of the quwā al-nafs (“faculties of the soul”), thereby making Indian categories intelligible in terms of Islamic philosophical psychology.

Al-Bīrūnī authored an extensive corpus across diverse scientific fields, attesting to his profound immersion in the intellectual culture of his time. Jalāl al-Dīn Humāʾī estimates the number of his works between 130 and 140 titles (Humāʾī 1939, 104), while Parvīz Azkāʾī catalogues 185 titles (Azkaei 1995, 24)—25 of which, although ascribed to al-Bīrūnī, were authored by others, including his teacher Abū Naṣr ʿIrāqī, his close associate Abū Sahl Masīḥī, and a single treatise by Abū ʿAlī Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī Jīlī. According to al-Bīrūnī’s own listings, his oeuvre comprises 138 titles; excluding the aforementioned attributions, at least 113 works can be confidently assigned to him (Dānā Serešt 2007, 20).

Despite his breadth of learning, al-Bīrūnī did not compose an independent or systematic treatise in first philosophy (al-falsafa al-ūlā) or metaphysics. However, he was a contemporary of the renowned philosopher Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), with whom he exchanged a series of scientific letters and engaged in philosophical dialogue (Nasr and Moḥaghegh 1995). Given that the prevailing intellectual framework of the era had been shaped by figures such as al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā—and considering that the age gap between the two was minimal (Ibn Sīnā was approximately ten years older)—one may safely assume that although al-Bīrūnī was not a philosopher who developed a coherent metaphysical system, he was deeply informed by and responsive to the philosophical thought of his contemporaries.

In the Islamic philosophical tradition—particularly in the Avicennan system—the human soul (al-nafs al-insāniyya) is typically divided into three levels: the vegetative soul (al-nafs al-nabātiyya), the animal soul (al-nafs al-ḥayawāniyya), and the rational soul (al-nafs al-nāṭiqa). The vegetative soul includes the faculties of nourishment (ghādhiyya), growth (munammiyya), and reproduction (muwallida), which are not central to the current discussion. Of greater relevance is the animal soul, which comprises both external and internal perceptive faculties. These internal faculties—numbering five—are those which al-Bīrūnī appears to equate with the five vṛttis outlined in the Yoga Sūtras.

The five internal faculties (al-quwā al-bāṭiniyya) are traditionally defined as follows:

1. Common Sense (al-ḥiss al-mushtarak): The primary internal perceptive faculty, which synthesizes the data gathered from the five external senses. It is located in the first anterior ventricle of the brain and functions like a basin into which all sensory inputs converge.
2. Imagination (al-khayāl): This faculty retains perceptual forms after the disappearance of their sensory causes. Situated at the posterior part of the anterior ventricle, it serves both to preserve and to generate imaginative representations and combinations.
3. Estimation (al-wāhima): This faculty apprehends non-sensible particular meanings—such as perceiving enmity from an enemy or affection from a mother—and is operative in both humans and non-human animals. Ibn Sīnā regards this faculty’s role within the animal soul as analogous to that of reason in the rational soul (Sīnā 1989, 10–12).
4. Compositive Faculty (al-mutaṣarrifa): Also referred to as al-mufakkira when governed by reason, or al-mutakhayyila when directed by estimation, this faculty actively combines, differentiates, and synthesizes mental forms. It plays a crucial role in both imaginative and rational processes. Ibn Sīnā elaborates that this faculty functions as a dynamic engine within the soul, capable of recombining perceptual and conceptual forms. It not only stores and preserves mental content, but actively synthesizes new configurations. In his Kitāb al-Shifāʾ, he compares this power to a craftsman, shaping and reshaping internal representations, whether for rational reflection or imaginative projection.
5. Memory (al-ḏākira): This faculty stores particular meanings, much like memory preserves sensory images. Ibn Sīnā also calls it al-mutaḏakkira  (Sīnā 1984, 629).

While the aforementioned faculties pertain to distinct internal powers of the soul, the stages of intellect (ʿaql) describe a developmental process through which the rational soul realizes its potential. At the level of the rational soul, Ibn Sīnā distinguishes between the theoretical intellect (al-ʿaql al-naẓarī) and the practical intellect (al-ʿaql al-ʿamalī) (Sīnā 1989, 174). Theoretical intellect apprehends universal intelligibles, while practical intellect applies them to ethical and concrete situations. For instance, if the theoretical intellect recognizes the axiom “truthfulness is good,” the practical intellect determines when and how to enact this principle in lived reality.

