Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies, 2021

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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.

Numen, 2009

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.

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