Trataka History: From the Hatha Yoga Pradipika to Modern Research

Where does Trataka come from?

Trataka comes from hatha yoga, the tradition of physical yoga that scholars trace to ascetic groups in India around 1000 CE (SOAS). The earliest known text to describe it is the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, a Sanskrit manual by Svatmarama that is usually dated to the 15th century. It lists Trataka as one of six cleansing practices, the shatkarma, and defines it in one verse: gaze steadily at a small mark until the eyes fill with tears. The Gheranda Samhita, written two to three centuries later, gives almost the same instruction.

So the written history of Trataka is about 600 years long. The practice may be older, because the Pradipika says teachers (acharyas) call it Trataka, which suggests the name was already in use. But a 2024 review of the traditional literature describes the practices in older texts as similar to Trataka and credits the Pradipika with introducing it (Pramanik and Chatterjee, 2024). The popular idea that yoga is 5,000 years old rests on oral traditions that yoga historians describe as unreliable (CORDIS).

What changed most over those six centuries is what Trataka was for. Svatmarama presented it as a cleansing step before breath control, and only for some people. Twentieth-century teachers such as Swami Sivananda and Swami Satyananda Saraswati taught it as a concentration exercise, and the candle flame became its usual target. Small studies followed, and the earliest paper in PubMed with Trataka in its title or abstract dates from 2010.

This guide covers what the classical texts actually say, how teachers reshaped the practice and how research developed. It does not grade the evidence; for that, see what the research supports and what it doesn't.

Trataka history at a glance

What does the Hatha Yoga Pradipika say about Trataka?

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika is the work of Svatmarama, who wrote it in the 15th century. The team behind a new critical edition, which drew on more than 200 manuscripts, moved the estimated date of composition from about 1450 to about 1400, and the oldest of the manuscripts they consulted dates from 1496 (Westoby, 2024). Trataka appears in the second chapter, which deals with breath control.

Here is what the relevant verses say in Pancham Sinh's 1914 English translation (chapter 2):

• 2.21: people with excess fat or phlegm should do the six cleansing practices first. Others should not do them.
• 2.22: the six are dhauti, basti, neti, trataka, nauli and kapalabhati.
• 2.23: these practices cleanse the body and should be kept secret.
• 2.31: the definition. Being calm, one should "gaze steadily at a small mark, till eyes are filled with tears." Teachers (acharyas) call this Trataka.
• 2.32: Trataka destroys eye diseases and removes sloth, and it should be kept secret as carefully as a box of jewellery. Other translators render that image as a golden casket (Yoga Magazine, 1991).
• 2.36 and 2.37: once the six practices have cleared excess fat and phlegm, breath control succeeds easily. Some teachers, Svatmarama adds, hold that breath control alone removes all impurities.

Read together, these verses make four points that modern descriptions often leave out:

1. Trataka was a preparation, not the goal. It belonged to a set of cleansing practices that cleared the way for breath control.
2. It was not meant for everyone. The six practices were reserved for people with excess fat or phlegm, and some teachers thought them unnecessary.
3. Tears marked the end. The verse defines Trataka by its end point, and the benefits it claims are freedom from eye disease and from sloth.
4. There is no candle. The target is a small mark. Neither verse mentions a flame, closing the eyes or holding an afterimage.

Even the target has been read in different ways. Sinh translated the Sanskrit phrase, sūkṣma-lakṣya, as "a small mark", and the translation quoted in a 1991 Bihar School article speaks of a small point. In the same article, Swami Niranjan, answering questions about the practice, read the phrase as a subtle aim: holding the mind's faculties in concentration rather than the senses (Yoga Magazine, 1991).

A note on verse numbers: editions number these verses differently. They are 2.31 and 2.32 in Sinh's translation, but 2.32 and 2.33 in the Kaivalyadhama edition used by a 2024 review (Pramanik and Chatterjee, 2024), and Monier-Williams's 1899 Sanskrit dictionary cites them as "ii, 32 f." (Monier-Williams, via Wisdom Library). Check which edition a quotation comes from before relying on a verse number.

What does the Gheranda Samhita add?

The Gheranda Samhita is a teaching dialogue between the sage Gheranda and a student. It is likely a late 17th-century text, probably from northeast India (Wikipedia, citing James Mallinson's translation), although the 2024 review places it in the 18th century (Pramanik and Chatterjee, 2024). Where the Pradipika treats the cleansing practices as conditional, the Gheranda Samhita makes them the first of seven stages of its yoga.