Theoretical intellect itself progresses through four developmental stages:

1. Potential Intellect (ʿaql hayūlānī): A pure capacity to receive intelligibles, analogous to matter without form.
2. Habitual Intellect (ʿaql bi’l-malaka): The stage in which the intellect is disposed to actualize its potential, like a literate person not yet reading.
3. Actual Intellect (ʿaql bi’l-fiʿl): The intellect that has acquired knowledge and can access it at will.
4. Acquired Intellect (ʿaql mustafād): The apex of human intellection, in which the soul, illuminated by the Active Intellect (al-ʿaql al-faʿʿāl), attains direct and intuitive apprehension of intelligibles—culminating in what Ibn Sīnā calls the sacred intellect (ʿaql qudsī), manifested in prophets and those with exceptional intuitive capacity.

This hierarchical and teleological structure of the intellect in Avicennan philosophy provides a robust conceptual scaffold for understanding al-Bīrūnī’s philosophical reception of yogic psychology. When al-Bīrūnī renders citta-vṛtti as quwā al-nafs, he is not merely substituting vocabulary but performing a conceptual transposition grounded in the philosophical language of his own tradition (Ritter 1956, 170). The “fluctuations of consciousness” in the yogic framework are thus reinterpreted in parallel with the internal faculties of perception and cognition as expressed in classical Islamic philosophical models of the soul. Taken together, these internal operations specify the functional grid within which al-Bīrūnī reads Yogic states.

From this vantage point, al-Bīrūnī’s rendering of nidrā as ruʾyā emerges not as a mistranslation but as an intentional act of philosophical appropriation. By aligning the five citta–vṛtti with the five internal faculties of the soul, he effectively transposed states of yogic consciousness into the psychological architecture of Avicennian thought. This move demonstrates how translation, in his hands, functioned less as the mechanical transfer of terms and more as a hermeneutical negotiation across traditions—a negotiation in which Indian categories were absorbed, redefined, and made to resonate within the conceptual idiom of Islamic philosophical psychology.

4. Mapping the Faculties of the Soul in Islamic Philosophy onto Yogic Vṛttis in al-Bīrūnī’s Interpretation

It is important to first recognize that the extensive discussions on the soul and its faculties in Islamic philosophy—especially in the writings of Ibn Sīnā—though deeply indebted to Greek sources such as Aristotle’s De Anima, are far from mere acts of translation or transmission. Rather, they represent sophisticated systematizations and conceptual innovations that gave rise to a distinct metaphysical and psychological framework. Within this intellectual context, even though al-Bīrūnī may not qualify as a systematic philosopher in the strict Avicennan sense, his engagement with the Yoga Sūtras must be situated within the broader scientific and philosophical climate of his time. Although al-Bīrūnī occasionally expressed divergent views from his philosophical contemporaries, his approach to the Yoga Sūtras nonetheless reflects the conceptual architecture of the dominant Peripatetic paradigm of his era [8].

In the fifth question-and-answer section of the first chapter of his Arabic treatise, al-Bīrūnī begins his exposition of the soul’s faculties by naming idrāk (perception), which he defines as encompassing both direct sensory experience and inferential cognition—whether by means of rational deduction (qiyās ʿaqlī) or by appeal to trustworthy report (khabar thiqa). These dual modes of perception correspond closely to two key faculties in Avicennian psychology: ḥiss mushtarak (common sense), which integrates data from the five external senses, and mutaṣarrifa (the compositive faculty), which analyzes and synthesizes mental forms under the guidance of either reason (mufakkira) or estimation (mutakhayyila).

Al-Bīrūnī next identifies takhayyul (imagination), illustrated through examples such as mirages or hallucinations, and ẓann (conjecture), which he regards as a common but often unreliable cognitive mode. These clearly map onto khayāl (the faculty of imagination) and wahm (the faculty of estimation) in Islamic psychology—internal powers that manage perceptual images and grasp non-sensible particulars such as affection, fear, or moral intent.

