Yoga was not invented by a single person. In ancient India, around 8,000 B.C.E. (10,000 years ago), there were many religious movements that were being led by Sramana or Ascetics. They were seekers who had diverse range of beliefs ranging from questioning soul, to free will, to non-violence, to meat eating, and to other social beliefs. The reference of these seekers was found in the ancient scripture of "Brihadaranyaka Upanishad" which was written in 8th Century BCE. Yoga was said to have been developed by these seekers around this time.
However, the first recorded direct reference of Yoga is in the ancient indian scriptures of Rig Veda which was written around 1700 B.C.E. The Vedas are a collection of texts containing songs, mantras and rituals to be used by Brahmans, the Vedic priests. Yoga was slowly refined and developed by the Brahmans and Rishis (mystic seers) who documented their practices and beliefs in the Upanishads, a huge work containing over 200 scriptures. The most renowned of the Yogic scriptures is the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, composed around 500 B.C.E. During this period, Yoga was not a harmonious idea, but a combination of various beliefs and techniques that sometimes conflicted with each other. During this time Yoga was transmitted to next generations only by oral traditions.
It was not until Patanjali, who was described in many texts to have lived between 2- 3 B.C.E, compiled the essence of Yoga into 194 sutras called Yoga Sutras. He organized Yoga into an eight limbed path (Ashtanga, Ashta = eight, Anga = limbs) containing the path and stages towards attaining enlightenment or Samadhi. Yoga Sutras still strongly influence most of the current styles of yoga.
Few centuries after Patanjali, the yoga masters of that time rejected the teachings of ancient vedas and focused mostly on a yoga practice around physical body as a means to achieve enlightenment. This is what is thought to have formed the current physical-spiritual connections and body-centered practices of Yoga in the west, Hatha Yoga.
In the 1800s and 1900s yoga masters like Swami Vivekananda, T. Krishnamacharya, Swami Sivananda, contributed significantly to the transmission of Yoga through authoring books, traveling to west, opening ashrams and yoga centers around world.
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