In Srisa Chandra Vasu's translation (full text, 1914 to 1915 edition):

• 1.12 lists the six practices as dhauti, basti, neti, laukiki, trataka and kapalabhati. Laukiki, described in 1.52, churns the abdomen much as the Pradipika's nauli does.
• 1.53 defines Trataka: "Gaze steadily without winking at any small object, until tears begin to flow."
• 1.54 promises that the practice brings success in shambhavi (a gazing technique covered in our types of Trataka guide), destroys all diseases of the eye and induces clairvoyance.

Two changes stand out. The instruction not to blink is now explicit, and the promised results grow beyond eye health to clairvoyance. The Kaivalyadhama edition numbers these two verses 1.52 and 1.53 (Pramanik and Chatterjee, 2024).

A third manual shows that the definition was copied as well as adapted. The Hatharatnavali, written by Srinivasa in the 17th century, gives nearly the same definition and the same advice to guard Trataka like a casket of jewels (Pramanik and Chatterjee, 2024). It lists eight cleansing practices rather than six and criticizes the Pradipika for describing only six (Wikipedia).

Is Trataka older than the Hatha Yoga Pradipika?

Possibly, but no text proves it. Three clues point toward an earlier origin, and none settles the question:

• The verse credits teachers with the name. Svatmarama says the acharyas, or teachers, call this practice Trataka (2.31), which suggests the name was already in use.
• Its source is unknown. Scholars preparing the new critical edition found that more than half of the Pradipika is borrowed from earlier texts they could identify, but the source of some verses on the six cleansing practices remains uncertain. One of the editors, James Mallinson, has argued that Svatmarama also drew on oral vernacular sources and on watching practitioners (Westoby, 2024).
• Older texts describe related gazes. The 2024 review that traced Trataka through Indian literature describes older material, from Om meditation in the Upanishads to Patanjali's account of concentration, as similar to Trataka, and credits the Pradipika with first introducing Trataka as a cleansing technique (Pramanik and Chatterjee, 2024). The Bhagavad Gita (6.13), for example, tells the meditator to hold the body still and fix the gaze on the tip of the nose without letting the eyes wander (Bhagavad Gita 6.12 to 6.13). It calls this meditation, not Trataka.

Flame gazing outside hatha yoga

Concentrating on a flame is not unique to hatha yoga. The Visuddhimagga, a Buddhist meditation manual written by Buddhaghosa in Sri Lanka around the 5th century (Wikipedia), describes a fire kasina, one of its objects for building concentration. A practitioner looks at a lamp's flame, or at a fire through a hole cut in a mat or cloth (Visuddhimagga, chapter V). As with the other kasinas, the meditator alternates between eyes open and eyes shut until the image appears as clearly with the eyes shut as with them open (chapter IV).

That is close to the open-eyed and closed-eyed phases of modern Trataka. Nothing in the hatha texts links the two, so treat it as a parallel rather than an ancestor.

Is Trataka 5,000 years old?

There is no evidence for it. Researchers on the Hatha Yoga Project describe the claim that yoga is 5,000 years old as an unreliable oral tradition (CORDIS project report). For Trataka, the defensible answer is that the written record begins with the Pradipika, about 600 years ago, with an unknown history before that.

How did modern teachers change Trataka?

In the 20th century, Indian teachers who wrote for wide audiences recast Trataka, once a cleansing step, as a concentration exercise.

Swami Sivananda, whose books are published by the Divine Life Society, called Trataka "the alphabet of concentration" and the first concentration exercise for yoga students (Sivananda, Trataka or Gazing). His version uses the word Om written on a wall, a black dot or a picture of a deity. The student gazes until tears come, then closes the eyes and visualizes the image, starting with one minute on the first day, adding time each week and never straining the eyes. He still counted Trataka among the six kriyas, or exercises, of hatha yoga, and in another book he wrote that not everyone needs those practices and that people with much phlegm should do them (Essence of Yoga). That echoes Pradipika 2.21.

Swami Satyananda Saraswati described Trataka in a talk in Bombay in 1962, printed in 1963 and reprinted in 2005 in the Bihar School's Yoga Magazine (The Practice of Trataka). He glossed the word as steady gazing, divided the practice into external and internal forms and equated the internal form with concentration (dharana). He offered more than a dozen targets, from a black dot on a betel leaf and a candle flame to the blue sky, a photograph of a deity, a flower and the moon. He urged students to practice daily for concentration and memory, and he credited Trataka with powers such as healing and clairvoyance.

