SIMHASANA (Lion Pose)
March comes in like a lion, out like a lamb.
–Oldest known reference in a book of proverbs by English author Thomas Fuller (1732)
Simha = Sanskrit, “a lion,” also identified with the Self (atman).
Simhasana is a very old pose. We can trace it back at least 1300 years (the dating is highly controversial, so it could be older) to the Tiru-Mantiram (“Sacred Mantra”), composed in Tamil by Tirumular, a devotee of Shiva. About 800 years later, in the mid-fifteenth century, we find it in Hatha Yoga’s seminal text, Hatha Yoga Pradipika (HYP, “Light on Hatha Yoga”). The text’s compiler, Svatmarama, describes it this way:
Put the ankles below the pelvis on both sides of the perineum–left ankle to the right side, right ankle to the left. Press your hands on your knees, spread your fingers, open your mouth, and gaze steadily at the tip of your nose with your mind well-concentrated. This is Simhasana, honored by the best yogis (1.50-52).
Notice there’s no mention of the characteristic “roar” and the stretched out tongue we typically include in the pose’s performance, which suggests they’re a modern addition.
Fifteen poses are included in the HYP, a very small number by today’s standards. But at the time it was quite a large number, earlier texts rarely presented more than four poses. Of the 15, Svatmarama distinguishes four as the “best” (shreshtha, 1.34), Adept’s Pose (siddhasana), Lotus (padmasana), Auspicious Pose (bhadrasana, today called baddha konasana), and Lion. Considering how infrequently we perform Lion in classes nowadays, it might seem odd that it was once thought of as being as important as Lotus, one of the most iconic of yoga asanas. Why was Lion so “honored”? Svatmarama explains that it “facilitates adopting the three bandhas” (1.52). These bandhas, you may know, are the essential “bonds”–or “valves” as I like to think of them–for the practice of pranayama, the throat bond (jalandhara), the perineum bond (mula), and the belly bond (uddiyana). This reminds us that, in traditional Hatha Yoga, the central practice was pranayama, unlike today when asana has taken on that role.
Sitting for Lion can be uncomfortable at first (or maybe uncomfortable, period). In the Iyengar asana canon, the position (which Svami Rajarishi Muni calls upavishasana, literally the “sitting pose,” p. 159) is used for only two poses Lion and the Dangling Pose (lolasana). Kneel down and cross your left ankle over the right, then sit with the perineum pressing against the left heel. We might wonder what benefit this rather unpleasant position has, and the short answer is: it creates a blockage at the base of the pelvis to “facilitate” mula bandha. The discussion of this and the other two bandhas is beyond the scope of this breakdown, maybe in future we can re-visit the subject.
Anyway, if you find this position unbearable, then you might uncross your ankles, set the feet side by side, and sit again on the heels (called vajrasana, Diamond Pose), thighs parallel. If the fronts of your ankles against the floor protest, put a rolled up dish towel underneath them.
Now reach out and press you palms against your knees, right palm right knee, left palm left knee, and spread your fingers wide, like the claws of a Lion. The widening and pressure of the hands has two benefits. One, the spreading of the palms has a sympathetic response in the shoulder blades, which widen across your back torso creating side to side space. According to Svami Kuvalayananda, this pressure helps cotrol the abdominal recti (lower belly muscles) to prepare for uddiyana bandha (p. 87). Two, the press of the hands against the knees helps to firm the shoulder blades against your back to support the lift of the sternum.
Now take a smooth, deep inhalation through your nose. What’s described next happens all at once. Open your mouth as wide as you can and reach the tip of your tongue down to your chin. Cross your eyes to gaze at the tip of the nose (nasa agra drishti), and with an emphatic HAAAAH, breathe out through your mouth. As you do this, be sure not to hunch forward, keep the front torso open by lifting straight up through the top of the sternum (manubrium). Having finished the exhale, release your eyes, take a few normal breaths and repeat two more times. Then lean forward, change the cross of your ankles, and repeat three times.
I should note that BKS Iyengar instructs the pose somewhat differently. He wants us to direct our gaze between the eyebrows (bhru madhya drishti), and to hold the open mouth for 30 seconds, breathing through the mouth.
Mr Iyengar says Lion “cures foul breath and cleans the tongue” (p. 136). It will also, with regular practice, make your speech “clearer” (ibid), and as Svatmarama says, helps to create the three bandhas. Other sources tell us that Lion strengthens the diaphragm (Yogi Gupta, Yoga and Long Life, p. 60), increases circulation to the throat and tongue and stimulates the eyes (The Sivananda Companion to Yoga, p. 33).
Lion can be used to begin either an asana or pranayama practice.