Many classic yoga texts mention 84 classic yoga asanas taught by Lord Shiva, who forms the divine Hindu trinity (along with the gods Brahma and Vishnu). Some of these asanas are considered highly important in the yogic canon: texts that do mention the eighty-four invariably single out the first four as necessary or vital to attain yogic perfection. However, not more than five or so asanas have been mentioned by name in any of these texts, and the complete list of Shiva`s asanas remains unknown to us.

Patanjali`s Yoga Sutra does not mention even a single asana by name, merely specifying the characteristics of a good asana, and it does not attribute any postures to Shiva. Later yoga texts however, do mention the 84 Classic Asanas and associate them with Shiva.

The Goraksha Samhita, or Goraksha Paddhathi is considered the oldest extant Hatha Yogic text, and describes the origin of the 84 classic asanas. Observing that there are as many postures as there are beings, and that there are 840000 species in all, the text states that Lord Shiva fashioned an asana for each 100000, thus giving us 84 in all, although it mentions and describes only two in detail: the Siddhasana and the Padmasana.

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika specifies that of these 84, the first four are highly important, the Siddhasana, Padmasana, Bhadrasana and Simhasana. In the The Shiva Samhita the third and fourth asanas are different; namely the Ugrasana and the Swastikasana The Hatha Ratnavali (1600 AD) is one of the earliest texts to attempt a listing of all the 84, although 4 out of its list do not have meaningful translations from the Sanskrit, and 21 are merely mentioned without any description. In all, 52 asanas of the Hatha Ratna Avali are confirmed and described by the text itself, or other asana sources.

The complete list of all asanas mentioned in the Hatha Ratnavali follows.