The aim of this chapter is to sketch the contours of yoga as ethical deliberation in the epic Mahābhārata (with an excursus into the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra) as an important precursor to the formulation of “classical” Yoga in the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali. I discuss two important narratives in which animals are represented as reflective and articulate moral agents, as well as an account of Vyāsa teaching his son Śuka principles of yogic dharma. The “dharma king’s”—Yudhiṣṭhira’s—successfully passed test of dharma disguised as a dog further serves to contextualize a brief account of yoga in the Bhagavadgītā which, in turn, provides a Sāṃkhya-inflected background for considering the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra’s apparently mixed message on alimentary regulation.