Nidra

The name Nidra is related to the concept of nidra, which is “one of the four states of consciousness in Hindu philosophy”. Nidra is the state of “deep sleep”, where the individual is “unaware of the external world and the inner self”. Nidra is also associated with the goddess Nidra, who is “the personification of sleep” and the consort of Vishnu, the “supreme god of Hinduism”. Nidra is sometimes depicted as a “beautiful woman holding a lotus flower and resting on a bed of snakes”. Nidra is also the name of a form of yoga that involves “guided meditation and relaxation”.

The name Nidra comes from the Sanskrit word निद्रा (nidrā), which means “sleep”. It is a learned borrowing from Sanskrit into Hindi, and a doublet of the word नीद (nīd), which also means “sleep”. The concept of nidra as a state of consciousness is mentioned in the Upanishads and the Mahabharata, while the goddess Nidra appears in the Devīmāhātmya. Nidra is also linked to meditation in Shaiva and Buddhist tantras and is used as a synonym for samadhi, the state of intense concentration, in some medieval hatha yoga texts. The modern form of yoga nidra, which is a technique of guided relaxation, was popularized by Satyananda Saraswati in 1976.