Sun Salutation, also called Surya Namaskar or Salute to the Sun, is a practice in yoga as exercise incorporating a flow sequence of some twelve linked asanas. The asana sequence was first recorded as yoga in the early 20th century, though similar exercises were in use in India before that, for example among wrestlers. The basic sequence involves moving from a standing position into Downward and Upward Dog poses and then back to the standing position, but many variations are possible. The set of 12 asanas is dedicated to the Hindu solar deity, Surya. In some Indian traditions, the positions are each associated with a different mantra.
The stages of Surya Namaskar, Salute to the Sun, demonstrated by a class of yoga teachers in training in Goa, India
Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi provided this double-page guide to the Sun Salutation at the back of his 1928 book The Ten-Point Way to Health: Surya Namaskars as well as in the body of the text, stating that it could be removed for use without damaging the text of the book.
Elliott Goldberg called Vishnudevananda's 1960 sequence (positions 5 to 8 shown) a "new utilitarian conception of Surya Namaskara", rejecting his guru Sivananda's view of it as a health cure.
Sun Salutation at a public yoga event in Katni, India
Yoga as exercise is a physical activity consisting mainly of postures, often connected by flowing sequences, sometimes accompanied by breathing exercises, and frequently ending with relaxation lying down or meditation. Yoga in this form has become familiar across the world, especially in the US and Europe. It is derived from medieval Haṭha yoga, which made use of similar postures, but it is generally simply called "yoga". Academics have given yoga as exercise a variety of names, including modern postural yoga and transnational anglophone yoga.
Women in an outdoor yoga community class, Texas, 2010
Yoga was originally a spiritual practice based on meditation. Statue from Java, 13th century.
Postures in Niels Bukh's 1924 Primary Gymnastics resembling Parighasana, Parsvottanasana, and Navasana, supporting the suggestion that Krishnamacharya derived some of his asanas from the gymnastics culture of his time
"The father of modern yoga" Krishnamacharya teaching yoga in Mysore, 1930s