Yoga today is often identified with the practice of a broad range of bodily postures called asanas. This identification has been traced to the twentieth century, when new technologies of reproduction circulated both yoga systems and asana imagery across the globe.However, the earliest known treatise to systematically illustrate yoga postures, the Bahr al-hayat (Ocean of Life), dates to the turn of the seventeenth century.
This essay examines the specific conditions for the production of this unprecedented treatise and considers its twenty-one asanas, which are almost all seated postures for meditation on various unconditioned forms of the absolute, within a broader historical trajectory of the development of asanas.
The Sanskrit word asana (“aa-suhnuh”) is a noun meaning “seat” or “the act of sitting down” derived from the verbal root ās, which means “to sit” or “to remain as one is.” Until the end of the first millennium CE, when used in the context of yoga, asana referred to simple seated postures to be adopted for meditation. This is true for all formulations of yoga, including those of the classical tradition rooted in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (circa 325–425 CE)4 and those of the Tantric tradition, whose earliest extant asana teachings date to the sixth century.
This essay examines the specific conditions for the production of this unprecedented treatise and considers its twenty-one asanas, which are almost all seated postures for meditation on various unconditioned forms of the absolute, within a broader historical trajectory of the development of asanas.
The Sanskrit word asana (“aa-suhnuh”) is a noun meaning “seat” or “the act of sitting down” derived from the verbal root ās, which means “to sit” or “to remain as one is.” Until the end of the first millennium CE, when used in the context of yoga, asana referred to simple seated postures to be adopted for meditation. This is true for all formulations of yoga, including those of the classical tradition rooted in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (circa 325–425 CE)4 and those of the Tantric tradition, whose earliest extant asana teachings date to the sixth century.
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