 First edition | |
| Author | Swami Vishnudevananda |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Bell Publishing/Julian Press |
Publication date | 1960 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Hardback &Paperback |
| Pages | 359 pp |
| OCLC | 32442598 |
The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga is a 1960 book bySwami Vishnudevananda, the founder of theSivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres. It is an introduction toHatha yoga, describing theYoga Sutras of Patanjali and theHatha Yoga Pradipika. It is said to have sold over a million copies.[1] It contributed to the incorporation ofSurya Namaskar (salute to the sun) intoyoga as exercise. While some of its subject matter is the traditional philosophy of yoga, its detailed photographs of Vishnudevananda performing the asanas is modern,helping to market the Sivananda yoga brand to a global audience.
The book was one of the first three reference works onasanas (yoga postures) in the development ofyoga as exercise in the mid-20th century, the other two being Selvarajan Yesudian and Elisabeth Haich's 1941Sport és Jóga (in Spanish: an English version appeared in 1953) andTheos Bernard's 1944Hatha Yoga: The Report of a Personal Experience.[2] Its author, Vishnudevananda, was a student ofSivananda's and the founder ofSivananda Yoga.[3] During the 1965 filming ofHelp! in the Bahamas,the Beatles met Vishnudevananda, who gave each of the four of them a signed copy of the book.[4]
The book was published in 1960 by Bell Publishing/Julian Press in both hardcover and paperback. It was reprinted in paperback byHarmony Books andThree Rivers Press/Random House in 1988. It has been translated into at least thirteen languages,[5] and is said to have sold over a million copies.[1]
The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga first introduces thephilosophy of yoga.[CIBY 1] It then covers the three bodies of man, divided into thekoshas (sheaths),[CIBY 2] and describes and illustrates theshatkarmas (purifications of the body).[CIBY 3] It describes the differences between the exercises ofhatha yoga and physical exercise, explaining how yogic exercises can in Vishnudevananda's view "conquer" old age; this chapter describes over 100asanas (yoga postures) with 136 large monochrome photographs, all of Vishnudevananda, each image occupying most of a page.[CIBY 4] It then describes relaxation inShavasana, corpse pose.[CIBY 5] A chapter covers thesattvic diet.[CIBY 6] Pranayama (yoga breathing) is described as one of theeight limbs of classical yoga.[CIBY 7] The book ends with accounts of the astral body,[CIBY 8] the absolute,[CIBY 9] the self as being, knowledge, and bliss (satchitananda),[CIBY 10] and finally the conquest of death.[CIBY 11]
The Mahavidya website of scholarly resources on Hinduism notes that the book states (on page x) that yoga "balances, harmonizes, purifies, and strengthens the Body, Mind, and Soul of the practitioner", through what Vishnudevananda considered the five basic principles of yoga, namely proper exercise, proper breathing, proper relaxation, proper diet, and positive thinking and meditation (on page xi).[6]
The book is illustrated with 146 large monochrome photographs of Vishnudevananda performing the shatkarmas and the asanas; a frontispiece shows him meditating in Padmasana (lotus position). The book contains also five full-page "charts", line drawings of the body and thesubtle body with itschakras. An appendix provides six tables of training schedules.
The yogascholar-practitionerMark Singleton writes that "it is of course Vishnu-devananda, author ofThe Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga, who is generally credited as theasana pioneer within Sivananda-inspired yoga".[7]
The yoga scholar-practitionerNorman Sjoman notes in his analysis ofmodern yoga that the asanas ofB. K. S. Iyengar'sLight on Yoga were already published inThe Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga "with different names".[8] Sjoman comments that Vishnudevananda was a student of Sivananda, "aDravidian belonging to the Diksitar family, the traditional custodians of theCidambaram temple",[8] and suggests that the book must have been describing those inherited traditions.[8] Sjoman analyses the origins of the asanas in the book, comparing them to Iyengar's and to those of theSritattvanidhi of theMysore Palace.[9]
The historian of modern yogaAndrea Jain writes in her 2015 bookSelling Yoga that Vishnudevananda and other students of Sivananda were among the first to build yoga brands and tomass-market these to a global audience, effectively tying yoga to methods for achievingphysical fitness.[10]
The historian of modern yogaElliott Goldberg writes that the book "proclaimed in print" a "new utilitarian conception ofSurya Namaskar"[3] (the salute to the sun) which Sivananda had originally promoted as a health cure through sunlight. Goldberg notes that Vishnudevananda modelled the positions of Surya Namaskar for photographs in the book, and that he recognised the sequence "for what it mainly is: nottreatment for a host of diseases but fitness exercise."[3]
These references are supplied to indicate the parts of theComplete Illustrated Book of Yoga text being discussed.
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