Ayushman, the Yoga of Long Life

Ayushman is the third nityayoga, and its name means possessed of long life, the giver of longevity. It is classed among the auspicious yogas, held especially favourable for undertakings concerning health, vitality, and enduring results. As with all the nityayogas it is reckoned from the combined longitude of Sun and Moon divided into twenty-seven equal parts. In the panchanga the yoga is one of the five daily limbs an astrologer weighs when choosing an auspicious time, and a benefic yoga such as Ayushman strengthens the moment for beginning works meant to last. These are the conventions of the calendar tradition; the underlying reality is the steady increase of the angle between Sun and Moon that carries the reckoning from one named yoga to the next.

Ayus, life or lifespan, is the same root that gives Ayurveda, the knowledge of life, its name, and Ayushman's classical association with health and vitality draws on the same broad semantic field rather than being a coincidental pairing of an auspicious-sounding word with a favourable classification. The traditional blessing ayushman bhava, may you have long life, addressed by elders to the young in many Hindu households, uses the identical grammatical form as the yoga's own name, an adjective describing one who possesses long life, and the phrase's continued currency in ordinary spoken use is one of the clearer everyday survivals of the same Sanskrit vocabulary that underlies the technical panchanga terminology.