A studio by the river that started selling what it used
Twelve years of teaching above the Ganga, and the mats, props and cushions that came out of it.
Prana Path opened in 2014 as one teaching room in Tapovan, Rishikesh, a few minutes’ walk from Laxman Jhula. We taught hatha in the mornings and pranayama in the evenings, and when students asked for a mat that did not slide or smell, we went looking for people who could make one properly: a rubber cooperative in Kottayam, a cork workshop in Goa, jute weavers outside Kolkata.
We still work with all three. Every product is tested in the studio for a full season before it goes on sale, and our teachers decide whether it ships. That is why the catalogue is small - three mats, a handful of props, two cushions, a singing bowl and a little organic-cotton yogawear - and why it changes slowly.
Nothing we make contains PVC, TPE or foam, and nothing we send arrives in plastic. Each product page carries a footprint note - what it is made of, where it came from and how it should end its life - because a practice about non-harming should not end in a landfill.
- First class above the tea stall
- 2014First class above the tea stall
- Plastic in any parcel we send
- 0 gPlastic in any parcel we send
- Free Sunday classes a year
- 52Free Sunday classes a year
A short history
2014
One room in Tapovan
Classes begin above a tea stall on Laxman Jhula Road with eleven borrowed mats.
2017
The first Ganga mat
A Kottayam rubber cooperative presses our first open-cell natural rubber mat.
2021
Plastic-free parcels
Every order ships in kraft, jute and cotton tape - the last poly mailer is retired.
2025
Sunday class goes live
The free sunrise class on the ghat is streamed for students across India.
What we hold to
Nothing plastic
No PVC, TPE or foam in any product, and no plastic in the parcel - kraft, jute and cotton tape only.
Tested in class first
Every mat and prop spends a full season in our Tapovan studio before it is offered for sale.
30-day mat trial
Practise on any mat for a month. If the grip or thickness is wrong, we collect it from your door.
What customers say
“I have sweated through three PVC mats in two years. The Ganga mat grips more the hotter the room gets, and it smells of nothing after the first week.”
“My knees told me to try the 8 mm, the studio told me to try the 6 mm first. They were right - balance poses feel planted and kneeling no longer hurts.”
“The starter kit had everything my mother needed for her first class, including a little card telling her what each prop is for. She uses the strap every morning.”
One slow letter, each Sunday morning
A short sequence from Acharya Devika, a breathing practice for the week ahead and the link to the live sunrise class. Nothing to buy, ever, in the Sunday letter.