If you teach yoga, you say around thirty Sanskrit words out loud every week, in front of a room, as the person who is supposed to know. Most teachers have never been told how any of them are pronounced. That is not a criticism of teachers. It is a gap in how teacher training works: the names are passed on by ear, from someone who also learned them by ear, and small errors compound with every handover.
The good news is that the errors are not random. Five of them account for almost everything, and once you can hear those five, you can correct pose names you have never seen before. This article covers the five, then works through twenty names where they show up.
Why the spellings on your schedule cannot help you
Write Savasana on a studio timetable and you have already thrown away the two things a reader needs. Sanskrit has three different s sounds and this word starts with the one English writes as sh. It also has short and long vowels that change meaning, and the plain roman letter a does not say which is which.
So the schedule tells you the letters and hides the sounds. Every teacher then fills the gaps with English habits, and English habits are the problem. This is why you can hear the same pose announced two different ways in two studios on the same street, both by people who trained properly.
Devanagari, the script Sanskrit is written in, has none of this ambiguity. Every sound has its own letter. That is why the tables below give you the Devanagari as well: not to make you learn a script, but because it is the only version of the word that is not missing information.
The five errors behind nearly all of it
1. Treating long and short vowels as the same vowel
This is the big one, and fixing it alone cleans up about half the list. Sanskrit has short अ and long आ, and they are two different vowels, not one vowel said quickly or slowly for emphasis. Short अ is brief and neutral, close to the a in about. Long आ is roughly twice as long, the a in father.
English does not work this way. English marks important syllables with stress, by saying them louder. So an English speaker meeting asana reaches for a stressed syllable, usually lands on the middle one, and produces uh-SAA-nuh. The actual word is आसन, where the first vowel is the long one and the other two are short: AA-sa-na.
Every pose name ending in -asana has this built in, which is to say almost all of them. Get the ending right and you have corrected the last three syllables of twenty words at once.
2. Flattening sh into s
Sanskrit has three sibilants where English has two. There is स (s, as in sun), श (sh, as in shall), and ष, a second sh made with the tongue curled back. Romanisation usually writes all three as s, or writes two of them as sh and leaves you guessing which.
The practical result: शवासन begins sha, not sa. शीर्षासन has two of them. And downward dog is श्वानासन, shvaa, not svaa. That last one is mispronounced in most classes.
3. Dropping the puff of air
Sanskrit pairs many consonants: one without a breath, one with. क and ख, ग and घ, त and थ, प and फ, ब and भ. The second of each pair is a single sound with an audible puff after it, not two letters run together.
Two traps here. भ in भुजङ्गासन is not a plain b, it is b with the puff. And फ is not an f, however it looks written as ph. English speakers reliably turn one into the other.
English has these puffs too, but uses them without noticing: the p in pin has one, the p in spin does not. Hold a hand in front of your mouth and say both. You already make the sound. You have simply never had to choose it on purpose.
4. Ignoring the retroflex consonants
ट ठ ड ढ ण ष are made with the tongue curled back to the roof of the mouth, further back than any English consonant. They contrast with the dental series त थ द ध न, where the tongue touches the back of the teeth, further forward than English.
English sits between the two and uses one t for both jobs. So an English t said in a Sanskrit word is wrong in both directions at once. In practice you will meet retroflexes in उत्कटासन, त्रिकोणासन, गरुडासन and दण्डासन.
5. Adding English stress
English cannot say a long word without picking a syllable to hit. Sanskrit does not work that way: syllables are more even, and vowel length does the work that stress does in English.
The habit produces trik-oh-NOH-sah-nah and bhoo-jang-GAH-sah-nah, with a heavy thump in the middle and everything else swallowed. Aim instead for even syllables, giving the long vowels their full value and the short ones their brief one. It will feel oddly flat at first. That flatness is the target.
How to read the table below
Capitals mark a long vowel, not a stressed one. Say those syllables for about twice as long as the others rather than louder. Where the guide says sh, it is one sound. Where it says bh, kh, dh or th, that is also one sound, with a puff of air after it, never an English f or a th as in think.
