The verse and its meaning · Yoga in Practice · Yoga in Practice — Pranayama

Bhastrika — the bellows

Hatha Yoga Pradipika 2.59

अथ भस्त्रिका ऊर्वोरुपरि संस्थाप्य शुभे पादतले उभे। पद्मासनं भवेदेतत्सर्वपापप्रणाशनम् ॥

Meaning · English

Now the bellows. Place both feet, clean and turned upward, on the thighs, soles facing the sky. This is the lotus seat, the destroyer of every sin.

The verse opens the bellows breath, but it does not describe the breath yet. It describes the seat first. The seat is padmasana, the lotus posture. Padma is the lotus, and asana is a seat or a way of sitting. The name comes from the shape the folded legs make, like petals around a centre. The plain sense is short. Each foot is brought onto the opposite thigh. Both soles face upward, and both feet are called clean. The text then claims that this seat destroys all sins. That is the tradition's claim, and it gives no mechanism. Why does the text start with a posture when the heading names a breath? The commentary reads it this way: the bellows hold is always practised from the lotus, so the lotus is told before anything else. That reason is the commentary's, not the verse's own. The commentary also explains the word for upturned. It is an old grammatical word that simply means the soles lie face up. For a practitioner, the verse asks for a firm, folded, steady base. Everything the next verses teach about the breath is meant to rest on it. The verse says nothing about how long to stay or how to breathe.

1. Sit on a folded blanket on the floor and fold your legs so that both feet rest on the thighs. 2. Turn the soles upward and keep them clean. 3. Keep your back and head level, and rest your attention on the steadiness of the seat. 4. When the mind wanders, bring it back to the feet resting on your thighs. 5. If a knee hurts, stop at once and unfold the legs. 6. Unfold slowly, one leg at a time, and shake the legs out.

The verse gives only the seat, so these steps cover only the seat. The bellows breath comes in the verses after it, and it is learnt with a teacher. 1. Sit on the floor on a folded blanket, legs stretched out in front. Lengthen your spine. 2. Bend the right knee and take the right foot in both hands. Hold the foot and shin, not the knee. 3. Draw the right foot up and set it on the top of the left thigh, sole facing up, heel near the lower belly. 4. Bend the left knee. Lift the left foot over the right shin and set it on the right thigh, sole facing up. 5. Rest the backs of your hands on your knees. Let the head and spine stand level and the eyes rest closed or on the floor ahead. 6. Breathe in and out through the nose, quietly and naturally. The verse gives no counts. A beginner holds no breath at all and sits only a few minutes. 7. To come out, breathe out, lift the left foot off with both hands and straighten that leg. Then lift the right foot and straighten that leg. Shake both legs out. Fine points a teacher adds: the turning comes from the hips, never from the knee, so if the knee complains, stop and use a simpler cross-legged seat. Raising the seat on a cushion helps the knees sit lower. Next time, cross the other leg first, so both sides are used equally. Stop at dizziness, a pinch or burning in the knee, tightness in the chest or any strain.

In the body, the lotus asks the hips to turn the thighs outward and the knees to bend deeply. The muscles deep in the hip and the outer thigh lengthen, and the inner thigh and the muscles along the back hold the trunk upright. The knee is a hinge. It does not turn well, so when the hips are too tight the strain falls on the knee. That is why the turn must come from the hip. Once the legs are locked, the pelvis is held steady and the spine stands over it without effort. With the legs held, the sitter cannot slump or wander easily. For the breath, an upright trunk leaves the belly and ribs free to move. A seat that does not shift is the base the text wants for a breath that will move the belly and chest a great deal. The verse does not give this reason; it is the usual teaching. For the mind, a body that is fixed gives attention less to follow. The tradition's account is that a steady seat steadies what moves inside it, meaning prana, the breath-energy the tradition describes. That is its own language, not physiology.

The Pradipika says one thing for this seat: it destroys all sin. The text names no other result for it in the verse. The commentary adds a different kind of benefit, which concerns order, not reward: the lotus comes first because the bellows hold is practised from it. The tradition means this claim in its moral and spiritual sense. It is not a promise about the body, and the text does not say how the destruction happens or how long it takes. No cure or bodily effect is claimed here, and none should be read into it. Whatever steadiness the posture gives is taught as the ground for the breath practices that follow.

A retired tailor spent fifty years cross-legged on his shop floor. At seventy he sits down to try the lotus and finds his knees stop well short of it. That is the usual story. Sitting on the floor in the lotus asks for a particular range of movement in the hips, and many adults do not have it. Ordinary medical advice agrees with the care the old texts imply: the hips should supply the turn, because a knee forced into the shape can be hurt, especially the cartilage on its inner side. A steady, upright seat is a reasonable base for slow breathing. A tall trunk lets the diaphragm and ribs move freely, and people usually find it easier to attend when the body is not shifting about. Any comfortable seat that keeps the spine upright gives most of that. Nothing in current medicine says the full lotus is needed for it. The claim that the posture destroys sin has no modern counterpart. It is a moral and spiritual claim, and medicine neither supports nor disputes it.

This is not medical advice. A teacher can see what a page cannot, and the lotus is learnt with a teacher, not from a page. Stop at any pain. The full lotus asks a great deal of the hips, knees and ankles. People with knee trouble, past knee or hip injury or surgery, or stiff hips should use a simple cross-legged seat or a chair instead. Pain at the knee, as opposed to a stretch in the hip, is the signal to stop. Never pull a foot into place or push a knee down with your hands. Numb feet or legs mean the seat is held too long. Anyone pregnant, or with a back or sciatic problem, should ask a teacher before sitting this way. The bellows breath that follows can cause dizziness, and its holds are not for beginners.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

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