A 1991 Bihar School article called the candle flame the most commonly used target, because its impression stays after the eyes close, and described Trataka as a simple method of concentration (Yoga Magazine, 1991). It also named specific conditions that the classical verses do not, from depression and insomnia to myopia, astigmatism and early cataract, and it listed the rising or setting sun among possible targets.

Here is the shift in short:

Two points need a warning. The eyesight claims have not held up so far: a 2018 randomized study found that Trataka did not reduce myopia (Tiwari et al., 2018), and a 2021 review found no evidence supporting Trataka for eye disorders (Swathi, Raghavendra and Saoji, 2021). And no one should gaze at the sun, including at sunrise or sunset; see why sun gazing is never safe.

How did Trataka reach modern research?

Translations and the first yoga laboratories

Printed editions and English translations followed between 1893 and 1914. The Theosophical Society first printed the Pradipika, with Brahmananda's Jyotsna commentary, in 1893 (Westoby, 2024). Srisa Chandra Vasu's English Gheranda Samhita, the first translation of that text into English, was published by a Theosophical press in Bombay in 1895 (Wikipedia). Pancham Sinh's English Pradipika followed in 1914 (sacred-texts.com).

Kaivalyadhama, which Swami Kuvalayananda founded in Lonavla in 1924 as a laboratory for the scientific study of yoga, describes itself as the first institute of its kind in India. It started the journal Yoga Mimamsa the same year (Kaivalyadhama). Kaivalyadhama published a critical edition of the Pradipika in 1970 (Westoby, 2024), and its journal later carried small Trataka studies, including a 2004 pilot study listed in the 2024 review (Pramanik and Chatterjee, 2024).

From yoga institutes to medical journals

By the 2000s, Trataka was appearing in international journals, often as part of a package. A 2006 randomized trial assigned 291 professional computer users in Bangalore to an hour of yoga five days a week or to a waitlist. Ten minutes of each session were "visual cleansing exercises" called Trataka: eye movements in eight directions, then gazing at a flame without blinking. After 60 days, self-rated visual discomfort had fallen in the yoga group and risen in the waitlist group, but only 117 people were still in the study (Telles et al., 2006).

The earliest PubMed record with Trataka in its title or abstract is a 2010 study from a yoga university in Bangalore. Thirty adults had their critical flicker fusion threshold, the flicker rate at which a flickering light starts to look steady, measured before and after a Trataka session and a control session. It rose after Trataka only (Mallick and Kulkarni, 2010). When we searched PubMed in October 2026, 27 records had Trataka or Tratak in the title or abstract, and that 2010 study was the oldest.

The cleansing label survived the move into science. Researchers have described Trataka as "a visual cleansing technique" (Talwadkar et al., 2014) and "a yogic cleansing technique" (Saoji et al., 2024), and a 2016 attention study opens by citing the Pradipika's six cleansing techniques (Raghavendra and Singh, 2016), even though these studies measured attention, memory and eye strain rather than cleansing.

Timeline of key Trataka studies

Several of these studies, including those from 2014 and 2021, came from Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (S-VYASA), a yoga university in Bengaluru, and nearly all were small and short. Our guide to Trataka benefits explains what each result does and does not show.

What the reviews concluded

• 2021: a narrative review of all six cleansing practices screened 723 records published from 1976 to April 2020 and included 37 studies. It found research on only four of the six. Trataka was linked to better cognition and relaxation, but no evidence supported a role in eye disorders (Swathi, Raghavendra and Saoji, 2021).
• 2024: a comprehensive review of Trataka's traditional references and science included 16 studies from 2000 to May 2024. Most combined Trataka with eye exercises, only two tested Trataka alone, and most trials were not blinded (Pramanik and Chatterjee, 2024).
• 2025: a systematic review of Trataka and cognition found preliminary evidence from three randomized trials and proposed a brain mechanism, which it presents as a hypothesis to test (Roj et al., 2025).
• 2026: a meta-analysis on eye health included 21 studies and pooled 3. Visual fatigue fell within Trataka groups, but the difference from control groups was not statistically significant, and the authors called the evidence limited and inconclusive (Shetty, Kamath and Annapoorna, 2026).

