The Proliferation of Asanas in Late-Medieval Yoga Texts by Jason Birch

“Some scholars have already noted that the number of postures (a¯sana) described in the better-known Sanskrit yoga texts is considerably smaller than the large number of asanas practised in twentieth-century yoga. Relatively few asanas are mentioned in the Patañjalayoga´sastra, its main commentaries and the three Hatha Yoga texts which were widely published in the twentieth century, namely, the Sivasamhita (SS), the Hathapradıpika (HP) and the Gherandasamhita¯ (GS). Among these, the Gherandasam ˙ hita teaches the most asanas, namely, thirty-two. On the basis of these sources, medieval yoga appears to have little to do with the proliferation of asanas in yoga texts written in the early twentieth century. However, the lack of historical evidence on the practice of asanas has hampered scholarly efforts to reconstruct the modern history of yoga, as Joseph Alter has stated…”