provided this double-page guide to the Sun Salutation at the back of his 1928 book
The Ten-Point Way to Health: Surya Namaskars as well as in the body of the text, stating that it could be removed for use without damaging the text of the book. This identifies the Sun as the
soul and source of all life. Chandra Namaskara is similarly from Sanskrit चन्द्र
Chandra, "Moon". The origins of the Sun Salutation are vague; Indian tradition connects the 17th century saint
Samarth Ramdas with Surya Namaskara exercises, without defining what movements were involved. In the 1920s,
Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi, the Rajah of
Aundh, popularized and named the practice, describing it in his 1928 book
The Ten-Point Way to Health: Surya Namaskars. It has been asserted that Pant Pratinidhi invented it, but Pant stated that it was already a commonplace
Marathi tradition. Sunila Kale and Christian Novetzke argue that Pant Pratinidhi saw Surya Namaskar as a form not of
haṭha yoga, but of the wider psychophysical yoga tradition. Ancient but simpler Sun salutations such as
Aditya Hridayam, described in the "Yuddha Kaanda" Canto 107 of the
Ramayana, are not related to the modern sequence. The anthropologist
Joseph Alter states that the Sun Salutation was not recorded in any
Haṭha yoga text before the 19th century. At that time, the Sun Salutation was not considered to be yoga, and its postures were not considered asanas; the pioneer of
yoga as exercise,
Yogendra, wrote criticising the "indiscriminate" mixing of sun salutation with yoga as the "ill-informed" were doing. called
Vishnudevananda's 1960 sequence (positions 5 to 8 shown) in his
The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga a "new utilitarian conception of Surya Namaskara", in which he rejected his guru
Sivananda's view of it as a health cure. The yoga
scholar-practitioner Norman Sjoman suggested that
Krishnamacharya, "the father of modern yoga", used the traditional and "very old"
Indian wrestlers' exercises called
dandas (Sanskrit: दण्ड
daṇḍa, a staff), described in the 1896
Vyayama Dipika, as the basis for the sequence and for his transitioning
vinyasas. Different
dandas closely resemble the Sun Salutation asanas
Tadasana,
Padahastasana,
Caturanga Dandasana, and
Bhujangasana. Krishnamacharya was aware of the Sun Salutation, since regular classes were held in the hall adjacent to his Yogasala in the Rajah of Mysore's palace. The yoga scholar
Mark Singleton states that "Krishnamacharya was to make the flowing movements of
sūryanamaskār the basis of his
Mysore yoga style". Krishnamacharya's students,
K. Pattabhi Jois, who created
Ashtanga (vinyasa) yoga, and
B. K. S. Iyengar, who created
Iyengar Yoga, both learned Sun Salutation and flowing
vinyasa movements between asanas from Krishnamacharya and used them in their styles of yoga. The historian of modern yoga
Elliott Goldberg writes that
Vishnudevananda's 1960 book
The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga "proclaimed in print" a "new utilitarian conception of Surya Namaskara" which his guru
Sivananda had originally promoted as a health cure through sunlight. Goldberg notes that Vishnudevananda modelled the positions of the Sun Salutation for photographs in the book, and that he recognised the sequence "for what it mainly is: not
treatment for a host of diseases but fitness exercise." == Description ==