Talk:Pranayama

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I am new as an editor to wikipedia and I have a positive personal experience with pranayama so please be critical to what I write !

Controlling prana is Prana nigraha not Pranayama. Pranayama means expanding (ayama) prana. This is why I did this last edit.

Should writing of this quality be allowed to exist in WIkipedia. This really comes very close to gibberish. Mandel June 30, 2005 19:33 (UTC)

I agree. Your comment is gibberish. It shouldn't be allowed to exist in Wikipedia.
Failure to understand something does not make it gibberish. Does failure to understand something justify rudeness ? Let's express our gratitude to these yoga contributors who so generously share their knowledge with the world.
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Sorry fellas, Mandel is absolutely right, and he is being very diplomatic already. The whole article almost makes no sense. That's not to say that Pranayama is nonsense per se, but this article needs to explain what it actually is to someone who doesn't know what it is. That's the point of an encyclopedic article.
I mean sentences like "In a systematic manner Patañjali proceeds from the external sheath of man and slowly proceeds to the subtler and subtler sheaths.", and "Just as by catching hold of the key of a timepiece you do not allow it to move and the subtler cog wheels and finally the subtlest hair-spring come to a standstill, even so, by the control of that force which sets into motion the mind, the mind stops its motion." aren't very illuminating. And I agree with Hawol. There are way too many quotes.--Zhuuu 09:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm working on this; so please bear with some incomplete references for a week or so Binpajama 23:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Edit

I have done some editing. Adding one new reference and moving the quote from the sutras to a section called cautions. I believe that the article is under-developed and that it relies too much on quotes. It needs more references from academic and clinical studies as well as a more thorough discussion of the socio-historical context of pranayama. --Hawol 12:46, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] more text and more references

I am new as an editor to wikipedia and I have a positive personal experience with pranayama so please be critical to what I write --johanflod 13:46 28 July 2006

[edit] Literal translation, 'cognate', 'three elements'

