Mystical systems
Asana
Direct answer
Asana is Sanskrit for seat. In the Yoga Sutras it means the steady and comfortable posture for sitting in meditation; in modern yoga it means any posture.
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At a glance
- Also called
- yoga posture
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Hatha Yoga, Yoga Sutras, Mudra
Asana is Sanskrit for seat. In the Yoga Sutras it means the steady and comfortable posture for sitting in meditation; in modern yoga it means any posture.
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What does asana mean?
Asana comes from a Sanskrit root meaning to sit. In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali it is the third of the eight limbs, and the text gives it three lines: the seat should be steady and comfortable, effort in it should relax, and the sitter is then less troubled by heat and cold and the other pairs of opposites.
Later hatha yoga texts added postures that are not seats, and the modern class has added many more. Today the word covers every pose from a standing stretch to a headstand, which is a long way from its first sense of a place to sit still.
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What sets Asana apart
The word has changed its meaning more than almost any other in yoga. Patanjali's rule for it is three words long, sthira sukham asanam, a seat steady and easy, and nothing in his text describes a single pose. The hatha texts multiplied seats into postures, and the twentieth century multiplied them again. A modern pose name is a compound ending in the word: tadasana, mountain seat; shavasana, corpse seat, the lying rest that closes a class.
- Language: Sanskrit: asana, a seat or a sitting, from a root meaning to sit
- In the Yoga Sutras: the third of eight limbs, treated in three lines (2.46 to 2.48)
- Traditional number: eighty-four, a figure repeated in the hatha texts
- Hatha Yoga Pradipika: about fifteen postures described, fifteenth century
- Light on Yoga, 1966: about two hundred postures illustrated by B. K. S. Iyengar
Often mistaken for something else: A mudra in hatha yoga is a seal or lock applied to hold the breath's force; an asana is the posture of the whole body in which such work is done.
The story behind Asana
The Hatha Yoga Pradipika of the fifteenth century describes some fifteen postures, most of them seated. The Gheranda Samhita, written about 1700, describes thirty-two and speaks of eighty-four as the traditional number. B. K. S. Iyengar's Light on Yoga, published in 1966, illustrates about two hundred. Mark Singleton has argued that many of the standing postures entered yoga in the early twentieth century.
Why Asana matters
The word shows how far modern yoga has travelled: its oldest sense is a seat for meditation, not a set of exercises.
How to read Asana
Teachers name each posture as an asana, and the Sanskrit names of poses end in it, as in tadasana, the mountain posture.
Asana in practice: an example
A reader who cannot manage a complicated pose might take heart from the oldest sense of asana: a seat they can keep without strain.
Where readings of Asana go wrong
A posture is learned from a teacher who can see the body, and pain in one is a signal to stop, not to push.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- asana meaning, yoga asana, asanas, yoga posture, what is an asana
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What does asana mean?
It means seat. In the Yoga Sutras it is the steady, comfortable sitting posture used for meditation, and in modern yoga it has come to mean any of the postures.
How many asanas are there?
Tradition speaks of eighty-four. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika describes about fifteen, the Gheranda Samhita thirty-two, and modern manuals such as Light on Yoga some two hundred.
What does the Yoga Sutras say about asana?
Very little: three short lines. The posture should be steady and comfortable, and the effort in it should ease. The text is describing a seat for meditation.
