bandha
बन्ध bandhaA lock: a muscular contraction (root, abdominal or throat) used in Hatha Yoga to seal and direct the life-force (prana).
Where this term appears
- What is Hatha Yoga? Yoga
Then the mudras and bandhas , the seals and locks, such as the mula bandha at the root of the body, by which the yogi traps the life-force and turns it inward and upward.
- What are Mudras? Lineages
The modern habit of teaching "bandhas" as one thing and "mudras" as another is a later convenience the old books do not share.
- The Rivers of Breath Treatise
…the downward apana , often with the help of the muscular locks called bandhas , and drives the merged force inward and upward, against the grain of the ordinary alternating flow, into the mouth of sushumna .