This is Bhagiratha, a king who did tapas to bring Ganga to earth. He did one tapas after another to bring Ganga down, as there were so many hurdles on his way. He is a king and his ancestors had been turned to ashes by a sage. Bhagiratha wanted to bring them back to life and the only way to do that was to ask Ganga to flow over the ashes.
A non-yogi friend of mine asked me if there is an asana named after donkey or a rat. I thought the question was funny and thought about it more. Most of the animal stretches that have been copied to yoga are animals that are inspiring. The animal that we adore the most and copy is the svana or the dog. Upward facing and downward facing dog poses, probably the only animal that inspired two asanas. It is another matter that the poor dogs have to learn yoga from humans in the US of A. I guess why we do not have a donkey or rat asana is that they don’t inspire us so much.
Virabhadrasana known as Warrior, is a powerful pose. The Hindu mythology talks about how Shiva created Virabhadra from his dreadlocks. Virabhadra, which means a hero and a friend, was commanded to kill Daksha (Parvati’s father) to avenge an insult towards Shiva and Parvati.
Virabhadra arrives at Daksha’s place in style. With a sword in each hand. He emerges from the earth, pushing through with swords up in the air. Now that he has arrived, he seeks out Daksha. With precision and control, he moves swiftly to cut off Daksha’s head. These actions are what are dedicated as Yoga poses Virabhadrasana I, II and III.
The warrior actions can be found in the ancient Indian martial art Kalaripayat. A lot of the poses have the front knee bent and the back leg much like the warrior poses of Yoga.
The picture is from Nicolas Chorier’s book “A Kite’s Eye View: India: Between Earth and Sky”.
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