Sūrya namaskāra, the salutation to the sun

At dawn on the ghats of Rishikesh, you can watch people of every age bow to the rising sun over the Ganga, palms joined, then fold, stretch, prostrate and rise again. The sun salutation is one of the most practised sequences in India and is taught in many schools (it is not, however, part of the government's Common Yoga Protocol for International Yoga Day). It is also a perfect warm-up: twelve positions, a full round of the spine forward and back, one movement per breath.

The 12 steps

Names and details vary between schools; this is the twelve-position form most taught in India today. One round is done twice, first stepping the right leg back, then the left.

1. Prayer pose (praṇāmāsana): standing, feet together, palms joined at the heart. Breathe out.
2. Raised arms (hasta uttānāsana): inhaling, raise the arms overhead and lift the chest gently.
3. Hand to foot (pādahastāsana): exhaling, fold forward from the hips and place the hands beside the feet, bending the knees as much as needed.
4. Equestrian pose (aśva sañcalanāsana): inhaling, step the right leg far back, knee down, and lift the chest.
5. Plank or mountain (daṇḍāsana or parvatāsana): holding or exhaling, step the left leg back into a plank, or lift the hips into an inverted V, depending on the school.
6. Eight-point salutation (aṣṭāṅga namaskāra): exhaling, lower the knees, chest and chin to the floor, hips raised; feet, knees, hands, chest and chin touch the ground.
7. Cobra (bhujaṅgāsana): inhaling, slide forward and lift the chest, elbows bent.
8. Mountain or downward dog (parvatāsana): exhaling, lift the hips into an inverted V.
9. Equestrian pose: inhaling, step the right foot forward between the hands, left knee down, chest lifted.
10. Hand to foot: exhaling, bring the left foot forward and fold.
11. Raised arms: inhaling, come up with a long back, arms overhead.
12. Prayer pose: exhaling, palms back to the heart. Repeat, stepping the left leg back.

The 12 mantras: names of the sun

Each position can be accompanied by one name of the sun, said aloud or silently, in the dative with namaḥ: "salutation to…". The list below is the one printed in the Hindi edition of the Rajah of Aundh's Surya Namaskar (Aundh, 1939).

The same book also teaches six seed syllables, hrāṃ, hrīṃ, hrūṃ, hraiṃ, hrauṃ, hraḥ, which can be combined with the names. The meanings above are the usual renderings of these epithets; several names are those of Vedic deities (Mitra, Pūṣan, Savitṛ) who came to be identified with the sun.

The real history

Bowing to the rising sun is ancient in India: prostrations accompanied by Vedic hymns to the sun are part of traditional worship. The sequence of positions practised today, however, has a much more recent and better-documented history.

Its best-known promoter was Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi (1868-1951), ruler of the small Maratha state of Aundh, in today's Satara district of Maharashtra. He promoted the sun salutation across his state, where, he writes, the people asked for a regulation making it compulsory in all schools, and he wrote books about it. In The Ten-Point Way to Health (London, J. M. Dent, 1938, edited by the journalist Louise Morgan) he explains frankly how his method took shape: "It was in 1908 that we first began to do Surya Namaskars in the old style." In that style, he says, the knees were not straightened when bending over and the foot was not brought forward in line with the palms; over the following years he changed the movements, step by step, and linked them to the breath. His sequence has ten positions, not twelve, with the body forming "an inverted V" in position four. The book also recommends reciting names of the sun such as "Mitraya Namah, Ravaye Namah", or, for those who prefer, the seed syllables alone.

The twelve-position version, which pairs one name of the sun with each position, became the most widely taught form in India in the course of the twentieth century. The Ashtanga Vinyasa tradition of Mysore teaches its own variants, sun salutations A and B. None of these sequences appears in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika or the Gheranda Samhita: the sun salutation is a living, modern Indian practice built on an ancient gesture of reverence.

How to practise

• Face east if you can, on an empty stomach, at dawn or at any calm moment.
• Inhale when the chest opens or lifts, exhale when you fold or lower.
• Start with two to four rounds, slowly; rest in śavāsana afterwards.
• Beginners can place the knees down for the plank and keep a small cobra.

The positions in detail

Each position has its own card: mountain pose for the standing start, the seated forward bend for the folding principle, plank and caturaṅga, the cobra and downward-facing dog. For a morning routine built around it, see morning yoga, and for the full list of postures, the asanas chapter.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. Rajah of Aundh (Bhawanrao Pant Pratinidhi), The Ten-Point Way to Health: Surya Namaskars, ed. Louise Morgan, J. M. Dent, London, 1938 (1956 reprint), Internet Archive checked October 16, 2026
2. Bhavanrao Shrinivasrao Pant Pratinidhi, Surya Namaskar (Hindi edition, Svadhyaya Mandal, Aundh, 1939), Internet Archive checked October 16, 2026
3. Monier-Williams, Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899), Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries checked October 16, 2026

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