Archive for the ‘The Language Of Yoga’ tag
I learn foreign language(s) to respect every culture and to realise I am just a tiny percentage that understands English in this lifetime.
For my birthday last year, I bought myself this book amongst many (every birthday I’d buy myself books significant to my age, so 27 books last year) and found it to have been very helpful with my poor Sanskrit pronounciation and comprehension.
‘COMPLETE A TO Y GUIDE’ – how can I not buy that?
Anyone who’s been practicing yoga long enough would agree that – it is crucial to properly pronounce Sanskrit as it is the language of yoga.
Understanding the meaning and purpose of each yoga asana (pose) helps preserve the terms related to the science of yoga – an understanding that is lost when these asanas are known only by their English names.
Knowing the postures names in Sanskrit allows teachers and students to unambiguously refer to a posture as the same posture may have several different English names (and refer to my title, having joined two different Yoga TTC in China humbled me – when yoga poses were being translated from Sanskrit to Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghai-nese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Tagalog.. Why don’t just translate them to English, you asked? – because most Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Thai don’t even understand basic English! Aren’t we 1Malaysia lucky?)
adidas Ra’Yoka TTC (Shanghai March ‘08)
God knows I struggle with my basic Sanskrit pronounciation and I’d be happy to be able to name all poses in Ashtanga Primary & Second Series and to be able to count them without second guessing myself.
As a Muslim yoga practitioner, I also find it helpful to understand basic Sanskrit as I can differentiate basic words / actions / verbs with Gods from deities / goddesses’ from Sages names so that I have an option to not say them out loud when I chant / meditate / perform kirtans.
I keep stressing (in my blog) that anything Sanskrit doesn’t necessarily mean Hindu and I personally believe that, The Highest Above understands all languages before we even say it. Hence I make it a point to READ the translation of Al’ Quran as often as I can instead of blatantly singing my prayers in Arabic that I don’t understand (sitting for Arabic For Communication PMR paper evidently doesn’t help).
Back to Sanskrit (before I go ahead, do you know that 80% of Malay words were Sanskrit-based? What do you think ‘guru‘, ‘agama‘, ‘raja‘, ‘sakti‘, ‘sama‘ all came from?) – most yoga teachers instruct asanas in Sanskrit as they were taught, trained and encouraged to do so but in our effort of preserving the art and language of yoga, most students get literally lost in translation as most of them just understand basic Tadasana, Chaturanga, Balasana and Shavasana (err, you don’t get them either?).
So when one of my students shared this over our teh-tarik-post-yoga-class last week, Azmi (Samdjaga) & I can’t stop laughing for minutes!
She said, “I don’t know what exactly the pose name is but it sounds like ‘Pandang Straight Tapi Tengok Sana‘ (from Malay translation, ‘Look Straight But Turn Ahead‘) to me..”
I’m quite sure she meant this pose,
PADANGUSTHASANA
And she wasn’t finished.
She added, “I have one more pose I don’t know how to pronounce. That ‘La Bodega Padan Muka‘ pose itu“.
Azmi & I still can’t decipher that one though.
Lokha Samastha Sukhino Bhavanthu.
Would you believe me if I say that it equally means Gong Xi Fai Chai and Assalamualaikum?
