Sanskrit pose names, explained
How yoga posture names are built, the roots worth recognising, how to pronounce them, and why learning the Sanskrit is more useful than it sounds.
Yogasan Editorial · Published · Updated · 3 min read
Most Western practitioners learn the English names first and treat the Sanskrit as decoration. That is a loss. The Sanskrit names are not arbitrary: they are descriptions, and once you know a dozen roots, half the vocabulary becomes legible.
How the names are built
Most posture names are compounds with a predictable structure:
[modifier] + [body part or object] + āsana
Āsana means “seat” or “posture”. So Vṛkṣāsana is “tree posture”; Trikoṇāsana is “triangle posture”; Adho Mukha Śvānāsana is “downward-facing dog posture”.
Once you can separate the words, the names stop being noise.
Roots worth knowing
- vṛkṣa — tree (Vṛkṣāsana, Tree Pose)
- trikona — triangle (Trikoṇāsana)
- vīra — hero (Vīrabhadrāsana, Warrior)
- utkaṭa — fierce, intense (Utkaṭāsana, Chair)
- adho — downward
- ūrdhva — upward
- mukha — face
- śvāna — dog
- bhujaṅga — snake, cobra (Bhujaṅgāsana)
- uṣṭra — camel (Uṣṭrāsana)
- setu — bridge (Setu Bandhāsana)
- dhanu — bow (Dhanurāsana)
- bāla — child (Bālāsana)
- paścima — west, the back of the body (Paścimottānāsana)
- pūrva — east, the front of the body
- jānu — knee (Jānu Śīrṣāsana)
- śīrṣa — head
- baddha — bound
- koṇa — angle
- ardha — half
- parivṛtta — revolved
- supta — reclined
- śava — corpse (Śavāsana)
Learn ten of these and the rest start to click.
A few complete examples
Adho Mukha Śvānāsana — adho (downward) + mukha (face) + śvāna (dog) + āsana (posture). Downward-Facing Dog.
Urdhva Mukha Śvānāsana — the same, but ūrdhva, upward. Upward-Facing Dog.
Ardha Matsyendrāsana — ardha (half) + Matsyendra (a legendary yogi, “lord of the fishes”) + āsana. Half Lord of the Fishes.
Parivṛtta Trikoṇāsana — parivṛtta (revolved) + trikona (triangle) + āsana. Revolved Triangle.
Supta Baddha Koṇāsana — supta (reclined) + baddha (bound) + koṇa (angle) + āsana. Reclined Bound Angle.
How to pronounce it
There is no need to imitate a Sanskrit scholar, but two habits help:
- Every vowel is pronounced. Āsana is “AH-sa-na”, not “uh-SAH-nuh”. A macron (ā, ī, ū) means a long vowel.
- Consonants are softer than English expects. Ś is closer to “sh”; c is “ch”; jñ is roughly “gy”.
The diacritics in this guide — ṛ, ṣ, ṃ, ḥ — follow the IAST transliteration system. You can ignore them in speech; they exist so the spelling is unambiguous.
Why bother?
Three reasons, in ascending order of usefulness.
First, studios use the Sanskrit names, and knowing them makes classes easier to follow. Second, the names encode alignment: Utkaṭāsana tells you the pose is meant to be fierce, not comfortable. Third, the language connects the shapes to the texts they came from, which is where the practice’s depth actually lives.
You do not need to be fluent. Twenty roots is enough to change how the names sound.
Related: The eight limbs of yoga.
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