The word Astanga literally means eight limbs, as outlined by the sage Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras, an early systematized structural framework for yoga. In the Yoga Sutras Patanjali described how the eight-fold path of yoga leads to meditation, stilling the mind.
On this path to meditation the techniques of yoga serve as a means to stabilize the body and sense organs and hence lead to a steady mind, cultivating the state of meditation.