Vajra Āsana — Conquering Fear Through Yoga

The translation describes the pose of vajra āsana which is a shape made by lacing both arms under each shin and then lacing your fingers behind the back of your neck in a seated bow. “When one reaches this station, one leaves fear of demons, jinn, fairies, humans, and animals.

If heaven fell on earth, it would not be a problem. This is a mighty rank.”

The earliest paintings of non-seated poses (asanas) appear in the Persian Bahr al-Hayat (Ocean of Life) manuscripts, written in Gujarat in approximately 1550 by Muhammad Ghwath Gwaliori (var. Gwaliyari).

Illustrated folio of the Bahr al-Hayat, a Persian Sufi yoga treatise.

Watercolor on Paper, 1600 - 1604, Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Ireland.

Carl W. Ernst has translated the Ocean of Life from seven manuscript copies, a translation which is available at the Smithsonian, National Museum of Asian Art site.

This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art. The work itself is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.