A celebrated commentator in Sanskrit. पतञ्जलि is one of the best commentators of पाणिनिऽस् व्याकर्णसूत्रस् . Pandits are of opinion that he got his name पतञ्जलि to mean that people should worship ( अञ्जलि ) at his foot ( पाद ). He was such an adorable person. Pandits believe that पतञ्जलि is the author of योगसूत्र and चरकसंहिता . A few believe that पतञ्जलि was the incarnation of आदिशेष . But modern scholars are of opinion that पतञ्जलि , the commentator and पतञ्जलि the author of योगसूत्रस् are two different persons.

In his book on पतञ्जलिचरित , रामभद्रदीक्षित writes about the birth of पतञ्जलि :--"Once गोणिका , daughter of a sage, prayed to the Sun-god for a son At once अनन्त , King of the serpents, fell on her palm in the form of a sage. The ascetic girl brought up that sage as her son. After some years the sage went to चिदम्बर and prayed to शिव to bless him with enough knowledge and wisdom to write a commentary on कात्यायन 's व्याकरणवार्त्तिक (explanatory rules on पाणिणि 's सूत्रस् ). शिव blessed him and the sage wrote the commentary. Many disciples went to him to learn the commentary and the sage accepted them all as disciples and promised to teach them provided they would abide by a condition, namely, that nobody should remove a curtain he would place between him and the disciples while teaching. The teaching went on for some time. He would reply to their doubts but the replies were peculiar and ambiguous and the disciples, getting disappointed, removed the curtain one day. The sage cursed them all. One of the disciples was away from the place then and the sage cursed him for leaving the place without permission during the course of study. He begged for relief and the sage was pleased. The Guru said if he could teach his commentary to one who would say logically that the भूतकर्मवाच्यकृदन्त (past participle of a verb) of the root 'Pac' was 'Pakva' he would be released from the curse. चन्द्रगुप्त who came from उज्जयिनी gave the correct answer and he was taught the महाभाष्य . भर्तृहरि was the son born to चन्द्रगुप्त of a Śūdra woman.

पतञ्जलि , according to Professor Goldstucker, was a courtier of King पुष्यमित्र and was alive when Menander attacked साकेत . This would mean that Patañjali lived before B.C. 150.