Millions of people practise Surya Namaskar. Very few know the name Shri Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi.
Today, Surya Namaskar feels inseparable from yoga. It is practised in schools, yoga studios, homes and ashrams across India and around the world.
Because of that, it is easy to assume that the familiar sequence of movements must have existed in exactly the same form for centuries.
The history is more interesting.
Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi, popularly known as Balasaheb Pant Pratinidhi, was the ruler of the princely state of Aundh in present-day Satara district, Maharashtra, from 1909 to 1947.
He was not merely a ruler. He was deeply interested in health, physical culture and exercise, and he became one of the most important figures in the development and popularisation of the modern Surya Namaskar sequence.
A distinction is important here.
The worship of the Sun in India is ancient. Surya has been revered in Indian religious and spiritual traditions for thousands of years, and forms of salutation to the Sun existed long before the twentieth century.
But the familiar physical sequence of linked postures that millions recognise today as Surya Namaskar has a much more recent history.
During the 1920s, Bhawanrao actively promoted Surya Namaskar as a systematic form of physical exercise. In 1928, he published an illustrated, step-by-step presentation of the practice, helping to document and spread the sequence much more widely.
This is why he is sometimes described as the inventor of the modern Surya Namaskar sequence.
However, the word “inventor” needs a little caution.
Bhawanrao himself does not appear to have claimed that he created the entire practice from nothing. Forms of Surya Namaskar were already known in Maharashtra, and the deeper tradition of Sun worship was obviously far older.
A more historically careful description would therefore be that he systematised, documented and popularised the modern physical sequence that later became deeply associated with yoga.
What is especially fascinating is that Surya Namaskar was not initially treated everywhere as simply another yoga asana sequence.
In the early twentieth century, it was often understood as part of physical culture — a vigorous method of exercise intended to improve strength, flexibility and general health.
Later, as modern postural yoga developed, Surya Namaskar became increasingly integrated into yoga practice.
Teachers associated with the lineage of T. Krishnamacharya played an important role in this evolution, and later systems such as Ashtanga Yoga developed their own variations, including what became known as Surya Namaskar A and Surya Namaskar B.
So the story is not simply that one man suddenly invented Surya Namaskar.
It is a story of an ancient reverence for the Sun, regional physical traditions, early twentieth-century experimentation with health and exercise, and the gradual development of modern yoga.
And standing at a crucial point in that history was Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi.
There is another small historical detail that interested me.
Pant Pratinidhi was not originally an ordinary surname.
“Pratinidhi” was a high administrative title in the Maratha political system, meaning essentially a representative or deputy of the ruler. Over time, the title became hereditary in the family that later ruled Aundh.
The family’s earlier surname is recorded as Jaykar, while “Pant Pratinidhi” became the established dynastic designation by which the rulers were known.
And one more clarification for anyone familiar with Pune:
The Aundh ruled by Bhawanrao was not the Aundh suburb near Baner in Pune. It was the princely state centred on Aundh in what is now Satara district. That makes his story even more remarkable.
A ruler from a relatively small princely state in Maharashtra helped shape and popularise a sequence that, a century later, is practised by millions of people across the world.
The ritual of honouring the Sun is ancient.
The sequence as we recognise it today is surprisingly modern.
And behind that modern history is a name worth remembering:
Shri Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi.
—Ash
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