I removed the statement that prana "is cognate with the Chinese concept of "chi"". The two words are dissimilar enough that it raises doubts about whether they are cognate. I also couldn't find any evidence of this online, and don't have any language reference books. If there is a reliable linguist's reference to this statement, please add the statement back, along with the reference. Along the same lines, the statement "The word pranayama comprises two roots: prana and ayama and three elements: prana, ayama and yama" is puzzling. I couldn't find any language references to 'pranayama' having 'three elements'. The 'root' part makes sense, but the 'three elements' statement is what threw me. I'll add a cite tag soon if this can't be answered or referenced. ॐ Priyanath talk 16:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The are not cognate in an etymological sense, but conceptually there are similarities. It is fine that you cut the issue, as we can find a better citation for it. In general this article suffers the same weak sourcing as other articles to which the concept is related, so I think the first step is to try to get better compliance with WP:RS and WP:CITE. The "three roots" business is an interpretation of what the practices involve overall, and a solid etymology section needs to be built. I expect that some of these edits will be controversial, so I think it would be best not to make too many changes at once, and simply begin to structure in an etymology section, which I have done. According to Wikipedia:Verifiability "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article. Quotations should also be attributed. If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Buddhipriya 05:47, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the compound prāṇāyāma the confusion in the article about "three roots" seems to be due to an attempt to deal with the long ā, but to me it looks like sandhi in which the masculine plural form prāṇāḥ ("the vital airs") meets with the following yāma (cessation, restraint), and the sandhi rule is: -āḥ + y = -ā in the formation of a tatpuruṣa compound. I will ask Rudra to comment on this etymology to be sure I am seeing it correctly. We know from Apte that when considered as "the vital airs" prāṇa is generally made plural, and MW confirms the plural usage. However I did find a citation to the alternate etymology and have cited Mishra in the etymology section to get that version in. Buddhipriya 09:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
To keep the thread together I am adding Rudras answer to my question to him about this: "AFAIK, plurals are not retained in tatpurushas. Also, the action noun yāma (== cessation) sounds Vedic: I think it's āyāma in Classical Sanskrit; whence a straightforward prāna + āyāma would seem to be the correct parsing. rudra 19:02, 5 May 2007 (UTC)" I still have been unable to find a clear WP:RS to cite a written etymology of the compound. Buddhipriya 19:15, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I have received back via non-Wikipedia sources an answer from a pandit whom I personally consider reliable that the derivation prāṇa + āyāma (expansion) is his understanding as well, so that seems confirmed. I asked him about the alternative of prāṇa + yāma and he simply chuckled and said that was a common misunderstanding. How do we go about documenting a common misunderstanding that is not clearly discussed in a WP:RS that I can cite? I can't appeal to authority of the pandit to overrule the very common translation as "breath control". Buddhipriya 21:25, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Reliable Sources also allow for the 'energy control' version (and I think they may also chuckle at the other interpretation.....). Like many things in Hinduism, there apparently isn't one correct answer. Both should be included, with their references. ॐ Priyanath talk 22:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Added— An additional Reliable Source is Vivekananda in his book Raja Yoga, where he states " Pranayama, or controlling the vital forces of the body "(Bharatiya Kala Prakashan,India (August 15, 2004) ISBN 978-8180900365). When sage/teachers of Raja Yoga and pandits disagree, I personally go with the yogi-sages, especially when it comes from multiple independent respected lineages - three so far in this case (Ramakrishna/Vivekananda, Yogananda-Kriyananda, Sivananda). But for an encyclopedia, both versions are acceptable, since sources can be found for both. ॐ Priyanath talk 22:50, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Add— One way to solve this is to say that the literal translation is "expansion" (if indeed that's so), and the meaning ascribed by renowned teachers of Patanajali's Ashtanga Yoga is "control". Because Raja Yoga and Patanjali are a wisdom teaching, and not merely an academic one, the true teachers are the real authorities. But the academics should probably have their say too. ॐ Priyanath talk 23:01, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I think you have hit the nail on the head when you say that there is no one correct answer. The trick is to cite a wide range of WP:RS and try to identify patterns. The puzzling thing about the etymology is that so few of the sources I have checked so far actually give an etymology. I agree that Vivekananda's Raja Yoga is notable, and next I will go over a number of books I have related to Patanjali to look for more variants. We must remember that if we cite Swami X to prove a point, someone else will cite Swami Y to refute it. So we must look for patterns, and always push back on non-notable sources. Keep adding as many variants as you can, with sources, and it will sort into a pattern eventually. Buddhipriya 23:26, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks to a conversation with the non-citable pandit, I think I now see the problem more clearly. Apparently there is a specific Paninian sutra covering ā + yāma as meaning "expansion", and I have been assisted in locating some additional material in Apte that shows pretty clearly that what āyāma means in this compound is ambiguous, potentially leading to translations of "expanding the prana" or "restraining the prana" depending on the interpreter. I will try to work in the cites and nail down the Paninian reference (perhaps 2.1.16 yasya ca = āyāmaḥ)[1] (२. १. १६ यस्य च आयामः [2]). Buddhipriya 03:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The article lead currently has the following statement about prana which I think is poorly sourced, overgeneral, and off topic to some degree. Should it be cut, as it really has to do with the prana article? "Prana includes the breath, but also signifies the 'vital energy' or 'life force' that permeates and enlivens the universe. Its meaning is similar to the Chinese concept of "chi" and the Hawaiian concept of "mana.""

[edit] Blatant spamming

The section on "Specific Pranayama techniques" contains blatant spamming as is evident when you follow the links to specific web pages, which cite no sources, but push traffic to specific web sites. Can other editors please examine these links? My removal of this spam was reverted by another editor, so I will not revert it again immediately in hopes of getting more editorial opinion on them:

  • Deergha Pranayama
  • Anulom Vilom Pranayama
  • Kapalabhati Pranayama
  • Bhastrika Pranayama
  • Bhramari pranayama

Buddhipriya 08:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)