Shiva Samhita is a Sanskrit text on yoga, written by an unknown author. The text is addressed by the Hindu ascetic Shiva to his consort Parvati. The text consists of five chapters, with the first chapter a treatise that summarizes nondual Vedanta philosophy with influences from the Sri Vidya school of South India. The remaining chapters discuss yoga, the importance of a guru (teacher) to a student, various asanas, mudras and siddhis (powers) attainable with yoga and tantra.
The Shiva Samhita teaches four asanas, one of them, Paschimottanasana, for the first time.
An āsana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose, and later extended in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, to any type of position, adding reclining, standing, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali define "asana" as "[a position that] is steady and comfortable". Patanjali mentions the ability to sit for extended periods as one of the eight limbs of his system. Asanas are also called yoga poses or yoga postures in English.
Asanas in varied contexts. Left to right, top to bottom: Eka Pada Chakrasana; Ardha Matsyendrasana; Padmasana; Navasana; Pincha Mayurasana; Dhanurasana; Natarajasana; Vrkshasana; Yashtikasana
Mould of Pashupati seal from the Indus Valley civilization, c. 2500 BC, its central figure in a pose resembling Mulabandhasana.
A page from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and Bhasya commentary (c. 2nd to 4th century CE), which placed asana as one of the eight limbs of classical yoga
Relief statue in Achyutaraya temple, Hampi, Karnataka showing an unidentified hand-balancing asana, 16th century
