This article comparatively surveys pertinent passages on the meaning and goal of yoga found in the Pātañjalayogaśāstra and in selected genres of medieval Śaiva literature, namely scriptural sources and commentaries belonging to the Pāśupata and Saiddhāntika traditions, as well as Old Javanese Śaiva scriptures. Its aim is to analyze and link together some relevant passages to advance the argument that, even though Pātañjala and non-Pātañjala systems of yoga might very well have emerged from a shared prototypical milieu, the Pātañjalayogaśāstra appears to have exerted an influence on the textual sources belonging to rival systems. For instance, many Śaiva authors, while providing their own sectarian accounts of the ultimate goal of yoga, did have the Pātañjala understandings in mind. This intertextuality reveals an appropriation or creative (re)use of the Pātañjala terminology by the Śaiva sources, and its application to affirm the hierarchically higher soteriological efficacy of the Śaiva system. Whether characterized by silent appropriation or more open criticism, this attitude suggests not only that the Śaivas may have been partly indebted to Pātañjala Yoga, but also that they could not avoid engaging in a dialectic relationship with what must have been a widespread and authoritative system of yoga in the mainstream Brahmanical religio-philosophical discourse.