Acharya Mahaprajna
In ancient times, the asanas were studied over a long period of time. The asanas have been developed after studying different situations. Today such work has almost come to a halt. Today we know that there are 84 types of asanas, but there has been no attempt to see if they can be further developed. When research in any particular field is stopped, only the old things continue to be presented. In medical science, it is the age of development today. This is because discoveries, training and experiment are continuously going on. On that basis, in the field of physiotherapy alone, different exercises have been devised for the knee-pain. These exercises have not been mentioned in old medical literature. Physiotherapists recommend the exercises more than the asanas.
If we depend on ancient medical literature to understand Mahavira's sadhana of health, it is necessary at the same time to develop new asanas. In this context, a great deal of development has taken place in Hathayoga which recommends the particular asanas for particular diseases. It can recommend a particular asana in the case of heart disease. Today it is not believed that a heart patient should not do the asanas. On the contrary, it is said that a heart patient should do particular types of asanas. A diabetic patient should do certain asanas. There is a list of the particular asanas to be practised in case of particular diseases. It is being actually done in practice. From this point of view, we should make a serious study of the asanas. We should find out their function not on the basis of the ancient treatises, but also in the context of the modern physiology. How do these asanas act? What are the results? If we study both the ancient and the modem concept on the basis of all these things we can develop new asanas even today.
