Breath Regulation and Inner Transformation: Yaśovijaya’s Jain Reframing of Prāṇāyāma

Although breath-regulation (prāṇāyāma) occupies a central place in many yoga traditions, its role in Jain thought remains understudied. This paper examines Yaśovijaya’s treatment of prāṇāyāma in his Dvātriṃśaddvātriṃśikā (DD). Yaśovijaya, one of the most influential Jain intellectuals of the seventeenth century, engages Patañjali and Vyāsa, adopting their definitions of inhalation (pūraka), retention (kumbhaka), and exhalation (recaka), and acknowledges the benefits of the practice. He argues that prāṇāyāma is acceptable for those inclined toward breathing practices insofar as it reduces karmically binding activity. Ultimately, however, he redefines it not as a technique of physiological control or as related to prāṇa as vital capacity, but as inner transformation (bhāva) encompassing three main components: (1) the expulsion of attachment, (2) the cultivation of insight, and (3) the stabilization of knowledge. I show how his account strategically reinterprets authoritative yogic discourse to align it with specifically Jain soteriological and ethical commitments.