What is still untested

• Trataka on its own. Only two of the 16 studies in the 2024 review tested Trataka alone. The rest added eye exercises or other practices, so their results cannot be credited to the gaze by itself.
• Long-term effects. Interventions have lasted from one session to a few months, and reviewers keep calling for longer and larger trials.
• The classical claims. Freedom from eye disease is unsupported for myopia and contested for glaucoma. Sloth is hard to test directly; the closest findings are short-term gains on attention tasks. Clairvoyance lies outside what studies can measure.

A further test of an eye claim is planned: a registered single-blind trial aims to give 286 adults with presbyopia either standard care or standard care plus 12 weeks of Trataka (Shetty et al., 2025).

What does this history mean for your practice?

• The core instruction has not changed in 600 years. One small target and a steady gaze. The classical texts set no session length; a round ends when the eyes water. Our Trataka meditation guide gives a modern step-by-step method.
• You do not need to force your eyes open. The Gheranda Samhita asks for a gaze without blinking, but a drying tear film blurs the target. Blinking when you need to is fine, as our guide to what you see during Trataka explains.
• Keep the old caution in its modern form. Svatmarama never prescribed Trataka for everyone. Today the reasons to hold back are medical, such as glaucoma or photosensitive epilepsy; read who should be cautious before you start.
• Track it like an experiment. The classical texts made promises without testing them. If you want to know what Trataka does for you, an app that times each session and keeps a history of your practice makes it easier to compare one week with the next.

Frequently asked questions

How old is Trataka?

The written record is about 600 years old. Trataka first appears in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, usually dated to the 15th century. It may have been practiced before it was written down, since the text attributes the name to teachers, but nothing in the texts supports claims that it is thousands of years old.

Who invented Trataka?

No one knows. Svatmarama, the author of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, recorded the practice but attributes its name to teachers (acharyas). Scholars editing the text have not identified a written source for some of its verses on the cleansing practices.

Is Trataka mentioned in the Vedas, the Upanishads or the Yoga Sutras?

Only related practices, according to a 2024 review that traced Trataka through Indian literature. It describes older material, such as Om meditation in the Upanishads, the nose-tip gaze of the Bhagavad Gita and Patanjali's account of concentration (dharana), as similar to Trataka, and credits the Hatha Yoga Pradipika with first introducing Trataka as a cleansing technique.

What does the word Trataka mean?

Monier-Williams's 1899 Sanskrit dictionary defines trāṭaka as "(an ascetic's) method of fixing the eye on one object", citing the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Modern teachers usually translate it as steady gazing. The dictionary gives the meaning but not a derivation.

Why is Trataka one of the shatkarma?

Because the Hatha Yoga Pradipika put it there. Svatmarama grouped it with five techniques for cleaning the nose, stomach and bowel, churning the abdomen and clearing phlegm with rapid breathing, all done to prepare the body for breath control. He defined Trataka by its end point, tears, and credited it with removing eye disease and sloth. The texts do not explain how it was supposed to cleanse.

Did the original Trataka use a candle?

No. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika says "a small mark" and the Gheranda Samhita "any small object". By 1991, a Bihar School article called the candle flame the most commonly used target, because its afterimage lingers when the eyes close. Today people also use dots, symbols and on-screen focal patterns in our iPhone app; our comparison of Trataka targets covers the options.

When did scientists start studying Trataka?

Small studies appeared in Yoga Mimamsa, the journal of the Kaivalyadhama institute, including a 2004 pilot study. A 2006 randomized trial included Trataka in a yoga program for computer users, and the earliest PubMed record with Trataka in its title or abstract is a 2010 study of 30 adults. Reviews followed in 2021, 2024 and 2025, and a 2026 meta-analysis on eye health called the evidence inconclusive.

Related reading

• Trataka meditation: ancient focus practice, modern science
• Trataka benefits: what the research supports and what it doesn't
• Types of Trataka: 9 gazing methods compared
• What you see during Trataka: afterimages, fading and halos explained
• Is Trataka dangerous? What beginners need to know

Sources

Classical texts and dictionaries

• Svatmarama. Hatha Yoga Pradipika, chapter 2. Translated by Pancham Sinh, 1914. sacred-texts.com | About this edition
• The Gheranda Samhita. Translated by Srisa Chandra Vasu, 1914 to 1915 edition. Full text
• Bhagavad Gita, chapter 6, verses 12 and 13. Translated by Swami Mukundananda. Translation
• Buddhaghosa. Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification), chapters IV and V. Translated by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli. Chapter IV | Chapter V
• Monier-Williams M. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 1899: entry for trāṭaka. Wisdom Library

