Thanks to yoga’s ancient origins, many poses are inspired by animals

If you’ve ever taken part in a yoga class you may have noticed how many of the poses have an animal, insect or bird in their name. You could move through a sequence that takes you from stretching like a cat through lifting your torso off the mat like a cobra to opening your knees like the wings of a butterfly. But where did the names for poses such as downward-facing dog, pigeon and cat-cow come from? It’s easy to see the similarities – witness a dog stretching and you can recognise the traditional downward and upward dog poses in its movements – but understanding the influence of the natural world on the yoga positions people still practise today requires a look back at its origins many thousands of years ago.

Where it started

Animals are found in the symbolism of many ancient religions and spiritual traditions because the early civilisations who practised them were deeply connected to their environment. Yoga can be traced back more than 5,000 years (although some believe it’s as old as 10,000 years) and is thought to have originated in northern India, where it was developed as a means of attaining self-knowledge through action, stillness and wisdom. One renowned scripture that refers to this early yoga is the Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita, which is thought to have been composed around 500BCE. Yoga developed to become a group of physical, mental and spiritual disciplines that was practised in different belief systems, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.