To the grandfathers, to the grandfathers of the ancestors, to the grandmothers, to the grandmothers of the ancestors —our reverence.

This invocation of paramparā (lineage of transmission) recognizes that knowledge does not appear from nothing. The pitāmahas (grandfathers) and pitṛtāmahas (paternal great-grandfathers of the ancestors) represent the generations that have preserved and transmitted wisdom. In our yoga practice, this recognition humbles us: we are links in a chain extending backward without end. Every teacher had a teacher. Reverence for this line is not nostalgia but the understanding that sacred knowledge is always received, never merely invented.