Yoga
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144 free Yoga trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
73 free yoga trivia questions with answers. Ready to test your yoga knowledge? Our comprehensive yoga trivia quiz covers everything from ancient philosophies to modern practice techniques. Whether you're a seasoned yogi or just beginning your wellness journey, discover how much you really know about this transformative discipline.
30 of 144 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Yoga took shape among wandering Śramaṇa ascetics, whose movement also produced Jainism and what other world religion?
Buddhism
Buddhism: its founder is said to have lived as a wandering ascetic, starving himself alongside five companions, before rejecting such extremes for a 'middle way' between indulgence and self-denial.
Q 02Which sage is traditionally credited with compiling the Yoga Sutras?
Patanjali
Patanjali is also the name on a famous commentary on Sanskrit grammar; tradition makes the two authors one sage, but many scholars doubt that the same man wrote both.
Q 03Which Sanskrit word names a sound, word or phrase repeated to focus the mind in meditation?
Mantra
Mantra: repeating one, often counted off on a string of prayer beads, is a practice called japa, and the habit gave English its everyday sense of a slogan someone repeats endlessly.
Q 04Kundalini is described as a coiled serpent resting where?
At the base of the spine
Kundalini rests at the base of the spine, coiled in the muladhara, the root centre; practice is said to rouse it and send it upward through six centres to the seventh.
Q 05Whom did K. Pattabhi Jois claim to have learnt his system from?
T. Krishnamacharya
T. Krishnamacharya gave a lecture and demonstration that Jois watched as a boy of 12; he asked for lessons and began the next day, later crediting Krishnamacharya with the breath-linked system he taught in Mysore.
Q 06Which slow style of long-held floor poses did martial artist Paulie Zink begin teaching in the late 1970s?
Yin Yoga
Yin Yoga: Zink, a martial arts champion, originated the art; a student of his later popularised a beginner's portion of it, and the teacher Sarah Powers gave the style the name it now carries.
Q 07What is the literal translation of the Sanskrit greeting 'Namaste,' commonly used in yoga classes?
I bow to you
Namaste means 'I bow to you': namas (bow, obeisance) plus te (to you). The sense is that the same self is present in greeter and greeted.
Q 08What does the Sanskrit word 'mudra' literally mean?
Seal
Seal is the literal sense; in hatha yoga a mudra is a hold meant to seal breath and vital energy inside the body, while the hand shapes of dance and ritual share the name as 'gestures'.
Q 09Modern postural yoga is largely a blend of medieval hatha technique and what?
Western physical culture
Modern postural yoga blends medieval hatha technique with Western physical culture, the gymnastics and bodybuilding drills absorbed in early 20th-century India. The older form aimed at meditation and release, not fitness.
Q 10What is the name for a secluded spiritual retreat in India where students live and study yoga with a teacher?
Ashram
Ashram: for a place of retreat the name is unexpectedly strenuous, coming from a Sanskrit root that means 'to toil' or to practise austerity.
Q 11What is the Sanskrit name for the "Mountain Pose," a foundational standing posture in yoga?
Tadasana
Tadasana, from tada, 'mountain', looks like simply standing, but teachers call it the cornerstone of the standing poses: the balance and alignment found here carry into the rest.
Q 12Which of the five yamas, the ethical restraints of classical yoga, means non-violence?
Ahimsa
Ahimsa, non-violence, is the first of the five yamas, alongside satya, asteya, brahmacharya and aparigraha; commentators treat it as the root restraint the other four exist to perfect.
Q 13Which yoga style is practiced in a room heated to around 105°F (40°C)?
Bikram
Bikram yoga, devised by Bikram Choudhury, is practised in a room heated to about 105°F (40°C) with 40% humidity; he fixed the posture sequence and franchised the result worldwide.
Q 21In the Yoga Sutras, what does vairagya mean, the quality paired with sustained practice?
Non-attachment
Non-attachment: the Sutras define it as mastery over the thirst for pleasure; it is an inner state, not a matter of abandoning things, so it can be practised in the midst of family life and work.
