Pranayama
Textual Immersion
Dr. M. Jayaraman Textual Insights from the Yoga Tradition
A direct window into the textual roots of modern yoga — with a scholar who has spent a lifetime inside these texts and the lineage that transmitted them
A Direct Window into the Roots of Modern Yoga
The prāṇāyāma practices that flow through modern yoga trace back through Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya to the Haṭha Yoga texts — above all, the Haṭhayogapradīpikā. Yet that textual source is rarely encountered directly. What most practitioners know is a filtered inheritance: techniques transmitted through teaching lineages, often without the classical context that gives them their full meaning.
This course offers something different. Taught by a scholar who spent over a decade as Director of Textual Research at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram and who trained as a direct disciple of Śrī S. Sridharan within that lineage, it brings participants into close contact with the primary sources — their Sanskrit, their structure, their traditional interpretation. Alongside the textual study, Dr. Jayaraman will lead participants in the actual practice of the techniques themselves. Students leave this course with something they can take to the mat: a prāṇāyāma practice grounded in its own tradition.
Sage Patañjali presents Prāṇāyāma as the fourth limb of Aṣṭāṅga Yoga, a bridge between the external and internal limbs, that attenuates the veil covering inner illumination and renders the mind fit for Dhāraṇā. This course returns to that understanding — and to the classical texts that hold it.
What the Texts Say
The course draws its orientation from four classical sources, each illuminating a distinct dimension of the practice:
tataḥ kṣīyate prakāśāvaraṇam
Thereafter, the veil covering inner illumination becomes attenuated.
Yogasūtra 2.52 — Patañjalidhāraṇāsu ca yogyatā manasaḥ
And the mind attains fitness for Dhāraṇā (concentration).
Yogasūtra 2.53 — Patañjaliyāme yāme prāṇāyāmān daśa daśa kuryāt āyurvṛddhyai
Once in every three hours, practice Prāṇāyāma repeatedly for the enhancement of longevity.
Yogañjalisāram v. 22 — Yogācārya T. Śrī Kṛṣṇamācāryaprāṇāyāmair dahed doṣān
Through Prāṇāyāma, the doṣas are burnt away.
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 3.28.11The Haṭhayogapradīpikā and the Aṣṭa Kumbhakas
The course centers on the Prāṇāyāma teachings of the Haṭhayogapradīpikā, with particular attention to the Aṣṭa Kumbhakas — the eight classical Kumbhakas of the Haṭha Yoga tradition. The first six are understood in the tradition as supportive of health, purification, steadiness, and balance; the latter practices are associated with higher yogic attainments.
Dr. Jayaraman brings to this text an authority few can claim: he has produced his own critical edition of the Haṭhayogapradīpikā, working directly with the Sanskrit manuscripts and traditional commentaries. The course draws on the Jyotsnā Sanskrit commentary throughout — and rather than treating the techniques as objects of study alone, Dr. Jayaraman will guide participants through the practice of each one, so that the textual understanding and the lived experience of the breath inform each other directly.
Participants leave this course with a complete prāṇāyāma practice — rooted in the classical texts, taught by a scholar who carries the living tradition, and ready to be integrated into daily practice.
Textual Study & Living Practice
Study of important Prāṇāyāma references from the Yogasūtras and Haṭha Yoga texts
Guided practice of all eight classical Kumbhakas under traditional instruction
Padaccheda (word splitting) and traditional meanings of key terminology
Insights from the Jyotsnā Sanskrit commentary of the Haṭhayogapradīpikā
Traditional understanding of Kapālabhāti and Nāḍī Śodhana as presented in the Haṭhayogapradīpikā
Introduction to the Eight Kumbhakas of Haṭha Yoga
Direct practice of each technique alongside its textual and commentarial context
A complete, practisable prāṇāyāma sequence grounded in the classical tradition
Dr. M. Jayaraman
Professor & Dean, Division of Yoga and SpiritualitySVYASA Deemed University
Dr. M. Jayaraman's formation began with seven years of traditional Gurukula education at Veda Vijnana Gurukulam in Bengaluru (1998–2005), studying Vedas, Vedānta, and Yogaśāstra under Pracārya Kotemane Ramachandra Bhat. He completed both his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Sanskrit with first rank and gold medal, and received his PhD from the University of Madras in 2010 with a dissertation on the Doctrine of Tantrayukti — the classical Indian science of text construction and methodology.
He is a direct disciple of Śrī S. Sridharan and served for over a decade as Director of the Research Department at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, Chennai (2010–2021). That formation — within the institution Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya himself established, under a teacher who carries that lineage directly — shapes everything Dr. Jayaraman brings to the study of Yoga texts. He is among the very few scholars working today who combines Gurukula-trained Sanskrit with deep immersion in the living Kṛṣṇamācārya tradition. Following his time at KYM, he served as Director of the Division of Textual Research in Yoga at the Indic Academy (2021–2022), and currently holds the position of Professor and Dean in the Division of Yoga and Spirituality at SVYASA Deemed University.
His published work spans twenty books and nineteen peer-reviewed journal articles on Yoga and Sanskrit literature. Among his most significant contributions is his own critical edition of the Haṭhayogapradīpikā — the primary textual source for this course — produced through direct engagement with the Sanskrit manuscripts and traditional commentaries. He conducts international workshops on Tantrayukti and has been nominated to various academic boards and government councils. In 2021, Karnataka Sanskrit University awarded him the Samskrita Grantha Puraskāra for his Sanskrit work Mantra-artha-cintanam.
Recent contributions include Yogasya Bhāṣā, a four-part self-learning series on Sanskrit and Yoga, and Yoga-Vaiśāradī, a searchable web repository of classical Yoga texts. More of his work can be found at his Academia.edu profile.
The practices that define modern yoga trace their roots directly to texts like the Haṭhayogapradīpikā. This course is an opportunity to encounter those roots directly — through the Sanskrit, the commentary, and the living lineage that has carried them forward.