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Journal of Yoga Studies, 2023

In this chapter, we formulate a corpus of premodern praxis manuals on yoga that were composed in the 18th and 19th century in rudimentary Sanskrit and vernacular languages, which were likely documenting collections of yoga postures (āsana) current among practitioners of the time. Much of their detailed, praxis-focused content does not occur in the scholarly Sanskrit yoga treatises that predate them, and yet most of these manuals have received little attention in academic publications. Our analysis and comparative study of this material has identified three distinct collections of complex āsana that can be located to different geographical regions of India on the eve of colonialism. This research provides evidence for premodern āsanas that crossed sectarian and linguistic divides and were adopted by the gurus who popularised yoga in the early 20th century. This latter issue underlies contemporary debates on the continuity of modern postural yoga within the Indian tradition. Until this study, clear lines of transmission from premodern teachings on āsana to modern postural yoga have eluded academic research.

Karl Baier, Philipp A. Maas, Karin Preisendanz (eds.) Yoga in Transformation: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Wiener Forum für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft,16. Vienna: Vienna University Press by V&R unipress, 2018

This chapter is largely devoted to the Pātañjalayogaśāstra (PYŚ) and the history of its reception. More specifically, it investigates Patañjali’s treatment of yogic postures (āsana), starting with a contextualisation of the role of āsana-s within the yogic path to liberation. It then analyses the passage PYŚ 2.46–48 and demonstrates that the two sūtra-s 2.46 and 2.47 should be understood as a single sentence. This is followed by a discussion of the list of posture names in the PYŚ as well as of the possible nature of the postures themselves from a philological perspective. The critical edition of the text of PYŚ 2.46 provides the basis for a detailed comparison of various descriptions of posture performance in medieval commentaries on the PYŚ and in the authoritative Jaina yoga treatise by Hemacandra. This comparison reveals that designations of āsana-s and the descriptions of their performance may differ from source to source. However, all analysed sources agree in presenting āsana as a complex of psycho-physiological practices meant to enable the yogi to undertake long sessions of exercises, such as breath control, and of various kinds of meditation, rather than mere performances of bodily configurations as means in themselves.

Philosophy East and West, vol. 55, no. 2, 2005

Yoga in Transformation: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Vienna University Press., 2018

The writing of this paper was prompted by the discovery of several manuscripts of mediaeval yoga texts which contain lists of more than eighty-four āsana-s, a canonical number mentioned in several yoga texts. Until now, lists of eighty-four āsana-s have been found in only two recently published yoga texts, namely, the Haṭharatnāvalī and the Jogapradīpyakā. The manuscript evidence presented in this article indicates that these published texts are not isolated accounts of mediaeval yoga systems with many complex āsanas. In fact, it is clear that more than eighty-four āsana-s were practised in some traditions of Haṭha Yoga before the British arrived in India. The majority of these āsana-s were not seated poses, but complex and physically-demanding postures, some of which involved repetitive movement, breath control and the use of ropes. When the āsana-s in the sources which I shall analyse in this article are considered in their totality, antecedents can be identified for many non-seated and inverted postures in twentieth-century systems of Indian yoga.

Scripta Ethnologica, 2018

In this paper we develop a contrastive analysis of some aspects of Modern and Classical yoga. With this purpose we first provide a brief discussion of what has been labelled ‘modern postural yoga,’ addressing the transformation that, according to specialists, yoga has undergone in the last century and a half. This process, scholars argue, led to an emphasis in postural exercise and health, and located the focus of the practice on the body. We then analyse, in the second part of the work, Patañjali’s Yogasūtras, its relation to āyurvedic ancient literature, and concentrate our attention on the elements related to health, the body, and the physical activity we will propose are present in Patañjali’s treatise. In the third part, we discuss the respects in which the contemporary transnational yoga phenomenon represents a continuation of the ancient tradition of which Patañjali’s text is an expression. This contrastive analysis provides us an excellent opportunity to examine aspects of the classical yoga treatise that have yet to play a significant role in the discussion regarding the relationship between Modern and Classical yoga.

Yoga Life

HISTORICAL UNFOLDING OF THE CONCEPTS AND PRACTICES OF YOGA For the purpose of understanding the development of this great Yogic spiritual tradition, one may divide its unfoldment into three time frames: I : PRE-HISTORIC: Teachings transmitted orally from Guru to disciple in forest hermitages. Before the written word. II : THE HISTORIC: Teachings transmitted from Guru to disciple in forest hermitages, using both oral and written traditions. III : MODERN: Spiritual teachings gleaned from many sources, indiscriminately, often only through the written word and without the guidance of Guru.

