Hanumān: Breath, Courage, and Devotion in the Iyengar Imagination

In the landscape of yoga, Hanumān [हनुमान्] is often treated as a hero of myth—strong, loyal, miraculous. But in the way B.K.S. Iyengar frames him (especially through the lens of Light on Prāṇāyāma), Hanumān is more than a story: he becomes an embodied teaching. A reminder that power without devotion becomes ego, and that breath without intelligence becomes noise. For those of us shaped by Iyengar culture, Hanumān helps explain why we begin with invocation, why we insist on preparation, and why the “simple” act of breathing is never merely mechanical.

The inner meaning of “Son of Vāyu”

Iyengar opens Light on Prāṇāyāma by saluting Hanumān as Lord of Breath and son of Vāyu. That title is not decorative. Vāyu is movement itself—cosmic movement, physiological movement, the subtle movement of attention and life-force. To call Hanumān Vāyu’s son is to say: the breath is not just air. It is the carrier of vitality, and the bridge between body and consciousness.

If you practice in the Iyengar way, you already know this in your bones: when breath is agitated, the mind is restless; when breath refines, the mind softens. In that sense, Hanumān is not “out there.” He is a name for what is already happening inside us—when prāṇa becomes orderly, sincere, and awake.

Five winds, one practice

Iyengar’s discussion of Hanumān’s “five faces” points toward the pañca-prāṇas—the five vital currents that govern intake, elimination, digestion, circulation, and upward movement. When we invoke Hanumān, we are not trying to summon a deity to do the work for us. We are acknowledging the complexity of life within us, and asking for the steadiness to harmonize these winds rather than be pulled around by them.

This is one reason prāṇāyāma can never be rushed. If the winds are scattered, we scatter. If the winds are trained, we begin—slowly—to gather ourselves.

The Rāmāyaṇa as a map of inner yoga

One of Iyengar’s most brilliant gestures is to read the Rāmāyaṇa as an interior drama. The island of Laṅkā becomes the fortress of ego; Rāvaṇa’s many heads become our multiplied impulses and sense-drives; Sītā becomes the soul/nature held captive; Rāma becomes the higher Self; and Hanumān becomes the messenger—the vital wind that can cross the ocean of separation.

This is not “symbolism” as a literary hobby. It is a practical teaching-rationale: prāṇāyāma reunites what feels split in us. Not by force, not by emotional intensity, but by disciplined relationship with breath—breath that has been prepared through years of āsana, steadiness, and ethical seriousness.

(If you want to explore this more deeply in practice terms, this is exactly the thread I unpack in my Light on Prāṇāyāma Study Pack — recordings + guided study. Add an internal link here to your study pack page.)

Strength through surrender

Hanumān is famous for strength: leaping oceans, lifting mountains, burning Laṅkā. Yet his strength is never presented as personal achievement. It flows from devotion—bhakti that keeps the ego in its place. That paradox matters for modern practitioners, especially serious ones: we can become skilled, precise, even impressive—and still miss the point. Hanumān keeps returning us to the question: Who is this practice for?

Iyengar’s repeated instruction that prāṇāyāma requires “patient and cautious effort” fits perfectly here. Breath is not conquered like an enemy. It is educated like a living being—sometimes Iyengar compares it to an infant needing attentive care. I love that image because it changes the inner stance: instead of domination, we cultivate responsibility.

A teacher’s note on “Light on Yoga”

If Light on Yoga gives us the architecture of āsana—alignment, stability, the ethics of effort—Hanumān helps us remember what that architecture is for. The point is to build a body that can hold stillness without dullness, and intensity without aggression. A body that can become a worthy seat for breath, and for mind.

A gentle invitation

If this teaching resonates, you can continue in three directions—study, practice, and support:

• Deepen the learning with my Light on Prāṇāyāma Study Pack (recordings + guided materials).
• Join the ongoing conversation in Yoga Readers, where we read Iyengar texts slowly, seriously, and together.
• And if you’d like to support the quiet labor behind this work—reading, research, writing, and teaching—you can buy me a chai and help keep my yoga scholarship alive. Hanumān, in the end, is a standard we can return to again and again: courage without harshness, discipline without pride, devotion without naivety. Breath by breath, we build the bridge.