For EternallyBlissfulYoga Super Magazine
An amateur Yoga Archeologist has found, what appears to be an early Yoga sticky mat, in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, bordering China.
The strikingly colored Yoga mat was identified by Ramana Athreyamana as he was hiking through a remote forest in the northeast part of the country. "Quite frankly, I was lost", said Atreyamana, age 54. "I was wandering around in circles, when at some point, I looked down and there it was! The floods in the regions must have washed it from a cave", he exclaimed.
When asked just how old this sticky mat was, Mr. Athreyamana, put an age of at least 3,000 years old. "We're talking Patanjali here, people", he excitedly added.
Measuring a mere 17 by 39 inches, Athreyamana was asked if that was bit small for a Yoga mat. He replied, "You have to remember that people were smaller back then".
Is this truly a Yoga sticky mat?
"With today's modern technology, we gathered all the information we needed to confirm it as a Yoga sticky mat", Athreyamana said. "We took samples of the core and analyzed the surface. This is definitely an early Yoga mat."
Athreyamana says detailed comparisons of modern sticky mats and this one reveled key similarities. For example, this surface of this newly discovered mat has a surface covered in pine resin and pitch, giving it a tacky grip. This has been spread over a base that appears to be of animal hide.
When ask if this was truly an early Yoga sticky mat, Mr. Athreyamana smiled, "Look here, do you see the hand and foot prints on the surface. See those chest hairs and scraps of clothes embedded in the surface? This was obviously an early model as it seems that the Yogi had not quite figured out the tackiness required in a Yoga mat. It must have been a bit of a painful experience for the Yogi using this mat".
The findings will be published in the next issue of the journal Yoga Mats.
