Yoga: A world attraction in India and its cultural significance

India is the birthplace of this ancient and divine science called Yoga. Yoga is practised all over India, but the Himalayas’ main region is the treasure house of Yoga. This is because all the spiritual masters and teachers of Yoga considered the Himalayas the centre point of their practice. The practice of pranayama, meditation, yoga postures and several other metaphysical practices were done in these mountainous regions of the Himalayas.

Yoga is believed to be life-giving, not just in terms of physical health, but it also provides purpose and clarity to this life journey. Yoga offers mankind a guidebook or an instruction manual to how life must be lived. By following this life handbook, we can experience positive energy such as joy, happiness and blissfulness. Therefore, Yoga is not limited to purely physical health benefits. Still, the whole world sees Yoga for the holistic wealth that it offers us and is embracing this divine practice for its supreme advantages. And as a testament to this, millions of people worldwide have begun to immerse themselves in Yoga and implemented many of its philosophies and techniques into their everyday life to improve their quality of life. So when we dive into the epics of Mahabharata or the Ramayana, we can see how all the main characters, whether it was Lord Krishna, Arjuna or Lord Rama all, propagated the practice of Yoga as a way of goodness. Along with this, all the ancient scriptures also talk about the many benefits of practising Surya namaskar, which is the salutation to the sun.

In India, all the world heritage sites that have been declared as such by UNESCO whether it is the Konark temple of the Sun temple, Ajanta and Ellora caves, or even the Chauset yogini temple, are all connected to Yoga in some way or the other. The Shakthi peeths, 12 Jyotirlinga temples are all in some form related to the Maha Himalayas. And especially after 2015, when June 21st was declared International Yoga Day, thanks to the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Yoga has become even bigger than before. It has impacted millions of lives worldwide and continues to do so because this is the main objective and goal of Yoga, which is to spread well-being and happiness to mankind.