Hatha Yoga
Sanskrit: हठ योग, often explained as ha ('sun') and tha ('moon'), symbolizing the balancing of opposing energies.
Hatha Yoga is a classical branch of yoga focused on physical practices, including asana, pranayama, and cleansing techniques (shatkarma), used to prepare the body and energy channels for meditation and higher states of awareness. Its core text, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, dates to the 15th century.
In the modern West, Hatha yoga is often used loosely to mean any gentle, pose-based yoga class. Classically, however, it named a specific and rigorous system that also includes pranayama, mudras, bandhas, and shatkarma, all oriented toward awakening subtle energy rather than physical fitness alone.
The foundational medieval text, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (15th century CE), presents hatha yoga as preparation for raja yoga, meditative absorption, built around asana, pranayama, shatkarma cleansing practices, mudra and bandha, a considerably wider scope than the postures most Western classes now call 'hatha.' The word is often explained as ha (sun) and tha (moon), a balancing of opposing energies, an interpretation that postdates the term's earliest textual use but has become the standard teaching explanation today.
Go Deeper
Related Terms
Asana
Asana refers to the physical postures of yoga, the third of Patanjali's eight limbs. Originally describing a stable, comfortable seated position for meditation, the term has expanded in modern practice to cover the wide range of standing, seated, balancing, and inverted poses taught in yoga classes today.
Kundalini
Kundalini is a subtle energy described in yogic and tantric traditions as lying dormant, often symbolized as a coiled serpent, at the base of the spine. Through practices such as pranayama, asana, and meditation, this energy is said to be gradually awakened and directed upward through the body's subtle channels.