Hatha Yoga Pradipika

The Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā (हठयोगप्रदीपिका) means the 'Light on Haṭha Yoga', from pradīpikā, 'a lamp' or 'that which illuminates'. As the title suggests, it aims to shed light on the haṭha tradition, gathering its practices into a clear, ordered manual for the serious student under the guidance of a teacher.

The text is arranged in four chapters that move through the core elements of haṭha practice: āsana (posture), prāṇāyāma and the ṣaṭkarma cleansing techniques, then mudrā and bandha (seals and locks), and finally nāda, the inner sound, and the states of absorption toward which the whole system is understood to lead.

It is attributed to Svātmārāma and is usually placed in roughly the fifteenth century. The Pradīpikā draws openly on earlier teachers and tantric sources, presenting itself as a synthesis rather than a wholly original work. It became one of the most influential and widely cited classical manuals of haṭha yoga.

For modern practitioners the text is a primary window into how posture, breath and energetic practice were understood before yoga's global spread. Some of its methods are rigorous and traditionally undertaken only with a qualified teacher, but its framing of the body as a vehicle for transformation still informs contemporary practice.

A common misconception is that the Pradīpikā is essentially a catalogue of physical postures like a modern manual. In fact it describes relatively few āsanas and devotes much of its attention to breath, cleansing, locks, seals and the subtle body, framing physical practice as preparation for meditative absorption, not an end in itself.