He also includes dhikr (recollection), which corresponds to ḏākira or ḥāfiẓa (memory)—the faculty that retains and retrieves previously acquired meanings and impressions. Most striking, however, is his inclusion of ruʾyā (dream) as an independent faculty of the soul. While this term undoubtedly derives from his rendering of the Sanskrit nidrā, a closer analysis reveals that al-Bīrūnī understood it not as deep, dreamless sleep—as in the Yogic tradition—but rather as a mode of active mental imagery. In this interpretation, ruʾyā aligns most directly with mutakhayyila, the imaginative faculty responsible for recombining perceptual and conceptual content, often experienced in dreams.

This interpretive substitution is philosophically significant. Had al-Bīrūnī understood nidrā in its original Yogic sense—as a passive and contentless state—he would have faced a conceptual impasse, since such a state would not qualify as a faculty (quwwa) in the Islamic model of the soul. In this framework, all faculties must involve some form of active cognition, perceptual engagement, or actualization of potential.

Al-Bīrūnī’s choice to render nidrā as ruʾyā, therefore, must be viewed not as a lexical error or mistranslation, but as a deliberate philosophical adaptation. By reframing the Yogic concept within the structural logic of Islamic philosophical psychology, he transformed what may have seemed a metaphysical anomaly into a coherent element within the system of quwā al-nafs. His translation is thus better understood as an act of conceptual mediation—shaped by the epistemological assumptions and metaphysical architecture of his own intellectual tradition.

5. Al-Bīrūnī’s Interpretation of Nidrā within the Framework of Islamic Philosophical Concepts

An analysis of al-Bīrūnī’s Arabic rendering of the Yoga Sūtras, particularly in the seventh to tenth questions of the first section of his treatise, reveals a subtle yet significant philosophical recasting of key Yogic notions. In these passages, he introduces the concept of taṣawwur maʿqūl—an intelligible representation abstracted from matter. This term marks a shift from sensory and imaginative cognition toward a noetic realm of universal concepts. Notably, the Sanskrit source text—especially in its first pāda—does not employ any equivalent term for ʿaql (intellect); its primary concern is with the progressive states of meditative absorption (samādhi), not a formal theory of rational cognition (Verdon 2024, 251).

As Noémie Verdon has argued, al-Bīrūnī’s expression al-maʿqūl al-mujarrad ʿan al-māddah in the early part of his treatise may be interpreted in light of the Yogic concept of asaṃprajñāta, one of the higher forms of samādhi in Patañjali’s system (Verdon 2024, 236). This alignment suggests that al-Bīrūnī read Yogic stillness through the lens of intellectual abstraction and graded noetic ascent. Although Verdon notes that al-Bīrūnī avoids detailed treatment of pramāṇa (means of valid cognition), she interprets this omission as intentional—perhaps due to his assumption that such epistemological discussions had been sufficiently developed elsewhere or were secondary to his goals in this translation.

Mario Kozah similarly highlights the centrality of ʿaql and its developmental stages in al-Bīrūnī’s engagement with the Yoga Sūtras. Drawing on Ibn Sīnā’s Kitāb al-Shifāʾ, Kozah emphasizes the sequential actualization of the intellect—from potentiality (ʿaql hayūlānī) to full realization (ʿaql mustafād) (Kozah 2015, 136). In this context, the presence of ʿaql in al-Bīrūnī’s treatise is not incidental but reflects the paradigmatic influence of the Peripatetic philosophical tradition.

In Islamic Peripatetic philosophy (ḥikma mashshāʾiyya), intellect (ʿaql) functions as a faculty that transcends sense perception, imagination, and estimation. It apprehends universals (kulliyyāt), rather than particulars or empirical images. When al-Bīrūnī refers to maʿqūlāt (intelligibles), he elevates the operation of the soul beyond the domain of quwā ẓāhira and bāṭina, toward abstract cognition. This hermeneutic shift marks a decisive departure from the original Yogic emphasis on the suspension of vṛttis as the path to liberation.

This broader philosophical orientation also helps clarify al-Bīrūnī’s decision to translate nidrā not as “deep sleep” but as ruʾyā (“dream”). As discussed earlier, nidrā in the Yogic tradition refers to a state of dreamless sleep—a contentless, quiet mode of awareness. However, within the Islamic philosophical model inherited by al-Bīrūnī, every faculty of the soul (quwwa) must involve active perception, cognition, or actualization of potential. A passive and objectless state such as dreamless sleep would fall outside the boundaries of this psychological schema.

