Who is Vayu?

Vayu is the primordial wind god of Hindu cosmology, the lord of air, breath, and the vital life force that animates all living beings. He rides a graceful gazelle, carries a white flag as his banner, and is described as having the speed of thought and the power to shake mountains. As the father of Hanuman and Bhima, his divine potency runs through the greatest heroes of the Indian epics.

In yogic philosophy, Vayu is the very essence of prana — the cosmic breath that sustains all manifestation. Without Vayu, fire cannot burn, water cannot flow, and life cannot exist. He is the bridge between the physical and the subtle, the visible movement and the invisible force behind it.

Vayu is the breath of Brahman, the life-force that enters at birth and departs at death. To master Vayu is to master life itself.

In Kriya Yoga, Vayu is the pranic energy that the yogi consciously directs through the spine. The five Vayus (Prana, Apana, Samana, Udana, Vyana) correspond to the five pranic currents that Kriya practice harmonises and elevates toward the crown chakra.

The Lore of Vayu

Vayu and the Five Vital Winds

Ayurvedic and yogic texts describe five principal Vayus that govern the human body: Prana Vayu (inward moving, governing respiration and the heart), Apana Vayu (downward moving, governing elimination and reproduction), Samana Vayu (balancing, governing digestion), Udana Vayu (upward moving, governing speech and the throat), and Vyana Vayu (diffusing, governing circulation and movement).

Kriya Yoga practice specifically works with these five winds, reversing their ordinary outward flow and directing them upward through the Sushumna channel toward spiritual liberation.

Vayu and Hanuman

The most beloved story of Vayu is the birth of his son Hanuman. As a child, Hanuman mistook the sun for a ripe fruit and leaped to eat it. When the thunderbolt-wielding Indra struck the child, Vayu withdrew all air from the world in grief. The gods, unable to breathe, rushed to appease Vayu by blessing Hanuman with divine powers. Thus Hanuman became the embodiment of pranic strength and devotion.

Vayu in the Bhagavad Gita

Krishna declares in the Gita: “Among the purifiers, I am the wind” (10.31). As the cosmic purifier, Vayu sweeps away impurities — both physical and subtle. The Kriya yogi invokes this purifying power with every breath, using Vayu’s energy to cleanse the nadis and purify the chakras.

The Inner Meaning

Prana as the Inner Wind

In the subtle body, Vayu is the pranic energy flowing through the 72,000 nadis. When this energy is scattered in ordinary consciousness, the mind is restless and the senses pull the soul outward. Kriya Yoga gathers this scattered prana like a shepherd gathering sheep, concentrating it in the spine and directing it toward the spiritual eye.

The Still Point of Vayu

The highest yogic secret is that Vayu can be stilled. When the breath is suspended in kevala kumbhaka (automatic breath retention), the mind becomes still and the yogi enters samadhi. This is the state of Vayu-siddhi — mastery over the life force — where the practitioner becomes deathless and free.

Iconography & Symbols

Vayu, god of the wind, is depicted as a swift and powerful figure, often blue or white, riding upon a deer or antelope — the creature of speed and restless motion — and bearing a banner that streams in the wind. Sometimes he drives a shining chariot yoked to countless horses, for the wind travels everywhere at once and cannot be confined.

He is also called Pavana (the purifier) and Prana (the breath), and he is honoured as the father of two of the mightiest beings in all of Indian epic: the peerless devotee Hanuman, and the strong-armed Bhima of the Mahabharata. Formless yet all-pervading, felt but never seen, Vayu is the perfect emblem of a power that fills every space while escaping every grasp.

Myths & Legends

One well-known tale tells of a contest between Vayu and the divine mountain Meru. The sage Narada, wishing to test the mountain's pride, urged Vayu to break off its summit; the wind blew with all his force while Meru was shielded by the wings of the bird Garuda. When Garuda departed, Vayu tore away the peak and hurled it into the sea, where it became the island of Lanka — a story that explains the origin of that fabled land.

As the father of Hanuman, Vayu lent his own boundless swiftness and strength to his son, and it is by his grace that Hanuman could leap across the ocean. Everywhere in myth Vayu appears as the unseen mover — the breath behind speech, the force behind motion, the life that animates all that breathes.

Prana: The Breath of Life

Of all the deities, Vayu stands closest to the heart of yoga, for he is prana — the vital breath and the subtle life-force that animates every living being. The tradition teaches that the same power which moves as wind through the sky moves as breath through the body and as life-energy through the subtle channels. To understand Vayu is to understand the link between the outer cosmos and the inner life.

The scriptures describe five pranas or vital airs governing breath, digestion, circulation and more, and the yogic path works consciously with this life-force to still the mind. As the Yoga Sutras observe, the movement of the breath and the movement of the mind are intimately joined; where one grows calm, so does the other. Vayu is thus the god of the very breath by which the Kriya yogi turns within.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Vayu?

Vayu is the god of the wind and the vital breath (prana), father of Hanuman and Bhima.

How is Vayu connected to yoga?

As prana, Vayu is the life-force worked with in breath practice; where the breath grows calm, so does the mind.

What are the five vayus?

The five vital airs — prana, apana, samana, udana and vyana — that govern the body’s life-functions.