Scholarship on the texts and their dates

• SOAS University of London. The Hatha Yoga Project: Ancient practices for modern wellbeing. Project page
• European Commission, CORDIS. The Hatha Yoga Project: final periodic report. Report
• Westoby R. Light on Haṭha Yoga: new online beta edition of the Haṭhapradīpikā. Proyecto Yola, El Colegio de México, 2024. Research note
• Pramanik P, Chatterjee S. Tradition and science of Trataka kriya: A comprehensive review. Yoga Mimamsa. 2024;56(2):117-128. Full text
• Wikipedia. Gheranda Samhita, Hatha Ratnavali and Visuddhimagga.

Modern teachers and institutions

• Swami Sivananda. Trataka or Gazing. Sivananda Online
• Swami Sivananda. Essence of Yoga. The Divine Life Society. Online edition
• Swami Satyananda Saraswati. The Practice of Trataka (talk in Bombay, 1962). Yoga Magazine, 2005. Article
• Yoga Magazine (Bihar School of Yoga). Trataka: Concentrated Gazing. 1991. Article
• Kaivalyadhama. Swami Kuvalayananda. Institute page

Studies and reviews

• Telles S, Naveen KV, Dash M, Deginal R, Manjunath NK. Effect of yoga on self-rated visual discomfort in computer users. Head Face Med. 2006;2:46. Full text
• Mallick T, Kulkarni R. The effect of trataka, a yogic visual concentration practice, on critical flicker fusion. J Altern Complement Med. 2010;16(12):1265-1267. PubMed
• Talwadkar S, Jagannathan A, Raghuram N. Effect of trataka on cognitive functions in the elderly. Int J Yoga. 2014;7(2):96-103. Full text
• Raghavendra BR, Singh P. Immediate effect of yogic visual concentration on cognitive performance. J Tradit Complement Med. 2016;6(1):34-36. PubMed
• Tiwari KK, Shaik R, Aparna B, Brundavanam R. A comparative study on the effects of vintage nonpharmacological techniques in reducing myopia (Bates eye exercise therapy vs. Trataka Yoga Kriya). Int J Yoga. 2018;11(1):72-76. Full text
• Swathi PS, Raghavendra BR, Saoji AA. Health and therapeutic benefits of Shatkarma: A narrative review of scientific studies. J Ayurveda Integr Med. 2021;12(1):206-212. Full text
• Swathi PS, Bhat R, Saoji AA. Effect of Trataka (yogic visual concentration) on the performance in the Corsi-block tapping task: A repeated measures study. Front Psychol. 2021;12:773049. Full text
• Swathi PS, Saoji AA, Bhat R. The role of trataka in ameliorating visual strain and promoting psychological well-being during prolonged use of digital displays: A randomized controlled trial. Work. 2022;71(2):327-333. PubMed
• Sankalp, Dada T, Yadav RK, Sharma HB, Netam RK, Kochhar KP. Effect of Tratak (yogic ocular exercises) on intraocular pressure in glaucoma: An RCT. Int J Yoga. 2022;15(1). Full text
• Ismail AMA, Abd Elfatah Abo Saif HF, El-Moatasem Mohamed AM. Effect of Jyoti-Trataka on intraocular pressure, autonomic control, and blood glucose in diabetic patients with high-tension primary open-angle glaucoma: a randomized-controlled trial. J Complement Integr Med. 2022;19(4):1013-1018. PubMed
• Saoji AA, Swathi PS, Bhat R, et al. Exploring the effect of Trataka (a yogic cleansing technique) and cold eye pack on eye strain during COVID-19 pandemic: A randomized three-arm trial. J Integr Complement Med. 2024;30(4). PubMed
• Roj AR, Sharma H, Pal P, Pundir M, Patra S. Trataka and cognition: A systematic review with a proposed neurophysiological mechanism. J Neurosci Rural Pract. 2025;16:493-500. Full text
• Shetty L, Kamath YS, Annapoorna K. Effect of Trataka Kriya on eye health: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Integr Med. 2026;84:102663. DOI
• Shetty L, Kamath YS, K A, Bhasin G, Pandey AK. A protocol for management of presbyopia through ancient yogic eye purificatory method: A randomized controlled trial. Contemp Clin Trials Commun. 2025;48:101563. Full text

This article is for general information and is not medical advice.

Last updated: October 8, 2026