Vajroli mudra
practice in Hatha yoga
Vajroli mudra (Sanskrit: वज्रोली मुद्रा vajrolī mudrā), the Vajroli Seal, is a practice in Hatha yoga which requires the yogi to preserve his semen, either by learning not to release it, or if released by drawing it up through his urethra from the vagina of "a woman devoted to the practice of yoga".
The mudra was described as "obscene" by the translator Rai Bahadur Srisa Chandra Vasu, and as "obscure and repugnant" by another translator, Hans-Ulrich Rieker.
The mudra is rarely practised in modern times. It was covered in the 1900s by the American sexologist Ida C. Craddock, the resulting legal proceedings against her leading to her imprisonment and suicide. The explorer Theos Bernard learnt and illustrated the posture associated with the mudra. The pioneer of modern yoga, Krishnamacharya, gives impractical instructions for the mudra, demonstrating in Norman Sjoman's opinion that he had never tried the practice.
Context
Hatha yoga is a branch of yoga that developed around the 11th century. Like earlier forms such as Patanjali's yoga, its ultimate goal was liberation, moksha, and its methods included meditation. It added a set of physical methods contributing to liberation including purification techniques (satkarmas), non-seated postures (asanas), elaborate breath-control (pranayama), and physical techniques to manipulate vital energy, the mudras.
Mudras are gestures of the body, used in hatha yoga to assist in the spiritual journey towards liberation.
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