Yoga Breath

A central practice of both premodern and modern yoga, prāṇāyāma ("breath control") is practised in yoga classes worldwide. Like the notion of prāṇa ("breath", "vitality"), prāṇāyāma has a longstanding history in South Asia, constituting the fourth limb of Patanjali''s yoga. Since roughly 1850, prāṇa and prāṇāyāma have been reinterpreted in light of the ideas of Hindu reform movements, nineteenth-c...