Asanas in ancient manuscripts

My name is Alexander OpenYoga. I welcome you to a new yoga project. It is called "Asanas in ancient manuscripts". The purpose of this project is to revive ancient knowledge of yoga that is fast disappearing. It is a great misfortune that almost all knowledge of this ancient science is lost. There are a couple of medieval texts that are translated into English but a vast majority of other ancient and unknown to the Western world manuscripts are deposited in different oriental libraries. The number of untranslated yoga texts is much much more than the number of translated texts. One of the main purposes of our project is to collect mentioning of all available yoga practices (e.g. asanas or yoga poses, pranayamas or breathing exercises, kriyas or dynamic yoga movements etc.), break this knowledge into simple language and benefit every yoga practitioner with it. You are welcome to participate. 

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A miracle that went unnoticed 

Most of these manuscripts are unpublished and until recently had never been examined by scholars and practitioners. However about ten years ago almost a miracle happened. But first, Let me tell you a little bit about the history of yoga, so that you may understand better why our project is so important. Yoga was brought to the West by a few indians about a century ago. Until that time yoga virtually had been unknown in the West. From then on this yoga that they brought has been changing, evolving, and transforming. And today we have hundreds and hundreds of different styles, approaches and schools of yoga. But what are the literary sources that these indians based their teaching of yoga upon? What are the books that almost all of today's styles of yoga come from and to a certain extent modify them? You won't believe it but absolutely everything that we know about yoga comes from a couple of very short medieval texts. These text are entitled Hatha yoga pradipika, Gheranda samhita, shiva samhita a few others. And that is it. In other words almost nothing. Thousands of modern western schools of yoga are a modification and an interpretation of a few very short medieval manuscripts. But do you know that a huge portion of other yoga texts is concealed and not revealed to the general public. This knowledge is contained in thousands of different unpublished manuscripts that have been deposited in different indian libraries for ages. But this secret knowledge is almost lost. Partly because it is inaccessible due to language barriers. And partly because as the world becomes more and more materialistic with every passing year less and less people are interested in it. But as I said recently almost a miracle happened. 

About ten years ago a large portion of these manuscripts had been discovered, examined, and catalogued by a group of orientalists. Most of the discovered texts contain different yoga exercises that have been unknown in the west so far. For example descriptions of more than 800 new asanas were found in more than 180 treatises. 

In other words the number of authentic ancient yoga texts after these discoveries now is more than 15 times larger than what has been available until today in the West. The number of ancient yoga poses has been expanded by more than 8 times. Now we know hundreds and hundreds of new asanas. For example,

• kunjarasana or elephant pose, 
• musalasana or club pose, 
• kashthasana or log pose,
• mokshasana or liberation pose, 
• khadgasana or sword pose, harinasana or deer pose. 

And the list of newly discovered poses goes on and on. But there is one more thing. Ancient treatises do not say clearly what to do and how to practice. Yoga texts use so called twilight language which is almost impossible to comprehend. Ancient yoga manuscripts use enigmatic proverbs, vaguely worded statements and obscure references. For example one treatise mentions that if you practice bhallukasana or bear pose you will become the king of yoga. But the description is so terse that it's hard to figure out how to perform it. Hundreds of scholars and advanced practitioners struggle to unravel ancient mysteries. These ancient mysteries may change the way we understand and practice yoga beyond recognition. And no one knows what it will look like in a couple of years. 

Purpose of the project Asanas in ancient manuscripts

The main purpose of our project is to gather everything we know about ancient yoga, break it down into simple language and deliver the best to you. We anticipate you will help us collect mentioning of all available yoga practices (e.g. asanas or yoga poses, pranayamas or breathing exercises, kriyas or dynamic yoga movements etc.), break this knowledge into simple language and benefit every yoga practitioner with it. We hope to create an absolutely new kind of yoga encyclopedia with your help. In our project you will find a meticulous analysis of newly discovered descriptions of asanas and other exercises as well as simple guidelines on how to practice ancient yoga in modern day reality and benefit from it. If you think that information in our project called asanas in ancient manuscripts is interesting or useful, then you can help us by clicking the like button,  by clicking upvote on steemit.com, by subscribing to our youtube channel and by sharing our videos with your friends. Also we would appreciate if you took part in our project of reviving ancient yoga practices in one way or another. If you want to participate you can send your suggestions on how you would like to help and ideas how everyone can benefit from our project to the email-address [email protected] and [email protected]. You can find me personally at facebook.com/Alexopenyoga, facebook.com/ArogersA and twitter.com/alexopenyoga