The twenty
| Pose | Usually said | Closer | What went wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| आसन asana, posture | uh-SAA-nuh | AA-sa-na | Long vowel is the first, not the second |
| शवासन savasana, corpse | shuh-VAAS-uh-nuh | SHA-vaa-sa-na | Length landed on the wrong syllable |
| ताडासन tadasana, mountain | tah-DAA-sah-nah | TAA-daa-sa-na | Two long vowels, both usually missed |
| वृक्षासन vrksasana, tree | VRIK-sah-sah-nah | vrik-SHAA-sa-na | क्ष is a cluster ending in sh, not s |
| त्रिकोणासन trikonasana, triangle | trik-oh-NOH-sah-nah | tri-ko-NAA-sa-na | ण is retroflex; the o is short |
| वीरभद्रासन virabhadrasana, warrior | veer-uh-buh-DRAA-suh-nuh | VEE-ra-bha-DRAA-sa-na | भ needs its puff of air |
| श्वानासन svanasana, dog | svah-NAA-sah-nah | SHVAA-na-sa-na | श, so shvaa. Very widely missed |
| भुजङ्गासन bhujangasana, cobra | boo-jang-GAA-sah-nah | bhu-jang-GAA-sa-na | Opens with bh, not b |
| उत्कटासन utkatasana, chair | oot-kah-TAA-sah-nah | ut-ka-TAA-sa-na | ट is retroflex; the u is short |
| बालासन balasana, child | buh-LAA-suh-nuh | BAA-laa-sa-na | First vowel is long as well as the second |
| सुखासन sukhasana, easy seat | soo-KAA-sah-nah | su-KHAA-sa-na | ख is k with a puff, not plain k |
| पद्मासन padmasana, lotus | pahd-MAA-sah-nah | pad-MAA-sa-na | द्म is one cluster, so no vowel between d and m |
| उष्ट्रासन ustrasana, camel | oo-STRAA-sah-nah | ush-TRAA-sa-na | ष is a retroflex sh, so ush and not oos |
| गरुडासन garudasana, eagle | gah-ROO-dah-sah-nah | ga-ru-DAA-sa-na | ड is retroflex; first two vowels are short |
| शीर्षासन sirsasana, headstand | seer-SAA-sah-nah | SHEER-shaa-sa-na | Both sibilants are sh, and both are usually said as s |
| पश्चिमोत्तानासन paschimottanasana, forward fold | pash-ee-mo-tah-NAA-sah-nah | pash-chi-mot-TAA-naa-sa-na | The chi is dropped and the double t collapsed |
| मत्स्येन्द्रासन matsyendrasana, spinal twist | mat-see-EN-drah-sah-nah | mat-syen-DRAA-sa-na | sy is one glide, not see followed by en |
| सर्वाङ्गासन sarvangasana, shoulderstand | sar-van-GAA-sah-nah | sar-VAANG-gaa-sa-na | The vaa is long and routinely clipped |
| दण्डासन dandasana, staff | dan-DAA-sah-nah | dan-DAA-sa-na | Both ण and ड are retroflex, said far too far forward |
| प्राणायाम pranayama, breath work | prah-nuh-YAA-muh | PRAA-naa-YAA-ma | Three long vowels, ण retroflex, final a short |
Three words that are not poses, and get it worse
नमस्ते is not nah-mah-STAY. All three syllables are short and even: NA-mas-te, with the te close to the English word tay said quickly, and the t against the teeth rather than the ridge behind them. The rising English singsong on the last syllable is the giveaway.
अष्टाङ्ग is ASH-taang-ga, not ash-TANG-uh. The retroflex ष and the long आ both fall in the middle, and the final a is barely there.
विन्यास is vin-YAA-sa. The न्य is a single joined sound, and the long vowel is the middle one. Not VIN-ee-ah-sah.
How to actually fix this
Not by memorising the table. Twenty corrections held in your head will not survive a Tuesday evening class.
