Postural yoga in India
Rajakapotasana (middle row), and Padmasana
(top).vinyasas
) that allowed one pose to flow into the next.
Krishnamacharya's pupils K. Pattabhi Jois and B. K. S. Iyengar brought yoga to the West and developed it further, founding their own schools and training yoga teachers. Once in the West, yoga quickly became mixed with other activities, becoming less spiritual and more energetic as well as commercial.
Westernized postural yoga returned to India to rejoin the many forms already in the country, transformed by the
armed forces and civil service
being joined in mass demonstrations by members of the public.
Ancient origins
meditation asana, Siddhasana
meditation seats, stating simply that the posture should be easy and comfortable.[2] The Sanskrit word योग yoga means "yoking, joining".[3]
Medieval Haṭha yoga
Jogapradipika
, 1830The branch of yoga that makes use of physical postures is
Haṭha yoga. The Sanskrit word हठ haṭha means "force", alluding to its use of physical techniques.[5]
kundalini energy, enabling Samadhi (absorption) and ultimately Moksha (liberation).[10][11] Hatha yoga made use of a small number of asanas, mainly seated; in particular, there very few standing poses before 1900.[10][12] They were practised slowly; positions were often held for long periods.[13] The practice of asanas was a minor preparatory aspect of spiritual work.[7]
Indian practices for independence
By the end of the 19th century, Hatha yoga was almost extinct in India, practised by people on the edge of society, despised by Hindus and the
viniyoga.[17][18] One factor influencing the popularity of yoga as exercise was Indian nationalism; having strong bodies meant being a strong country which could shake off colonial rule. Another was photography: complex body positions could for the first time be captured in a photograph rather than hard-to-follow words.[19]
Exotic exercise for the Western world
The 20th century saw a series of yoga gurus establish schools of yoga in India,
Sivananda Yoga, a more spiritual style, based in Rishikesh.[22]
The practice of the medieval seated asanas survived into the 20th century in
Calcutta, and was cultivated by Buddha Bose and Bishnu Ghosh.[23][24] Among Ghosh's pupils was Labanya Palit; she published a manual of 40 asanas, Shariram Adyam ("A Healthy Body"), in 1955, admired by the poet and polymath Rabindranath Tagore.[25][26] The yoga teacher Bikram Choudhury (born 1944 in Calcutta) claimed falsely to have learnt Hatha Yoga directly from Ghosh; actually he began yoga in 1969, influenced by Ghosh's writings. He emigrated to America in 1971 to found Bikram Yoga.[27][28] Fleeing legal action in America for sexual abuse and other matters, Choudhury returned to India in 2016, opening several yoga studios.[29]
On its arrival in the West, yoga became mixed with a variety of Western activities and concepts, from
Western occultism and New Age religion. Yoga has grown into a widespread and valuable commodity and form of exercise, ranging from gentle to energetic, and practised by millions across the Western world.[19][30]
Return to India
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In 1968, the English rock band
Ministry of AYUSH.[33][35][34] Youthful Westerners' sometimes naive spiritual quests to India were gently[36] satirised in the Mindful Yoga instructor Anne Cushman's novel Enlightenment for Idiots.[37][36]
River Ganges
in Rishikesh, 2015Yoga, transformed by what the Austrian anthropologist and Indologist Agehananda Bharati called "the pizza effect",[19][38] having journeyed across the Atlantic and back, returned with new "flavours and ingredients". It had become sleek, modern, a sign of health and fitness and urban cool; it had in large part lost its close association with Hinduism, and had indeed become almost wholly a form of exercise rather than religion of any kind.[19][39]
In 1992 the anthropologist
find themselves" in a rapidly globalizing world.[40]
Government-led event
INS Viraat for the first International Day of Yoga
in 2015In 2014, the
civil servants from India's large bureaucracy joined events in cities from Chennai to Kolkata and Lucknow.[45]
See also
- Yoga in America
- Yoga in Britain
- Yoga in Russia
References
- ^ Monier-Williams, Monier, "Yoga", A Sanskrit Dictionary, 1899.
- ISBN 978-0873957281, page 228 with footnotes
- ISBN 978-0-691-14086-5.
