Sūtra

“Thread,” “aphorism.” Indian literary form of maximum concision: each sūtra is a dense phrase condensing a complete teaching, designed to be memorized and expanded by the teacher.

The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali (195 sūtras) are the foundational text of rāja yoga. The Brahma Sūtra, Vedānta Sūtra, and Sāṃkhya Sūtra are other key texts in this format. The brevity of the sūtra is not obscurity but precision: each word carries multiple layers of meaning.