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

Three Parts, Two Holds

Hatha Yoga Pradipika 2.71

प्राणायामस्त्रिधा प्रोक्तो रेचपूरककुम्भकैः। सहितः केवलश्चेति कुम्भको द्विविधो मतः ॥

Meaning · English

The Pradipika says breath-control is told as threefold: the breath going out, the breath coming in, and the holding. The holding is reckoned in two kinds: the one joined with the others, and the one standing alone.

The verse is a sorting of terms before the practices that follow. Pranayama is the discipline of breath. The text first divides it into three parts. Recaka is the breath leaving the body. Puraka is the breath filling it. Kumbhaka is the hold, named for a pot (kumbha) that stands full and still. Then it divides the hold again. Sahita means 'accompanied'. This is the hold that sits inside the round of out-breath and in-breath, so it comes with them. The commentary reads it as two forms: a hold taken after breathing in, or a hold taken after breathing out. It adds that the hold after filling is the one meant in the earlier practices of this chapter, such as the sun-piercing breath. Kevala means 'alone'. This is the hold with no out-breath and no in-breath tied to it. The next verses return to it. Why does the text teach this? Because a reader meeting the many named breaths needs one frame to hang them on. Each is built from the same three parts, and the hold is where the practices differ. The commentary also quotes older sources that describe each part: the breath sent out slowly until the body feels emptied, the breath drawn in until the channels are full, and the breath kept still within. What it asks of a practitioner is to see the parts apart, so that each can be learnt and then joined. It gives no counts and no timings here.

A man in his sixties is sitting in a hospital corridor before a scan, and a nurse tells him to breathe in, hold, then breathe out. He is already doing, without a name, what this verse sorts into parts. Today's physiology also sees breathing as an in-phase, an out-phase and, where it is chosen, a pause. Slow, steady breathing with a longer out-breath is commonly taught for calming nerves, and that part sits comfortably with what a family doctor would say. A deliberate hold is a different matter. A brief hold is ordinary. Long holds raise carbon dioxide and can bring light-headedness, and people with heart, lung or blood-pressure trouble, and anyone pregnant, should take advice before trying them. The Pradipika's claim that the hold is the heart of the practice, and the tradition's account of what it does to prana, have no counterpart in modern medicine. The split into 'accompanied' and 'alone' is the old teachers' own scheme, and nothing in physiology confirms or refutes it.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: The Swooning Hold · Hatha Yoga Pradipika 2.69
• Next: Kumbhaka Wakes Kundalini · Hatha Yoga Pradipika 2.75
• All of Yoga in Practice · Ask Krishna about it

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