- ^ Mallinson & Singleton 2017, p. 90.
- ^ Mallinson 2011, p. 770.
- ^ Singleton 2010, pp. 28–29.
- ^ a b Bühnemann 2007, pp. 20–21.
- ^ Mallinson, James (9 December 2011). "A Response to Mark Singleton's Yoga Body by JamesMallinson". Retrieved 3 July 2019. revised from American Academy of Religions conference, San Francisco, 19 November 2011.
- ^ Singleton 2010, p. 173.
- ^ a b Singleton 2010, p. 29.
- ^ Mallinson & Singleton 2017, p. 171 and whole of chapter 5.
- ^ Singleton 2010, p. 161.
- ^ Mallinson & Singleton 2017, p. 93.
- ^ Goldberg 2016, pp. 16–43, 88–141.
- ^ Alter 2004, pp. 73–108.
- ^ Goldberg 2016, pp. 208–248.
- ^ Ruiz, Fernando Pagés (May 2001). "Krishnamacharya's Legacy". Yoga Journal (May/June 2001).
- ISBN 978-1-59030-800-4.
- ^ a b c d Singleton, Mark (26 June 2017). "From India with love – how yoga got its stretch back". The Independent.
- ^ Singleton 2010, pp. 152, 175–210.
- ^ "The Pune Institute". Iyengar Yoga (UK). Retrieved 16 October 2019.
- ^ "Sivananda Lineage and Vision". Inspirasï. Retrieved 2019-05-12.
- ^ Armstrong, Jerome. "Finding Calcutta Yoga by Jerome Armstrong". Buddha Bose. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
- ^ Armstrong 2018.
- ^ "The Women of Yoga". Ghosh Yoga. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
- ^ Rao, Soumya (31 July 2019). "Filling a gap in history: Who were the Indian women who popularised yoga?". Scroll.in.
- L.A. Weekly.
- ^ Henderson, Julia L. (2018). Bikram. 30for30, season 3, episodes 4&5. ESPN.
- ^ "Disgraced hot yoga guru Bikram Choudhury winds up US business, sets shop in Lonavla". 26 May 2016.
- ^ Jain 2015, pp. 80-81 and whole book.
- ^ a b Goldberg 2010, pp. 7, 152.
- ^ Parthsarathi, Mona (24 January 2018). "Displays to mark 50 years of Beatles' arrival in India". The Week. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
- ^ S2CID 143449133.
- ^ a b Singh, Shikha. "Yoga Tourism in India India can be the Wellness Destination for the World". Retrieved 3 December 2019.
- ^ Ward, Mariellen (15 March 2012). "How to 'do' a yoga ashram in India".
- ^ a b Dowdle, Hillari (2008). "Enlightened Fiction" (March 2008). Yoga Journal: 117.
Each character is ripe for a little satire, which makes the novel a fun read, especially if you're in on the joke... Cushman also manages to capture the heart of their teachings, which gives the book another level of meaning.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Douglas, Anna (September 2008). "Enlightenment for Idiots, by Anne Cushman". Inquiring Mind. 25 (1 (Fall 2008)).
- S2CID 154591435.
- S2CID 246283975.
- ^ Strauss 2005, pp. 53–85.
- ^ UN Declared 21 June as International Day of Yoga Archived 9 July 2016 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "UN declares June 21 as 'International Day of Yoga'". The Times of India. 11 December 2014.
- ^ Associated Press (21 June 2015). "Yoga fans around world take to their mats for first International Yoga Day". The Guardian.
- ^ The Week Staff (7 February 2015). "Does yoga belong to India?". The Week.
- ^ Najar, Nida (21 June 2015). "International Yoga Day Finally Arrives in India, Amid Cheers and Skepticism". The New York Times.
Sources
- OCLC 53483558.
- ISBN 978-0692116715.
- ISBN 978-8124604175.
- Goldberg, Elliott (2016). OCLC 926062252.
- Goldberg, Philip (2010). American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation – How Indian Spirituality Changed the West. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 978-0-385-52134-5.
- OCLC 878953765.
- ISBN 978-90-04-27128-9.
- OCLC 928480104.
- OCLC 318191988.
- Strauss, Sarah (2005). OCLC 290552174.
