Your Monthly Yoga Sanskrit

By Wonderlane [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Above is a picture of the ruins of a university that was based out of ancient India. It attracted students from as far as Tibet, China, Greece, and Persia, and it was absolutely free for students to study here. By legend it was the location Buddha designated to teach his first students.

It is the Nalanda University. Nalanda in Sanskrit means “giver of knowledge”. “Nalam” translates to lotus. The lotus represents wisdom and knowledge. “Da” means to give. Nalanda is a perfect name for a university, but also a perfect word to think of for yoga sanskrit.  

As students of yoga, we naturally receive the gift of Nalanda from our teachers. One can not look inward to find the poses, but first make take the guidance of outward forces. Those forces help us listen to ourselves to find a yoga path.  
Although Nalanda is not the name of an actual yoga pose, I thought it would be an interesting place to start in my "Yoga Sanskrit" series. The passing of knowledge is one subject that I personally find to be sacred. Even with more and more of the world gaining access to seemingly endless knowledge from the internet, there are still some things we cannot learn digitally. Yoga serves as a perfect example. 

We can learn the yoga sanskrit names for all of the poses if we really want to without Nalanda, but to achieve good form in yoga we must seek to find the Nalanda outside of the internet world by going to yoga classes. I am thankful to have the means to access Nalanda, and one day I hope to pass on the knowledge I've learned from others.