Yoga Sutras about asana Part B 2:47

What is really Patanjali said about asana? Here the explanation of Krishnamacharya and from other scholars and Gurus of Yoga.

प्रयत्नशैथिल्यानन्तसमापत्तिभ्याम् ॥४७॥ prayatna-śaithilya-ananta-samāpatti-bhyām ॥47॥

prayatna = tension or effort (related to trying to do the posture)

shaithilya = by relaxing, loosening, lessening, slackening

ananta = infinite, endlessness

samapattibhyam = by focusing attention on, meditation, by coalescence, coincidence, merging

The key to success in this regard is practice with effort, which becomes progressively easier, combined with deep contemplation (samapatti). ||47||

By lessening the natural tendency for restlessness and by meditating on the infinite, posture is mastered. – Sri Swami Satchidananda

These qualities can be achieved by recognizing and observing the reactions of the body and the breath to the various postures that comprise asana practice. Once known, these reactions can be controlled step-by-step. – T.K.V. Desikachar

By loosening of effort and by meditation on the serpent ananta, asana is mastered. – Swami Satyananda Saraswati

As the body yields all efforts and holdings, the infinite within is revealed. – Nischala Joy Devi

The key to success in this regard is practice with effort, which becomes progressively easier, combined with deep contemplation (samapatti). – AshtangaYoga.info

Posture becomes firm and relaxed through control of the natural tendencies of the body, and through meditation on the infinite. – Swami Prabhavananda (YogaSutraStudy.info)

In this Sutra Sri T. Krishnamacharya, gave the most important explanation. For Him this Sutra indicates the term of Vinyasa! According to this Great Teacher of Yoga:

“prayatna-śaithilya”, means “Smooth and long breathing”. “Prayatna” meaning “effort” and here refers to “jivana prayatna” or effort of life, which is breathing. This condition stipulates that while practicing asanas, the breath should be smooth and long. One should inhale for five seconds during an expansive movement and exhale smoothly when folding, bending or doing body contractions.

The smooth inhalation is known as “Brahmana kriya” or expansive (breathing) action. The exhalation during contraction is “Langhana kriya or reducing (breathing) action. This is known as “anuloma” meaning “with the grain”. Anuloma breathing creates harmony, in the movements, in the asanas, in the body and mind. This control of breathing coming with the slightly closing of epiglottis, which creates a sound, “Sound Breathing or Ujjayi”.

The word “ana”, means “breath” and is equivalent to “swasa”. “Swasa” in Sanskrit is well-known as “breath”. “Samapatti” means “total concentration”.

The all Sutra according to above means, that: “One should focus mentally on breath during vinyasa practice.” The key of vinyasa , is the breath.

This explanation of this Yoga Sutra from Krishnamacharya you can find in different books. Here I used “The Cmoplete Book of Vinyasa Yoga” by Srivatsa Ramaswami.

प्रयत्नशैथिल्यानन्तसमापत्तिभ्याम् ॥४७॥ prayatna-śaithilya-ananta-samāpatti-bhyām ॥47॥

Another explanation which I found recently and adding here is from “The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace” by N.E.Sjoman

“Asanas are accomplished by relaxing or loosening the effort and by meditating on the endless.”

Prayatna – “Effort or muscular contraction is required initially to acquire the position. This involves the conscious willing of the mind, the voluntary nervous system and then … the autonomic nervous system, the unconscious.”

Saithila – “Loosening, relaxing or letting go… the state of unhindered perfect balance”

Anantasamāpatti – “Meditation on the endless.”

“The prerequisite for relaxation is effort, of course, as only a muscle that is worked is able to relax. In other words, each movement deigns with effort, matures into stretching (and contracting) to reach an ultimate position, and then recedes from that to attain balance which is thus a form of transcendence or revelation.

The very word “asana”, etymologically, means to sit, to come into rest. It is formed from the verbal root “as” meaning “to sit”. But the word “asana” has been used far more promiscuously than this basic etymological sense. It is used to refer to positions in archery and wrestling... However, the force of the word “prayatna” in Patanjali’s sutra, seems to indicate something contrary to the idea of “coming to rest”. 

Spyros Kapnias - Garudanada