Given this clouds in historical literature and lack of a clear historical lineage. Where did our modern proliferation of poses and practices come from? and What are the exact dates of many of the current yoga poses we practice?

Or have they been handed down intact, from generation to generation, as part of an oral tradition that never made it into print?

Sun Salutatuons (Namaskars) were first described around 1500 BCE in the Rig Veda, the oldest collection of sacred Hindu scriptures, , as a ritual prostration to the dawn, with mantras, offerings of flowers and rice, and libations of water. Surya Namaskara is not mentioned in the revered “The Yoga Sutras”.

One of the earliest texts that mentioned the flow of Yoga Poses was the Yoga Makaranda by Shri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. Yoga Makaranda was Krishnamacharya’s first book on the topic of Yoga, published in 1934. This was one of the first books to present the practice of yoga poses in a sequential manner (Vinyasa-krama), a method unknown at that time to the general public.

Learn some really interesting facts about the history of yoga. We all seem to view a lot of the modern poses as thousands of years old.