Talk:List of asanas

How to handle variations
Well, I've added a lot of references and cleaned up some duplicates, I hope everyone likes the result.

One obvious problem is how to handle variations. Best might be to list their names as table entries, wikilinked to the main entries in the table, with brief English descriptions of the differences. Many are relatively slight, and some major poses have numerous variations. For instance, headstand (Sirsasana) can be done straight, with bent legs, to the side (Parsva Sirsasana), to the side with legs spread (Parivrtta Eka Pada Sirsana), with one leg down (Eka Pada Sirsasana), with one leg to the side (Parsvaikapada Sirsasana), with legs in Baddha Konasana, with legs in Upavista Konasana, with legs and hips in Parsva Virasana, with legs lowered to a right angle (Urdhva Dandasana), with legs in lotus (Urdhva Padmasana in Sirsasana), with legs in lotus, folded down (Pindasana in Sirsasana), and supported by the palms rather than the forearms (Salamba Sirsasana). If images are to be provided, then a full table row with a crosslink would seem necessary; the question would be whether we should have so many table entries, or whether headstand variations should be confined to the Sirsasana article, etc. Open to suggestions. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:48, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
 * the variations must be in the page of the named and basic āsana Sylveno (talk) 16:25, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * (This item was a year ago now.) Yes, that's what we've done in the main. Sometimes a pose is described as a variant of a basic asana with a different name, as happens in the scorpion-type poses for instance. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:44, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

transliteration of sanskrit words
i think we have to use an official transliteration for sanskrit words. The iast is certainly the best one but all other proposition is welcome. Sylveno (talk) 08:19, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Obviously this has been thought about considerably in the Yoga project. The consensus is that we should use IAST for terms that are definitely in Sanskrit; we use English for names such as those of asanas (and common terms like yoga, asana, pranayama) which are widely used in English by people who know no Sanskrit. In the case of this article, the asanas are in addition much better named without diacritic marks, as people frequently wish to find an asana and will type its English spelling into the search box; if the asanas are all marked up with diacritics, search will usually fail, which would nullify the purpose of the list. I am not completely opposed to adding an IAST column, and have considered it, but it is yet another piece of apparatus, yet another demand on screen width (very inconvenient on portable devices, which are increasingly common), and redundant with the explanations of etymology in all the asana articles, so on the whole I think we should avoid adding such a column. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:26, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * i already read the section were this was debat. I agree with the ease for searching and sorting. But iast without diacritic is not this one is used in the page. In this case, śirṣāsana would be sirsasana. The convention shirshasana have nothing official but is better to approach the sanskrit pronounciation (and for sorting). I already read too the post about no more column. Maybe we can ad the iast in the same column as devanāgarī before or after this one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sylveno (talk • contribs) 16:22, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Not sure I can follow that in full, but since the Devanagari column already sometimes contains two asana names, I think that would become very untidy. We already have IAST in the articles (for 1% of readers, perhaps?) and I'm not convinced we need it here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:47, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * why you reverted my edit? i just standardised the transliteration for unity of transcription, to have same transcription for same nagari letter!Sylveno (talk) 07:00, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The spellings are just the conventional ones used in yoga books and websites; they are not always systematic. (On a philosophical note, Wikipedia (and dictionaries and encyclopedias generally) are often thought to be normative, but all they can rightly and effectively be is descriptive; they just have to describe as systematically as they can, knowing it's always impossible.) These spellings should be the same as those used in the individual asana articles; despite best efforts, I shall not be surprised if there are inconsistencies, and it is those we should work on. We cannot have one system in this article different from what is used everywhere else. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:41, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

adding a bibliography
There's a list of publications in ==Asanas== and i think it would be better if they were moved to a bibliography. The abbreviations can be maintained but should reference to the works under ==Bibliography==.Catchpoke (talk) 22:07, 28 March 2021 (UTC)


 * No thank you. The list of "Sources" contains all the books that are actually cited in the article; each of the References points to one or other of the Sources. There are literally thousands of books on yoga as exercise, and since Wikipedia is "Not a Catalogue" (WP:NOTCAT) we should not even attempt to list them here, it's not Wikipedia's job. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Hello friend. My intention of the bibliography is to list the works abbreviated in the "Described" column.  I don't think it would be a good idea to list all the yoga works exhaustively.Catchpoke (talk) 18:10, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * If that is incompatible, what about using the same reference style for the primary sources in ==Sources==. currently, the citation style uses bible citation and using 2 styles is confusing and both fewer readers and younger readers are less likely to recognize it or understand it.Catchpoke (talk) 18:25, 29 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Glad to hear it. But no, there is a key to the texts listed in the "described" column just above the table, and all of them are bluelinked to Wikipedia articles which say more about them. These texts are mainly medieval and in languages such as Sanskrit; we don't need to list them again below. It's not only unnecessary (aka unhelpful) but actually would be distracting - very few readers will want to look up these primary sources, and those that do can just click on the bluelinks to the articles, where they'll either be content with the accounts in English, or can click through to the source texts. The article is well-documented and for a general readership, we don't need yet more redundant apparatus, and we certainly don't need to muddle up these primary materials with the reliable secondary sources that we're using as citations. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:30, 29 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I would like to see "The "Asana" column lists names in English, spelt conventionally as in English books on yoga without diacritics, to facilitate free text search through the list using the 'Find in page' box (Control-F in many browsers)." removed due to WP:SELF. Catchpoke (talk) 20:18, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The column named English does that already. Further, the column named Asana is free of diacritics for the exact reason you give, so search on either name already works. For the avoidance of doubt, both names are certainly needed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:39, 24 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I want to see the sentence removed. We have a policy on that. Catchpoke (talk) 18:43, 25 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Well you explained yourself with an exceptional lack of clarity, not helped by joining a thread to which your suggestion had precisely no relevance, so I was wondering why you were talking about "adding a bibliography" for prefixes, or something. I'll see if anything needs to be added to replace the sentence you removed. We could use a footnote, but perhaps now that asana articles are titled without diacritics the issue has gone away, more or less. I actually don't think that WP:SELF applied here, as the rubric was describing the table, not the article as a whole; and in any case, WP:SELF itself states self-referentially that it must be applied with common-sense rather than as an iron rule. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:54, 25 June 2021 (UTC)