This article is Part 2 of a three-part series, published by Yoga Australia in 2025
In the first article of this series, we saw how a posture is defined in relation to steadiness and comfort (sthira and sukha) and how it is harmonious when these two aspects are balanced. Now it is time to ask a simple question: why do we practice yoga postures?
The first answer that comes to mind is that they make the body firm, strong, and supple. There are many other positive effects on the nervous, respiratory, cardiovascular systems, etc. Studies have detailed the specifics of these effects, leaning on solid statistical data, so we can be comforted in the knowledge that what we are doing is ‘good for us’.
I do not dismiss the many physiological benefits of yoga postures as trivial (especially when combined with appropriate attention to breath and other techniques). However, when we speak in these terms we should be conscious of the fact that we are not speaking the language of Yoga, but the language of Western science.
The habit of speaking this language emerged and evolved to help yoga gain the credit it had lost up to the second half of the 20th Century: in India, under British rule, Yoga and Āyurveda gradually disappeared as traditional healing modalities, to be replaced with the modern healthcare system of the British. Even though we can hail this as progress, we must also acknowledge that yoga became a collateral damage in the process.
Whilst yoga postures were already practiced in Western countries in various forms throughout the 20th century, a reinvention of āsana began to occur in the 1990ies and 2000s, with yoga techniques gaining attention from biomedical scientists, medical and paramedical professionals, blending evidence-based paradigms with these techniques and thereby giving them the credibility they lacked when they were first exported to the West by Indian gurus. Because it was always the visible part of the yoga iceberg, postural practice was and still is at the forefront of this reinvention.
Lately, a similar process of reinvention and (dare I say) appropriation has taken place with the rebranding of yoga’s ancient techniques of prāṇāyāma. As a complex system comprising many subtle tools, prāṇāyāma uses the breath, sometimes in combination with other yoga techniques, to harness prāṇa, the energy within. Some of these tools should be handled with great care because (in the words of Svātmārāma, circa 15th C. CE), they could “heal you or kill you”. Sadly, a number of practices labelled ‘breathwork’ are now mushrooming everywhere with a stamp of approval by brand new so-called experts.
But let us go back to our āsanas and their purpose…
When they were practiced in ancient times, physiological benefits were considered as mere side-effects. In the language of Yoga, the main function of āsana practice is to help us prepare to sit for long periods of time. Why sit for long periods of time? To practice prāṇāyāma and to meditate. The Sanskrit verb ās means to exist, but also to inhabit or sit in. Hence one of the definitions of āsana is ‘the act of sitting’.
The emphasis on seated āsanas is evident when we read yoga’s technical treatises and commentaries composed by sages centuries ago: the vast majority of postures highlighted in these texts are seated.
In the Gheranda Saṃhitā (± 16th C. CE) the author says that “84 postures are the best” although there are “as many in numbers as there are species of living creatures in the universe” (GhS II.1). It highlights 32 postures that are deemed “useful for mankind”, of which 19 are seated… and 11 suitable for meditation.
In the Haṭhayogapradīpikā of Svātmārāma (± 15th C. CE), 15 āsanas are listed, 11 of them seated. Two postures are supine and two are arm balances. The majority of postures described in detail along with their benefits are seated positions for prāṇāyāma and meditation (chapter I).
In the Yoga Yājñavalkya (± 10th or 11th C. CE), eight “important” postures are explained, of which three are “very important” (although he does not say which ones, YY III.1). No less than seven of these eight postures are seated.
Going even further back to the commentary of Patañjali’s Yogasūtra by Vyāsa (tentatively ± 600 CE, one of the most authoritative along with king Bhoja’s), this semi-mythical commentator presents only 11 postures, five of which include several variations for sitting in meditation. Four of them will be found centuries later in Svātmārāma’s Haṭhayogapradīpikā.
The diagrams below show six of Vyāsa’s seated postures: you can see that all – daṇḍāsana excepted – are suitable for prāṇāyāma and meditation, considering that the individuals for whom instruction was intended in those days were generally young men of exceptional physical abilities whose sole occupation was yoga practice… Even so, it is interesting to notice that some alternatives are given for those who are no able to sit in the most difficult positions.
The above is but a small sample of the postures presented in a wide range of texts dated 10th to 18th C. CE. Let us not forget that the classic yoga system of Patañjali (300 BCE – 300 CE) does not give any postures nor any indications about how to practice them (e.g., how to get into and out of them, how long to stay, etc.). Only three out of Patañjali’s 195 aphorisms mention āsana as the third of the eight limbs: the definition, method and result of āsana is given in three pithy sentences (YS II.46 – 48), with a cryptic metaphor that leaves us keen to hear further interpretation. So next time we will unpack some of the imagery and symbolism underlying āsana practice, in relation with the Indian myths and legends they stem from.
Valerie Fimat-Faneco, January 2025