Journal of the History of Science in South Asia , 2018

The research for this article was prompted by the question: were Yoga and Āyurveda as intimately connected in premodern times as both seem today? It attempts to give a preliminary answer by assessing the shared terminology, theory and praxis of a corpus of mediaeval Yoga texts with the classical texts of Ayurveda. The date of the Yoga corpus ranges from the eleventh to the nineteenth century CE, and all of its texts teach physical techniques and an ascetic state of dormant meditative absorption (samādhi), either as auxiliaries within a system of Yoga or as autonomous systems in themselves. The physical techniques became known as Haṭhayoga and the ascetic state of samādhi as Rājayoga, and the texts in which they appear posit the practice (abhyāsa) of Yoga as the chief means to liberation (mokṣa). The article begins with a discussion of the terminology in these texts that is also found in the Bṛhattrayī, that is, the Carakasaṃhitā, the Suśrutasaṃhitā and Vāgbhaṭa’s Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā. It proceeds to discuss the relevant theory (digestive fire, humoral theory, vital points, herbs) and praxis (āsana, ṣaṭkarma and therapy or cikitsā) of the yoga texts in question in order to assess the possible influence of Āyurveda.

École française d'Extrême-Orient, Pondicherry, 2024

Writing in Varanasi in the sixteenth century, when the Mughal empire was at the height of its power, the monk Śivānandasarasvatī composed an extensive Sanskrit compendium on yoga entitled “The Wish-fulfilling Gem of Yoga” (Yogacintāmaṇi). Śivānanda was an initiate of a sannyāsin lineage descending from the great philosopher Śaṅkarācārya (fl. ca. 800). Śivānanda was among the first to combine Pātañjalayoga with Haṭha and Rājayoga. In the seventeenth century, an anonymous redactor used Śivānanda’s work to create a unique compilation of yoga postures (āsana), many of which are not found in other yoga texts. Arguably the largest surviving pre-modern compilation of its kind, it includes six postures that the redactor attributed to Mohan of Mewar, who was a disciple of Dādū and a practitioner of Haṭhayoga and breath prognostication (svarodaya). These postures were part of a collection that was appropriated and repurposed by Sufis, translated into Persian and illustrated for a royal treatise commissioned by Prince Salīm, the future Mughal emperor Jahāngīr (r. 1605–1627 CE). This book presents this unique compilation, transmitted to us in a manuscript written in the redactor’s own handwriting.

Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies, 2021

Volume 4 (2023): Special Issue of the Journal of Yoga Studies.Yoga and the Traditional Physical Practices of South Asia: Influence, Entanglement and Confrontation, 2023

This volume is the outcome of a workshop held at SOAS University of London in November 2019, under the auspices of the five-year, ERC-funded Haṭha Yoga Project (HYP). The workshop was organised because of several questions that had been on our minds for some time: considering the centuries-long presence of multiple embodied traditions in India, what was the relationship between the physical practices of yoga and other physical disciplines that bear certain similarities to yoga, at least in appearance? Had there been interchange or even influence across and between different physical disciplines and the practices of yoga? Could such a perspective on the history of yoga help to understand better any of its developments?

International Journal of Hindu Studies, 2011

Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2022

The Yogārṇava ('the ocean of yoga') is a Sanskrit compendium on yoga that has not been published, translated or even mentioned in secondary literature on yoga. Citations attributed to it occur in several premodern commentaries and compendiums on yoga, and a few published library catalogues report manuscripts of a work on yoga called the Yogārṇava. This article presents the results of the first academic study of the text. It has attempted to answer basic questions, such as the work's provenance and textual sources. The authors then discuss the importance of the Yogārṇava within the broader history of yoga based on their identification of citations and parallel verses in other Sanskrit texts and a detailed analysis of the Yogārṇava's content.

Religion Compass, 2009

Yoga is now found in urban centres and rural retreats across the world as well as in its historical home in the Indian subcontinent. What is now practiced as yoga across the globe has a long history of transnational intercultural exchange and has been considered by some as an outgrowth of Neo-Hinduism. Although the popularisation of yoga is often cited in theories about ‘Easternization’ or the ‘re-enchantment’ of the West since the late 20th century, most of these theories make little reference to the growing number of historical, sociological and anthropological studies of modern yoga. This article will consider how the apparent dichotomy between yoga as a physical fitness activity (often termed ‘hatha yoga’) and/or as a ‘spiritual practice’ developed historically and discuss recent trends in the research.

Religions of South Asia, 2021

Qualitative Sociology Review

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In general, we can say that yoga refers to physical and mental techniques used to achieve certain goals. For the sake of pointing out the original characteristics of haṭha yoga that appear over and over again in later Indian yoga and Tibetan Buddhist tantric traditions, I will briefly review the history of yoga. The current study is a general overview; I have gone into absolutely no detail into the practices. While that promises to be an interesting project, it is far greater in extent than this paper. This paper serves as an introduction to the history of physical yoga practices in India and Tibet.

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