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Originally Posted by Wagner
I consider pratyahara a side effect to practicing dharana. Should it really be considered as a separate Limb? Its purpose can only be ancillary to samyama...
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You raise a very valid point and that is precisely why Pantanjali's Yoga Sutras are also known as Asthanga (Eight-LIMBED) Yoga. The implication is that one can be working on several limbs simultaneously as you suggested in your post when you said that you considered pratyahara to be a side effect to practicing dharana (concentration). One can indeed work on the two (pratyahara and dharana) simultaneously.
In practice, however, pratyahara is often recommended as a preliminary (5th limb) to dharana (6th limb). By "abstaining from the food of the senses" (pratyahara), one essentially wards off external distractions and this facilitates concentration (dharana). It sounds as if you essentially combined pratyahara and dharana thus making pratyahara seem like a side-effect to concentration.