The bond between yoga and kabaddi - Gautama Buddha’s recreational sport
Gautama Buddha looks pacific sitting under a gigantic Peepal tree. It’s been twelve hours since he hasn’t moved from there. He decides it’s time to engage in some old school kabaddi. Buddhist literature talks about the enlightened sage and his affinity for the contact sport. In fact, yoga and kabaddi have a fundamental aspect common between them.
Both practices involve building your lung capacity. In yoga, the pranayama is an exercise used for extension of the life force. To put it simply, it means extension of one’s breath. The purpose of this is to exercise your internal organs ably.
Kabaddi too involves something pretty similar. The “Cant” – the continuous recitation of the word “Kabaddi” during the raid. The only way to do this with precision is when one has impeccable lung capacity along with presence of mind. The two facets that play an integral part when practicing yoga as well.
As a matter of fact, Tibetan monks are known to play the sport regularly. They consider it to be an important tool for meditation. The Sera Monastery, located near the mountainous city of Lhasa in Tibet is home to a large number of monks who have been practitioners of the sport since some time now. After all, it has been said that Zen need not be practiced in a quiet or stationery way.
Monks around Japan, too, have been credited for introducing the sport to their country around twenty years back.
Who could have imagined a contact sport like kabaddi could have spiritual benefits too. Baba Ramdev wouldn’t be a bad Kabaddi player taking all this into account!