DHANURĀSANA

TWO VERSIONS OF BOW POSE


JACQUELINE HARGREAVES & JASON BIRCH

TheLuminescent.blogspot.com
20 November 2017

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 & JASON BIRCH
JACQUELINE HARGREAVES

DHANURĀSANA:
TWO VERSIONS OF BOW POSE

This brightly rendered 19th-century Indian painting (fig. 1) is held in the Wellcome Library
Collection and is currently on display in the exhibition entitled, Ayurvedic Man: Encounters with
Indian medicine (16 November 2017 – 8 April 2018). It depicts a man performing a yogic posture
(āsana) outdoors on a mat of antelope skin. The catalogue reports the rather cryptic comment,
which it calls 'lettering' (possibly on the back of the painting):

Appu [?] Sahib Patumkar [?] performing jogh, awaiting inspiration

preparatory to turning [into a] devotee.

The form of the posture matches the description of an unnamed āsana (no. 51) in the prone
(nyubja) section of an 18th-century yoga text called the Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati. The description
of this āsana is as follows:


Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati 51

hastadvayena pādadvayāgre gṛhītvā ekaikaṃ pādāṅguṣṭhaṃ karṇayoḥ spṛśet || 51 ||

Grasping the toes of the feet with both hands, [the yogin] should touch the
big toes, one at a time, on the ears.

Although the Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati doesn't provide a name for this āsana, the artists of the
Mysore Palace, who skilfully illustrated the chapter on āsana in the Śrītattvanidhi (19th
century), borrowed the description from the Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati (fig. 2) and named it the
bow pose (dhanurāsana).

Fig. 1 (above)
Appu Sahib Patumkar performing jogh [āsana].
India (19th century).
Painting, gouache on paper.
Image size: 15 x 24 cm.
Wellcome Library Cat. no. 574888i.

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 Fig. 2
Dhanurāsana in the Śrītattvanidhi.
Sjoman 1999: 84, pl. 18.

Another example of dhanurāsana from the same period occurs in the Gheraṇḍasaṃhitā (18th-
century). The posture is described as follows:

Gheraṇḍasaṃhitā 2.18

prasārya pādau bhuvi daṇḍarūpau karau ca pṛṣṭhaṃ dhṛtapādayugmam |


kṛtvā dhanustulyavivartitāṅgaṃ nigadyate vai dhanurāsanaṃ tat ||

Extending the legs on the ground like sticks, as well as the arms, both feet
are held from behind and the body is moved like a bow. This is called bow
pose.

Seeing that both legs are initially straight on the ground, the above description could be
referring to a posture similar in form to the illustration in the Śrītattvanidhi and the
Wellcome's painting. A beautifully rendered illustration of dhanurāsana in a manuscript of the
Gheraṇḍasaṃhitā (fig. 3) published in Fakire und Fakirtum im Alten und Modernen Indian (Schmidt
1908: 34, pl. 12) supports this interpretation.

Fig. 3. (below)
Dhanurāsana in the Gheraṇḍasaṃhitā.
Schmidt 1908: 34, pl. 12

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 Fig. 4
Dhanurāsana in the Yogasopāna-Pūrvacatuṣka
Ghamande 1905: 64 (Āsana 34)

However, one wonders whether the word pṛṣṭha ('from behind') in the Gheraṇḍasaṃhitā’s
description is indicating that both feet are held behind the body. If this were the case, one
would have to assume that the yogin initially extends both arms and legs while in a prone
position, holds the feet from behind (pṛṣṭha) and moves the body like a bow by pulling both
feet towards the ears. This interpretation was adopted by Yogi Ghamande in his book entitled
Yogasopāna-Pūrvacatuṣka (published 1905). He quotes the verse on dhanurāsana in the
Gheraṇḍasaṃhitā and gives the following illustration (fig. 4).

This form of dhanurāsana, which is a back-bending shape, is practised by most modern yoga
lineages (fig. 5). It was popularised by the widely distributed book Yogāsanas authored by
Swāmī Śivānanda, first published in 1934.


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Fig. 5: Dhanurāsana in Śivānanda Yoga

Retrieved from: International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres (https://www.sivananda.org/teachings/asana/bow.html).
Accessed on: 16th Nov 2017.

It is worth noting that the earliest account of dhanurāsana is in the 15th-century

Haṭhapradīpikā.

Haṭhapradīpikā 1.27

pādāṅguṣṭhau tu pāṇibhyāṃ gṛhītvā śravaṇāvadhi |


dhanurākarṣaṇaṃ kuryād dhanurāsanam ucyate ||

Having held the big toes of both feet with both hands, one should pull
[them] like a bow as far as the ears. This is called bow pose.

The Sanskrit is ambiguous enough to be understood as either of the above versions of this
posture. In his commentary on the Haṭhapradīpikā called the Jyotsnā, Brahmānanda (circa mid-
nineteenth century) interpreted it as follows:

gṛhītāṅguṣṭham ekaṃ pāṇiṃ prasāritaṃ kṛtvā gṛhītāṅguṣṭham itaraṃ pāṇiṃ

karṇaparyantam ākuñcitaṃ kuryād ity arthaḥ ||

The meaning [of dhanurāsana is as follows:] Having extended one hand by which the
big toe is held, one should draw, as far as the ear, the other hand by which the [other]
big toe is held.

Brahmānanda's interpretation supports the version which is described in the

Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati and illustrated in both the Śrītattvanidhi and the Wellcome's painting.

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Yogi Ghamande (1905: 30) includes this as another version of dhanurāsana and quotes the
above verse from the Haṭhapradīpikā (fig. 6). The illustration depicts a slight variation in which
the big toe touches the opposite ear.

Both the Gheraṇḍasaṃhitā and the Haṭhapradīpikā were important sources in the revival of
postural yoga in twentieth-century India. Therefore, it is possible that the ambiguities in their
Sanskrit descriptions of dhanurāsana are responsible for the popular (mis)interpretation of
this āsana as a back-bending shape in modern yoga.


Fig. 6
Dhanurāsana in the Yogasopāna-Pūrvacatuṣka
Ghamande 1905: 30 (Āsana 8)

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References

Ghamande, Yogi. 1905. Yogasopāna-Pūrvacatuṣka. Bombay: Janardan Mahadev Gurjar,

Niranayasagar Press.

Śivānanda, Swāmī. 1993. Yoga Asanas. Sivanandanagar, India: Devine Life Society.

Schmidt, Richard. 1908. Fakire und Fakirtum im alten und modernen Indian: Yoga-Lehre und Yoga-
Praxis nach den indischen Originalquellen dargestellt. Berlin: Hermann Barsdorf.

Sjoman, N. E. and Kṛṣṇarāja Vaḍeyara. 1999. The Yoga tradition of the Mysore Palace. New Delhi:
Abhinav Publications.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

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