Because nidrā is listed in the Yoga Sūtras as one of the five vṛttis—that is, as one of the active fluctuations of consciousness (citta)—al-Bīrūnī was compelled to reframe it in terms compatible with the cognitive faculties recognized in Islamic psychology. The term ruʾyā, suggesting perceptual images, imaginative activity, and mental synthesis, provided a viable equivalent. In doing so, he assimilated a foreign metaphysical category into a familiar philosophical grammar.

Thus, al-Bīrūnī’s rendering of nidrā as ruʾyā should not be seen as a philological error, but rather as a deliberate act of conceptual translation—rooted in the assumptions and categories of his intellectual milieu. In a framework where the soul is defined by actualizing its cognitive capacities, dreamless sleep could not be meaningfully classified as a quwwa. Instead, by recasting nidrā as ruʾyā, al-Bīrūnī translated not just language but worldviews: he interpreted Yogic psychology through the prism of Islamic noetics, rendering it intelligible to his contemporaries. Although this interpretive act alters the ontological texture of the original concept, it reflects a powerful hermeneutic strategy—one that enabled intellectual transmission across metaphysical frontiers.

6. Conclusion

Al-Bīrūnī’s translation of the Sanskrit term nidrā as ruʾyā (“dream”), though it may initially appear as a simple lexical inaccuracy, reveals a deeper interpretive rationale when examined within the philosophical context of his intellectual milieu.

As demonstrated throughout this study, al-Bīrūnī did not interpret citta-vṛtti through the lens of classical Hindu psychology. Rather, he reframed it within the conceptual framework of Islamic philosophical anthropology, particularly drawing on the theory of the soul’s faculties (quwā al-nafs) as elaborated in the Peripatetic (mashshāʾī) tradition of Islamic philosophy. Within this framework—structured hierarchically from sensory to rational faculties—a purely contentless like dreamless sleep posed a conceptual anomaly. It could not be readily integrated into a system that defines cognitive faculties through activity, perception, and actualization.

Faced with this conceptual tension, al-Bīrūnī translated nidrā as ruʾyā, aligning it with states involving imagination (khayāl) and estimation (wahm), which are recognized as active faculties in Islamic psychology. While this translation diverges from the exact semantic range of the Sanskrit term, it reflects a deliberate philosophical adaptation—an attempt to render Yogic psychology intelligible and meaningful within the Islamic intellectual tradition.

The broader significance of this interpretive act lies in its ability to mediate between distinct epistemological and metaphysical frameworks. Rather than reducing or distorting Patañjali’s ideas, al-Bīrūnī’s strategy constitutes a creative act of philosophical transposition—recasting an unfamiliar system of thought through the lens of a different, yet internally coherent, worldview.

Seen in this light, al-Bīrūnī’s translation is not merely a linguistic undertaking, but a remarkable instance of cross-cultural hermeneutics—where key concepts, in their journey from one intellectual tradition to another, are refracted through new epistemic and philosophical lenses, acquiring transformed meanings that resonate within entirely different intellectual contexts. This case invites further exploration: a systematic reassessment of other cross-traditional translations and commentaries, especially at those critical junctures where translation becomes a vehicle for conceptual transformation.

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———. 1989. Ravānshināsī-ye Shifāʾ (Psychology Section of al-Shifāʾ). Translated by Akbar Dānā Serešt. Tehran: Al-Maʿī Institute. (In Persian)

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[1] Yoga-Sūtra:1.2

[2] Yoga-Sūtra:1.5

[3] Yoga-Sūtra:1.2,3

[4] Yoga-Sūtra:1.5

[5] Yoga-Sūtra:1.10

[6] Vyāsa, in his classical commentary (Bhāṣya) on this sūtra, explains that nidrā is not a mere absence of cognition but a distinct pratyaya (mental impression) whose content is the non-occurrence of other mental activities. (Aranya 1983, 117)

[7] Yoga-Sūtra:1.38

[8] For one such example of divergence between al-Bīrūnī and Ibn Sīnā, see Bayhaqī (1351 AH, 5–24).