The spam filter, however, also deletes all spam messages after a few days, so that I have no idea about how often this could have happened to other readers.
Should this have happened to you as well, please let me know, so that I can “save” them and include your address among the safe ones.

Thanks for your help!

1. It is true that the early commentaries refer to the YS-YBh complex
2. It is also true that Vedavyāsa is mentioned as author of the YBh only relatively late, possibly for the first time in Vācaspati’s Tattvavaiśāradī
3. Furthermore, it is only with Mādhava’s Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha that people start distinguishing Patañjali’s from Vyāsa’s authorships.
4. Nonetheless, Maas’ argument is too dependent on the manuscript tradition, which has the two texts together, but is extremely recent (for Maas’ reply that recent manuscripts must depend on earlier models, see this post).
5. Squarcini also mentions in a footnote that Vyāsa himself mentions the name of Patañjali (but see a further post on this blog for D. Wujastyk’s answer thereon).
6. After having, in his opinion, weakened Maas’ arguments, Squarcini lies down his own one in favour of the existence of a separate YS: The text is highly and consistently structured and locates itself within a net of intertextual references, which the author of the YBh partly ignores. Squarcini claims to have identified the deep structure of the YS and distinguishes several subtopics within the main topics, signalling them as such in the Sanskrit text and in the translation. Accordingly, Squarcini highlights some key sūtras of the YS which work as if they were adhikaraṇasūtras.
7. Accordingly, Squarcini’s translation does not need to borrow words from the commentaries, as most other translations.

The forelast point is the most relevant one and it is substantiated in the first hundred pages of Squarcini’s introductory study. I will highlight here some of the elements which struck as most interesting. Readers are alerted that this is nothing but my summary, not (yet) validated by F. Squarcini.

• The question of the alleged YS-YBh unity has an impact also on the alleged proximity of the Sāṅkhya and Yoga systems. Squarcini argues against it on the strength of texts more or less coeval to the YS (e.g., Milinsapañha, Visuddhimagga, Madhyamakahṛdayakārikā, see p. lxxviiff), including the Nyāyasūtra, which ignores Sāṅkhya but discusses at length Yoga.
• Notwithstanding some affinities, e.g., the use of the words puruṣa, prakṛti and kaivalya, the YS understands them very differently than, say, the Sāṅkhyakārikā (pp. lxxxi–lxxxii).
• The dualism of the YS is, unlike that of Sāṅkhya and also (although Squarcini does not spell this out explicitely) of the YBh, is not an ultimate dualism. pusuṣa and prakṛti will not remain distinct until the end. Rather, the dualism of the YS is an “eliminative dualism” (the label is by Paul M. Churchland). Squarcini here elaborates on hints which can be found in Adolf Janacek (1951) and in L.W. Pflueger’s Dueling with Dualism. Revisioning the Paradox of Puruṣa and Prakṛti (see pp. lxxxvii–cxi)

Interested in the project?  Then, keep on reading.

What would you have to do? You might ask to be part of our group of bloggers and post and/or comment and/or moderate comments and/or look for external contributors and/or advertise the blog…

Why? Because it is fun to interact although we work far apart from each other. And because we might help making Sanskrit (and) philosophy part of the general intellectual landscape by starting interesting discussions about it.

How? You do not need to commit to a certain amount of blog posts per month. However, I expect that you will read the other posts and join the discussion.

Who is already in? Until now: me, Amod Lele, Aleix Ruiz-Falqués, Matthew Dasti, Daniele Cuneo, Andrew Ollett, Agnieszka Rostalska, Jason Birch, Mike Williams (the sequence is random).

For further posts on the idea of a group blog on Indology and/or on Indian philosophy, you can read my previous blog, here and here.

weekly:

—about job opportunities, Call for papers and the like on Wednesdays

—about books, articles, conference papers and the like on Fridays

—about my own (mostly philosophical, but sometimes also methodological) speculations on Mondays

monthly:

—once in a month (last Friday of the month) an interview

—once in a month (last Monday of the month) a post in Sanskrit (mostly about Indian or Western philosophy)

Prabhākara (the fonuder of one of the two main branches of the Mīmāṃsā school of exegesis, about whom you can read more by checking the label Prābhākara in my ancient blog)

pramāṇavāda, i.e., epistemology

Prakaraṇapañcikā, a text by the Prābhākara author Śālikanātha Miśra to whom I am particularly grateful, since he took time to explain Prabhākara’s philosophy for outsiders.

prakaraṇa, a chief concept in author-independent exegesis, i.e., mind the context

If you want to know more about me, read this page.