09/02/2020
This man is Bhavanrao Pratinidhi (1868-1951) who was the Raja of Aundh (near Pune, India). He took up indigenous physical exercises after being disillusioned by Eugene Sandow’s bodybuilding manuals. In 1908, on the advice of his friend Gangadhar Rao Patwardhan 2 - the Raja of Miraj, Bhavanrao took up Suryanamaskar that he had learned from his father in the 1870s. Influenced by Indian wrestling and other Indian and Western physical forms of exercise he was quick enough to create his own version of eight-step Surya Namaskar which was different to what his father had taught him. His goal was purely physical then. He published an illustrated exercise manual in 1928 called ‘Surya Namaskar for health, efficiency and longevity’. In 1938 he published his second book ‘The Ten-Point Way to Health’ which talks about inward awareness and self-control when the practitioner matches breath and movements.
My mother introduced me to Asana when I was 9 and my father introduced me to body-building when I was 17. When my father used to take me to the gym I was not allowed to lift dumbbells and barbells till I had the strength and stamina to do 100 ‘Namaskars’ (the term that my Dad used for Surya Namaskar). Now, my father was never into Asana but he knew ‘Namaskar’ because he was a trained wrestler. ‘Namaskar’ or ‘Jor’ is the term that is used in Wrestling training schools in Western India. The Yoga school where I learned Asana as a child did not teach us Surya Namaskar at all.
In Western Indian Wrestling (Kusti) schools (called Taleem) the father of Surya Namaskar is regarded to be Samartha Ramdas Swami (1608-1681) who was a self-realized Yogi. He had inspired Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s soldiers to create a regular physical exercise regime that included squats (called Baithak), push-ups (Dand or Jor) and Surya Namaskar to create strong supple bodies for fighting the Mughals. He was also the founding father of many Wrestling schools throughout Maharashtra. Those who have grown up in Marathi (language of Western India) households know how important Samartha Ramdas's contribution to the physical culture of Maharashtra is.
No traditional Hatha texts of pre-colonial times include Surya-Namaskar as we understand them in modern Yoga (may be they have discovered some in recent times that I am not aware of?). Yes, Surya Namaskar is an essential aspect of Vedic ritual system but it is not a ‘series of poses’ as we understand it to be.
Based on Bhavanrao’s manual, K.V.Iyer (a body builder turned Hatha Yogi and also the owner of the first Western style gymnasium in India) developed his own version of Surya Namaskar which was presented by him in a booklet called ‘Surya Namaskar’ in 1937. In 1937, ‘Superman’, a British bodybuilding magazine published an article called ‘The world’s oldest physical culture system – Surya Namaskar’ written by one Ramesh Balsekar who was then a bodybuilder but later in his life became a popular Neo-Advaita teacher in India. From then to now the story of modern Surya Namaskar is truly fascinating.
