4
disciplines it names as Karma-yoga, Jnana-yoga and Bhakti-yoga. The Bhagavad Gita
remains an important text in modern Hindu devotionalism and also plays a role in modern
Western yoga, as we shall see. The Yogasutras presents four chapters consisting of one
hundred and ninety-six aphorisms whose ultimate goal is Samadhi (liberation).
According to Patanjali, liberation through yoga means the “cessation of mental
fluctuations” (YS 1:2) and that is achieved through the eight steps he lays out in his
treatise. Those eights limbs are: Yamas (restraints), Niyamas (observances), Asana
(posture), Pranayama (breath control), Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), Dharana
(concentration), Dhyana (meditation) and Samadhi (superconscious state)). Interest in
Patanjali‟s Yogasutras was renewed with Swami Vivekananda‟s 1896 English
publication of Raja-Yoga (De Michelis 2005, p.3). It was inspirational for modern Hindu
reform societies and also breathed new life into interest in yoga. Vivekananda himself
was interested in Vedanta and God-realization and discouraged the practice of asanas –
yoga postures (De Michelis 2005, p.164). Hatha-yoga is a sub-category of the larger yoga
system that employs practical methods to aid the journey toward the same goal. Hatha-
yoga developed the use of asana (postures), pranayama (breath control) and kriya
(purification) to prepare the body for later rungs of Patanjali‟s eight step ladder.
In 1918 a dynamic and scholarly yogi began giving yoga demonstrations in India.
He was Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888-1989) and between 1926 and 1946, he ran a
yoga school in the Mysore palace under the patronage of the Maharaja (Mohan 2010, p.6-
7). During this time he toured South India, often accompanied by accomplished young
students, demonstrating great physical feats of yoga (including stopping his pulse for two
minutes). He taught many students during his long life, many of whom have become
5
world renowned teachers themselves. It is largely thanks to his students that the physical
practice of yoga – postural yoga - came to the West. Another important figure was Swami
Sivananda of Rishikesh (1887-1963) who taught a mixture of neo-Vedanta, devotion and
yoga in what he called the “Synthesis of Yoga”. His many students, most notably Swami
Vishnudevananda and Swami Satchidananda, spread this polyvalent yoga throughout the
world. Both of these masters never left India but produced a well trained second
generation of international teachers who spread yoga all over the world.
Yoga was born in a Hindu context. Although some early texts are available in
English translations, they do not exert a strong influence on the postural yoga practiced
today. Apart from the previously mentioned Yogasutras and Bhagavad Gita, three texts
concerned specifically with Hatha-yoga retain some prominence: the Hathayoga
Pradipika of Svatmarama, the Gheranda Samhita and the Siva Samhita. These three texts
borrow heavily from one another; the oldest is the Hathayoga Pradipika from the
fourteenth or fifteenth century, predating the other two by two or three hundred years
(Eliade 1973, p.229). It should be noted that these texts are not given much attention by
modern practitioners of yoga despite offering relevant advice on postural yoga, unlike the
theistic Bhagavad Gita and the philosophical Yogasutras. Instead, the chief sources for
contemporary yoga practitioners in the West are the modern training manuals that have
been continuously published since the 1960‟s.
Before presenting the findings of my research, it is best to define a few key
Sanskrit terms used in my thesis. The most commonly used word is asana, which
translates as posture. It is the third of the eight steps of yoga practice set out by Patanjali.
It also serves as a suffix to all Sanskrit names for postures, example: Garudasana or
6
Mayurasana. Vinyasa refers to movements coordinated with one‟s breathing pattern. The
practice of Pranayama refers specifically to manipulation of prana (vital energy), more
practically it means breath control or breathing exercises. A question I was concerned
with in this project is related to the Indian method of transmitting knowledge from master
(guru) to disciple (shishya). The system that acts as an unbroken chain over generations
is called parampara (lineage) and implies the veneration not only of one‟s own guru but
also the gurus whose succession led to him. Lineage is also sometimes referred to as
sampradaya, which often traces its line to a mythological sage or deity as founder.
There has always been some interest in the history of yoga as sub-category in the
study of Indian religion. One of the earliest comprehensive studies of yoga is Mircea
Eliade‟s Le Yoga. Immortalité et Liberté (1954), which offered a wider scholarly lens
with which to examine yoga. More recently, the work of Elizabeth De Michelis and her
student Mark Singleton have started to deal more directly with postural yoga. Most
scholarship on the subject preceding these texts have been historical in nature and since
modern postural yoga is a relatively recent arrival on the scene, it has received little
attention as yet. De Michelis bridges this gulf with her book A History of Modern Yoga
(2005) by introducing the revival of modern yoga with Vivekananda‟s Raja-Yoga (1896)
and then jumping sixty years forward to the publication of Iyengar‟s Light on Yoga in
1966. It is within those sixty years that the practice of postures comes not only to the
forefront but nearly replaces other yogic practices. Singleton (2010) addresses the
question of how that change happened, and astutely points out that postural yoga
developed in relation to international trends in health culture. While De Michelis focuses
on North America, Joseph Alter (2004) examines the development of postural yoga
Dostları ilə paylaş: |