Mālāsana
# Mālāsana

The name Malasana is used for various squatting asanas in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise.

Traditionally, and in B. K. S. Iyengar's Light on Yoga, Malasana, or Garland Pose, is used for a squatting pose with the feet together and the back rounded with multiple hand placement variations. When the hands are bound around the back this pose is called Kanchyasana ("golden belt pose").

In the West, the name Malasana is also used for the "regular squat pose", Upaveshasana, in which the hand palms are folded together in Anjali Mudra in front of the chest, and the feet are set wider apart.

In the Sritattvanidhi, the name Malasana is given to Bhujapidasana, the "shoulder press", in which the palms are placed on the ground, the body balancing on the hands, and the legs resting on the shoulders.

## Etymology

The name Malasana is from the Sanskrit "माला" mālā, a garland, necklace, or rosary; and "आसन" āsana, "seat" or "posture". According to Iyengar, the name derives from the arms "hanging from the neck like a garland".

## Description and variants

The name malasana is used for four different asanas:

### Upaveshasana

The name malasana is sometimes used in the West for the "regular squat pose," Upaveshasana, in which the palms of the hands are folded together in Anjali Mudra (prayer posture) in front of the chest, and the feet are set apart. Yoga Journal states that Malasana stretches the ankles, groins and back, and tones the belly, but cautions about using the asana when there are lower back or knee injuries. A variant of this pose, Prapadasana, has the heels together and the feet on tiptoe.

### Malasana I/Kanchyasana

In the first variant, also called Kanchyasana ("golden belt pose"), the feet are together with the arms wrapped around the back, while the chin touches the floor.

### Malasana II

In the second variant, the hands wrap around the heels, and the chin touches the floor.

### Bhujapidasana

The Sritattvanidhi, a 19th-century book on a number of subjects including asanas, gives a different picture for Malasana in his plate 44. In this picture, the palms are placed flat on the floor, arm stretched upright, and the whole body balancing on the hands, while the legs are held close to the body, with the heels hanging down from a position close to the shoulders. This pose is Bhujapidasana, the "shoulder press."

