 On the book's cover, a man performsNatarajasana in front of a temple | |
| Author | Norman Sjoman |
|---|---|
| Subject | History ofyoga as exercise |
| Publisher | Abhinav Publications |
Publication date | 1996 |
| Pages | 124 |
The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace is a 1996 non-fiction book by the independent scholarNorman Sjoman about the origins of modernyoga as exercise. It is based on his study of theSritattvanidhi, a 19th-century nine-volume compendium created for the thenMaharaja of Mysore sometime between 1811 and 1868. The ninth volume,Kautuka nidhi, describes and illustrates 122 asanas performed as a physical activity.
The book was broadly welcomed by scholars as opening up the study of the origins of modern yoga other than in ancient texts. In particular,Joseph Alter went on to investigate some of the early practices of modern yoga and its connections with Hindu nationalism, while Mark Singleton built on Sjoman's work to investigate the origins of yoga as exercise in Europeanphysical culture.
In the mid 1980s, while doing research at theMysore Palace,Norman Sjoman made copies[1] of the yoga section (9.Kautuka nidhi) of theSritattvanidhi, a "colossal" illustrated compendium, authored in the 19th century sometime between 1811 and 1868 inKarnataka by the thenMaharaja. The book included diagrams of 122 yogaasanas. Unlike the few other known historical yoga treatises, the emphasis was solely on the physical activity. Some appeared based on Indian wrestling and other gymnastic exercises, in that aspect more closely resembling modernyoga as exercise forms such asAshtanga (vinyasa) yoga. BothB. K. S. Iyengar andPattabhi Jois, who are major influences on modern yoga forms, studied under teacherTirumalai Krishnamacharya at theMysore Palace in the 1930s. Sjoman further researched Krishnamacharya, finding several writings in the palace library. He discovered that the royal family, in the early 1900s, had employed a British gymnast to train the young princes. So, when Krishnamacharya arrived in the 1920s to start a yoga school, his schoolroom was the former gymnasium complete with ropes. Sjoman argues that several exercises detailed in a gymnastics manual were incorporated into Krishnamacharya's syllabus, resulting in his energeticvinyasa style of yoga, and further passed on to Iyengar and Jois.[2][3][4]
_from_Sritattvanidhi.jpg)
The book begins with a section of colour plates reproducing all 122asana illustrations in theSritattvanidhi.
The main part of the book isNorman Sjoman's introduction to theSritattvanidhi. He explains the Mysore Palace's tradition of yoga, setting it in its Indian context. He states that the tradition fromPatanjali's 2nd-centuryYoga Sutras is dead, followed by an "equally enigmatic" tradition of medievalhatha yoga. He describes modernyoga as exercise, noting that the tradition goes back to two influential founders of schools of yoga,B. K. S. Iyengar (especially via his 1966Light on Yoga) andPattabhi Jois, and to their teacherTirumalai Krishnamacharya, but no further.
Sjoman notes the Indian tradition of exercise, and that the Mysore Palace had its own exercise manual, theVyayama Dipika, combining British and Indian traditions, and a gymnasium for such exercise. He states that Krishnamacharya was apparently given the gymnasium to use as his yoga hall; and that some of the asanas resemble those in the exercise manual.
He describes theSritattvanidhi as somewhat confused, dividing the asanas into odd groups and seemingly mixing up some names, along with other errors. These imply, he writes, that the scribe was not familiar with asana practice, but that there was a heritage of asanas including others not listed in the book. In addition, some of the asanas use ropes, suggesting an origin in India'sMallakhamba wrestling exercises using a pole, and sometimes a rope.
The body of the book concludes with a translation of theSritattvanidhi text.
An appendix lists the names of the 122 asanas in theSritattvanidhi.
Five appendices provide for comparison lists of theasanas (yoga postures) from:
An appendix provides a description by T.V. Venkatacala Sastri of theMaisuru Maisiri, a modern text in oldKannada, describing a yoga session in the Mysore Palace.
Two more appendices offer photographs of:
The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace was published in 1996 including 122 asana illustrations.
The anthropologistJoseph Alter wrote in his 2004 bookYoga in Modern India that the radical, perhaps heretical, idea that some of the practice of modernyoga as exercise is based on something as mundane as British gymnastics caused a stir in the yoga world.[3] He added that Sjoman's work was important in signalling the need for research on texts from the start ofmodern yoga, rather than from more ancient texts.[3]
The yoga scholarMark Singleton, following up on Sjoman's work in his 2010 bookYoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice, calls Sjoman's analysis insightful, and "among the first studies" of the history of modern yoga, though without emphasising influence fromphysical culture. Singleton notes that there are fewstanding asanas until the modern period, and thatYogendra andKuvalayananda transformed a largely spiritual practice intosomething therapeutic. He takes up Sjoman's identification of "late" asanas – those created in the 20th century, presumably by Krishnamacharya – as those with "functional/descriptive" names (likeParshvakonasana, "Side Angle Pose"), distinguishing them from earlier names from "symbolic objects, animals, sages, and deities" (likeKukkutasana, "Cockerel Pose"). Singleton compares these newer asanas to poses inNiels Bukh'sPrimary Gymnastics, suggesting that Krishnamacharya may have been influenced by western physical culture.[4]
Anna L. Dallapiccola, reviewing the book for theJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society, notes that "there is ample material for a history of yoga" and Sjoman's description of it as a "living tradition", especially in Mysore where "yoga has been continuously patronised by the ruling family for over two centuries".[5]
The yoga scholarsJason Birch andJacqueline Hargreaves endorse Sjoman's proposal that the rope poses, which they identify as coming from theHaṭhābhyāsapaddhati, could either have been frommallakhamba or from military training "of scaling walls with ropes and ladders".[6]
| Topics |
|  | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| History |
| ||||||||||||
| Schools (Gurus) |
| ||||||||||||
| Related | |||||||||||||
