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    Yogasana

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    Yogasana refers to body postures used in yoga practice. Originally asanas referred to seated meditation poses but the term has been expanded to include standing, reclining, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. Ancient texts such as the Goraksha Sataka and Hatha Yoga Pradipika identify lists of 84 asanas. In the 20th century, yoga teachers expanded the number of asanas and brought yoga to the Western world. Asanas are claimed to provide both spiritual and physical benefits such as improved flexibility, reduced stress, and alleviation of diseases. Historically, asanas served spiritual purposes in Hinduism like attaining meditative states, but their aims and uses varied across yoga traditions.

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    Yogasana

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    aicccla
    102 views1 page
    Yogasana refers to body postures used in yoga practice. Originally asanas referred to seated meditation poses but the term has been expanded to include standing, reclining, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. Ancient texts such as the Goraksha Sataka and Hatha Yoga Pradipika identify lists of 84 asanas. In the 20th century, yoga teachers expanded the number of asanas and brought yoga to the Western world. Asanas are claimed to provide both spiritual and physical benefits such as improved flexibility, reduced stress, and alleviation of diseases. Historically, asanas served spiritual purposes in Hinduism like attaining meditative states, but their aims and uses varied across yoga traditions.

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    Yogasana refers to body postures used in yoga practice. Originally asanas referred to seated meditation poses but the term has been expanded to include standing, reclining, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. Ancient texts such as the Goraksha Sataka and Hatha Yoga Pradipika identify lists of 84 asanas. In the 20th century, yoga teachers expanded the number of asanas and brought yoga to the Western world. Asanas are claimed to provide both spiritual and physical benefits such as improved flexibility, reduced stress, and alleviation of diseases. Historically, asanas served spiritual purposes in Hinduism like attaining meditative states, but their aims and uses varied across yoga traditions.

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    102 views1 page

    Yogasana

    Uploaded by

    aicccla
    Yogasana refers to body postures used in yoga practice. Originally asanas referred to seated meditation poses but the term has been expanded to include standing, reclining, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. Ancient texts such as the Goraksha Sataka and Hatha Yoga Pradipika identify lists of 84 asanas. In the 20th century, yoga teachers expanded the number of asanas and brought yoga to the Western world. Asanas are claimed to provide both spiritual and physical benefits such as improved flexibility, reduced stress, and alleviation of diseases. Historically, asanas served spiritual purposes in Hinduism like attaining meditative states, but their aims and uses varied across yoga traditions.

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    Yogasana

    An asana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose,[1] and later extended
    in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, to any type of pose or position, adding reclining, standing,
    inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali define "asana" as "[a position that] is
    steady and comfortable".[2] Patanjali mentions the ability to sit for extended periods as one of the eight limbs of
    his system.[2] Asanas are also called yoga poses or yoga postures in English.
    The 10th or 11th century Goraksha Sataka and the 15th century Hatha Yoga Pradipika identify 84 asanas; the
    17th century Hatha Ratnavali provides a different list of 84 asanas, describing some of them. In the 20th
    century, Indian nationalism favoured physical culture in response to colonialism. In that environment, pioneers
    such as Yogendra, Kuvalayananda, and Krishnamacharya taught a new system of asanas (incorporating
    systems of exercise as well as traditional hatha yoga). Among Krishnamacharya's pupils were influential Indian
    yoga teachers including Pattabhi Jois, founder of Ashtanga vinyasa yoga, and B.K.S. Iyengar, founder
    of Iyengar yoga. Together they described hundreds more asanas, revived the popularity of yoga, and brought it
    to the Western world. Many more asanas have been devised since Iyengar's 1966 Light on Yoga which
    described some 200 asanas. Hundreds more were illustrated by Dharma Mittra.
    Asanas were claimed to provide both spiritual and physical benefits in medieval hatha yoga texts. More
    recently, studies have provided evidence that they improve flexibility, strength, and balance; to reduce stress
    and conditions related to it; and specifically to alleviate some diseases such as asthma [3][4] and diabetes.[5]
    Asanas have appeared in culture for many centuries. Religious Indian art depicts figures of Buddha, Shiva,
    and Jain tirthankaras in lotus position and other meditation seats, and in the "royal ease" position, lalitasana.
    With the popularity of yoga as exercise, asanas feature commonly in novels and films, and sometimes also
    in advertising.
    The asanas of hatha yoga originally had a spiritual purpose within Hinduism, the attainment of samadhi, a state
    of meditative consciousness.[85] The scholar of religion Andrea Jain notes that medieval Hatha Yoga was
    shared among yoga traditions, from Shaivite Naths to Vaishnavas, Jains and Sufis; in her view, its aims too
    varied, including spiritual goals involving the "tantric manipulation of the subtle body", and at a more physical
    level, destroying poisons.[86] Singleton describes Hatha Yoga's purpose as "the transmutation of the human
    body into a vessel immune from mortal decay", citing the Gheranda Samhita's metaphor of an earthenware pot
    that requires the fire of yoga to make it serviceable.[87] Mallinson and Singleton note that the purposes of asana
    practice were, until around the fourteenth century, firstly to form a stable platform for pranayama, mantra
    repetition (japa), and meditation, practices that in turn had spiritual goals; and secondly to stop the
    accumulation of karma and instead acquire ascetic power, tapas, something that conferred "supernatural
    abilities". Hatha Yoga added the ability to cure diseases to this list.[88] Not all Hindu scriptures agreed that
    asanas were beneficial. The 10th century Garuda Purana stated that "the techniques of posture do not promote
    yoga. Though called essentials, they all retard one's progress," while early yogis often practised extreme
    austerities (tapas) to overcome what they saw as the obstacle of the body in the way of liberation.[89]

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