- Fix the ending first. Say AA-sa-na a hundred times over a week until it stops feeling wrong. That ending is on almost every name here, so one correction propagates everywhere.
- Then fix the sibilants. Learn which of your poses start with sh: shavasana, shvanasana, shirshasana. Three words, one afternoon.
- Then take one name a week. Say it in your own class, out loud, deliberately. Teaching a word is what fixes it, because you cannot avoid the sound under pressure.
- Record yourself once. This is uncomfortable and it is the fastest thing on the list. You cannot hear your own vowel lengths in real time, and you can hear them immediately on playback.
What none of that gives you is a check on whether the sound you are making is the sound you think you are making. That is the one part of pronunciation you cannot self-serve, because the error you cannot hear is exactly the error you will keep making. It is the reason a few hours with someone who speaks the language does more than months of careful reading.
Where this is taught
Ms. Ishita Parikh holds an MA (Acharya) in Sanskrit from Central Sanskrit University and NPTEL Elite certification from IIT Kharagpur in spoken Sanskrit, where 77 candidates were certified nationwide. Pronunciation is the part of Sanskrit she is formally certified in, which is not true of most people teaching pose names.
Classes are live online and open to students anywhere in the world, with times arranged around your time zone, and taught entirely through English so no prior Sanskrit is assumed. See the course for yoga teachers, which also covers chanting, the vocabulary behind the cues you already use, and a module option for yoga schools running their own teacher trainings. For the sounds themselves in more depth, the spoken Sanskrit course starts exactly where this article does.
If you only remember one thing
Long vowels are long. Not louder, not more emphatic: longer. English speakers reach for stress because that is the tool English gave them, and stress is precisely the wrong tool. Hold the long vowels for their full value, keep the short ones genuinely short, and the majority of what makes a pose name sound off disappears without you learning a single rule of grammar.
Everything else on this page is detail on top of that.
Questions people ask
How do you pronounce Savasana?
SHA-vaa-sa-na. Two things go wrong with it. The first letter is श, which is sh, not s, so the word begins the way shall does and not the way saw does. And the long vowel is the second one, not the first: shava is short, aasana is long. Most people lengthen the wrong syllable and drop the sh, which is why the same pose is announced two different ways in two studios on the same street.
Why do yoga teachers pronounce Sanskrit pose names differently?
Because almost all of them learned the names by ear, from a teacher who also learned them by ear. Nothing in a standard teacher training corrects pronunciation, and the romanised spellings on studio schedules throw away the information you would need to get it right. Savasana, written that way, does not tell you that the s is sh or which a is long. The drift is not carelessness. It is what happens when a written form loses the distinctions the spoken form depends on.
Does it matter if I pronounce yoga pose names wrong?
It matters more for a teacher than for a student, and less than the anxiety around it suggests. Nobody is harmed by a mispronounced asana name. But you are saying these words out loud, in front of a room, as the person who is supposed to know. Students notice confidence, and they repeat what you say. A teacher who says the names cleanly is passing on something accurate rather than passing on a copy of a copy. That is the honest case for fixing it, and it is enough.
What is the difference between a long and short a in Sanskrit?
They are two separate vowels, not one vowel said lazily or carefully. Short अ is a brief neutral sound, close to the a in about. Long आ is roughly twice the length, the a in father. Sanskrit uses length the way English uses stress: it is what tells two words apart. In aasana the first vowel is long and the next two are short, which is why AA-sa-na is right and uh-SAA-nuh is not. Get this one distinction and about half of the errors in this article disappear at once.
Do I need to learn Sanskrit to teach yoga?
No, and anyone selling you a full grammar course to fix your pronunciation is selling you the wrong thing. What actually helps is small and finite: the vowel lengths, the four sounds English writes as one, the retroflex consonants, and the handful of pose names you say every week. That is a few hours of focused work, not a language. Learning the grammar is a genuine pleasure if you want it, but it is a separate decision and it is not what makes your cues sound right.