Dearest Karin, The episodes that follow in Season 1 of Homage to the Source detail out the 32 asanas of which Richard speaks. //www.yogaanytime.com/show-view/54 /Yoga-Show-Homage-to-the-Source xok
The 32 asanas are taken from the 17th century Hatha text, the Gheranda Samhita(Gheranda's Compilation). They are what this unknown yogi considered to be the "best" asanas, chosen from the 84 that Shiva selected as most appropriate for humans from the 8.4 million asanas that yoga tradition claims are in existence, "one for every living creature in the universe." you can find a sequence of these poses in my book, Original Yoga (Shambhala), or on my website, richardrosenyoga.com. please note I made a few changes to the original 32 when I arranged the sequence, several of the poses described by "Gheranda" are quite similar to each other, so I substituted some asana-like mudras also listed in the GS, and as homage to the first important hatha book, I took one asana from the Yoga Pradipika. thanks for writing, feel free to ask any follow-up questions. Richard
This is a timely presentation in my own exploration of the yoga tradition. I'm currently re-reading my copy of the Gheranda Samhita. My primary motivation was to practice reading (sounding out, more like) the devanagari script (sloooow going!). In the process I have gotten caught up in the content, and your talk here provides solid background information for a reading of the text. Thank you!