Yoga, Volume I: The 15 Asanas

About the Book

Discover the Fifteen Asanas of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika

Every yoga practitioner knows the word asana—posture. It appears on class schedules, in studio names, and in the vocabulary of teachers throughout the world. Yet in the classical yoga tradition, the meaning of asana reaches far beyond the physical shape the body assumes.

In the earliest systems of yoga, asana was first and foremost a stable bodily seat—a position in which the practitioner could remain sufficiently steady for breath control, concentration, meditation, and the deeper disciplines of yoga.

With the emergence of Hatha Yoga, however, the scope of asana gradually broadened. Meditation seats remained fundamental, but they were joined by increasingly demanding bends, twists, balances, and other configurations through which the body itself became an instrument of yogic transformation.

One of the most important witnesses to this development is the Hatha Yoga Pradipika of Svatmarama, composed in the early fifteenth century. Among the most influential surviving manuals of Hatha Yoga, the work draws upon earlier yogic teachings and traditions while presenting Hatha Yoga not as an end in itself, but as a path leading toward Raja Yoga.

This volume is devoted to the fifteen asanas described by Svatmarama in Chapter I of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

Presented in their original textual order, they are:

Svastikasana • Gomukhasana • Virasana • Kurmasana • Kukkutasana • Uttana Kurmasana • Dhanurasana • Matsyendrasana • Paschimottanasana • Mayurasana • Shavasana • Siddhasana • Padmasana • Simhasana • Bhadrasana

The sequence is remarkable for its diversity.

It begins with seated configurations and progresses through increasingly complex bodily forms, including arm-supported postures, a bow-shaped posture, a spinal twist, a forward bend, and the corpse posture. It then concludes with four seated asanas to which Svatmarama gives particular importance: Siddhasana, Padmasana, Simhasana, and Bhadrasana.

Together, these fifteen postures preserve an important moment in the history of yoga.

Asana had not yet become the enormous postural repertoire familiar from later centuries, yet it had already developed into something far more extensive than a single meditation seat.

These fifteen postures form the center of the present volume.

They are not presented as modern exercise positions retrospectively imposed upon an ancient text. Wherever possible, each treatment begins with the classical description itself. Modern anatomical explanation, alignment guidance, contraindications, and practical recommendations are then added to help the contemporary practitioner understand and approach the posture safely without obscuring its historical form.

Inside this volume, readers will explore:

• The fifteen asanas taught in Chapter I of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika • Their original descriptions and traditional context • Historical interpretation of each posture • Modern anatomical explanations • Practical alignment guidance • Contraindications and safety considerations • Suggestions for approaching difficult postures intelligently • The relationship between physical posture and the broader aims of Hatha Yoga

The aim is not to modernize Svatmarama.

It is to allow his system to be understood clearly enough to be practiced intelligently today.