Amrita 6: Asana through the ages - Magazine - Page 13
yoga texts, it was by no means
the first. Prior noteworthy texts
include the twelfth or thirteenth
century Goraksaataka, in which
Goraksanth described two sana: padmsana and siddhsana.
The fifteenth century ivasahit
extended these descriptions to
include svastiksana, and ugrsana, mentioning a further two by
name only. The twelfth century
Vasisthasamhit elaborates ten
sana; these verses then being
incorporated
into
the
Hathapradpik.
How and why did the hatha
yogis make this transition to focus more on physical sana? Like
many developments within
yoga, hatha yoga was a reaction
against that which came before;
this time against the exclusivity
and complexity of Tantric cults
and practices. In hatha yoga,
there was no need for elaborate
initiation or complex mantra,
yantra or mandalas. The only external requirement was a guru to
transmit the physical practices of
pranayamaa, bandh, mudr and
sana. The goals of hatha yoga
were the same as that of tantra,
namely siddhi (supernatural
powers) and mukti (liberation);
the toolkit however was an extremely simplified one. A picture
emerges in the twelfth century of
a soteriological melting pot of
combinations of Vedic, Buddhist
and Tantric practices being initially combined, and then their
complex and esoteric aspects rejected, to form the new, physically focused hatha yoga.
sana evolution continued
with the seventeenth and eighteenth century Yogacintmani
and Gherandasamhit, each describing at least thirty-two postures. Evidence exists for an even
wider corpus of sana knowledge in that period. Mughal rule
in India began in the sixteenth
century, and some see this as a
period of decline of the practice
of hatha yoga. The seventeenth
century Bahr al-Hayt belies this
view however; this Persian ren-
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AMRITA Issue 6 / Spring 2021 11
