Light on Yoga

If the Yoga Sūtras are the theory, Light on Yoga is the twentieth century’s great answer in practice: some two hundred postures, each photographed, graded by difficulty, and prescribed by ailment, prefaced by an introduction to yoga philosophy that Iyengar wrote at his editor’s insistence and that became a classic on its own.

What it changed

The book, and Iyengar’s teaching; brought precision, props and therapeutic application to a practice that had been transmitted loosely, and carried it to the West. Nearly every asana reference on this site’s yoga pages stands on its shoulders.

Honest cautions

Iyengar’s own practice was extreme; the book’s later poses demand decades. Its listings of contraindications were pioneering for 1966 and are thinner than today’s standards, this site’s pose entries carry fuller ones.