Q 22Ustrasana, a kneeling backbend, takes its name from which animal?
Camel
Camel: ustra is the Sanskrit word for the animal. Kneeling, the practitioner arches back to grasp the heels; teachers warn against flopping into it, which dumps the bend into the neck and lower back.
Q 23Which Indian prime minister proposed the International Day of Yoga at the United Nations?
Narendra Modi
Q 14What is the Sanskrit term for yogic breathing exercises and techniques?
Pranayama
Pranayama is more than a lung exercise in the old texts: the Yoga Sutras offer the measured sending out and holding of the breath as one way to settle a restless mind.
Q 15Which breathing technique slightly narrows the throat so that each breath makes a soft hiss?
Ujjayi
Ujjayi means 'victorious'; the sound is the point, since listening to it helps the practitioner slow the breath and keeps attention from wandering.
Q 16Which sacred syllable, chanted in yoga and meditation, stands for universal consciousness?
Om
Om, in the Yoga Sutras, is the word that expresses Ishvara, the lord, so the text prescribes repeating it and dwelling on its meaning as a practice in itself.
Q 17In the name of one branch of yoga, what does the Sanskrit word 'haṭha' literally mean?
Force
Haṭha literally means 'force'; the popular sun (ha) and moon (ṭha) reading is a later gloss, and the medieval texts point at forceful physical technique.
Q 18Roughly how many linked asanas make up the Salute to the Sun?
Twelve
Twelve linked positions make up the standard Sun Salutation; the Raja of Aundh popularised the sequence in the 1920s, and it was first recorded as yoga only in the early 20th century.
Q 19How many 'limbs' make up the classical yoga path set out in the Yoga Sutras, running from restraint to absorption?
Eight
Eight limbs: posture, which fills a modern class, is only the third, and the path ends in samadhi, a state of complete meditative absorption.
Q 20In yogic philosophy, what are the energy centres said to lie along the spine called, the best-known scheme counting seven?
Chakras
Chakras: seven is no fixed ancient count; medieval texts teach systems of five, six and more, and the seven best known today follow one sixteenth-century treatise, put into English in The Serpent Power.
Narendra Modi proposed it in his 2014 address to the UN General Assembly, suggesting 21 June because it is the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere; the Assembly adopted the day that December.
Q 24Which limb of classical yoga is the withdrawal of the senses?
Pratyahara
Pratyahara, withdrawal of the senses, is the fifth limb; the classic image, from the Bhagavad Gita, is a tortoise drawing its limbs back inside its shell.
Q 25Which style did K. Pattabhi Jois popularise in the twentieth century?
Ashtanga Yoga
Ashtanga Yoga is traditionally taught 'Mysore style': each student works through the memorised sequence at their own pace while the teacher moves round the room adjusting them one by one.
Q 26The Sanskrit word 'sutra', as in the Yoga Sutras, literally means what?
Thread
Thread: the name pictures terse sayings strung together, and it is a distant cousin of the English words 'sew' and 'suture', all descended from one ancient root.
Q 27Which yoga pose, often performed at the end of a session, is known as 'Corpse Pose'?
Savasana
Savasana is first described in the 15th-century Hatha Yoga Pradipika, which says lying like a corpse removes tiredness and calms the mind; teachers add that truly letting go is harder than it looks.
Q 28What does the Sanskrit word 'prana' primarily refer to in yoga philosophy?
Life force
Life force: the texts picture it flowing through a network of subtle channels in the body, and many yogic practices are meant to clear those channels and steer the flow.
Q 29Which asana, done lying face down, lifts the chest into a gentle backbend?
Cobra Pose
Cobra Pose is Bhujangasana, from bhujanga, 'snake': the lifted head and chest copy a cobra rearing up with its hood spread, the back half of the body staying on the ground like the tail.
Q 30Which US state banned yoga in its public schools for nearly three decades before lifting the ban in 2021?
Alabama
Alabama's school board banned yoga along with hypnosis and meditation in 1993; the 2021 law that lifted the ban still requires English names for poses and forbids chanting and the greeting 'namaste'.