Yoga in the Modern World: The Rise of Modern Postural Yoga Flashcards
Early American Yogi
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Swami Vivekananda
Disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna from Calcutta
1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago
Founded Vedanta centers across the US
Raja Yoga (1896); Neo-Vedantic interp. of the YS
“Science of self-realization”
Preached the universality of all religions
Anti Hatha sentiment: “HY which deals entirely with the physical body, its aim being to make the physical body strong. We have nothing to do with it here, because its practices are very difficult, and cannot be learnt in a day, and, after all, do not lead to much spiritual growth”
Militant Ascetics
Late-medieval and early-modern period
Many ascetics and yogis became soldiers
Fought over pilgrimage and trade centers
“Sannyasi rebellion” late- 18th cent Bengal against British East India Company
Yogis deemed threat to British Empire
“Backwards” Yogis
Yoga and yogis in colonial India, particularly of the Hatha (i.e physical) variety, were considered backwards and impure by most orthodox Indian and European elite
Associated with low-caste, street peddling, trickster fakirs and magicians
Yoga in Early 20th century India
” … not the outcome of a direct and unbroken lineage of hatha yoga. While it is going too far to say that modern postural yoga has no relationship to asana practice within the Indian tradition, this relationship is one of radical innovation and experimentation. It is the result of adaptation to new discourses of the body that resulted from India’s encounter with modernity” Singleton 2010:33
Physical culture movements in India and Europe
bodybuilding, wrestling, Swedish gymnastics, YMCA physical ed. programs, etc
Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888-1989)
The “Father” of modern postural yoga
Śri Vaiṣṇava Brahmin
Studied with Rāmmohan Brahmacāri in Tibet
Taught yoga to the Maharaja of the Mysore Palace (1930s) - Krishna Raja Wodeyar IV
Introduced “vimyasa” yoga combining breath with sequenced movement
Wrote Yoga Makaranda in 1934
Mysore Yoga Traditions
Śri Tattvanidhi - ms. of 121 asanas with illustration
Vyāyāmadīpikā / Mysore gymnastics manual
Reconciling Tradition and Innovation
This sort of reconciling tradition and new innovations is not unique to modern yoga, or Krishnamacharya, but it is common to all Indian religious and philosophical knowledge systems
How to maintain tradition, while allowing a tradition to change, innovate, grow, and adapt to new circumstances?
A mixture of “traditional” Indian yoga, innovation from gymnastics and bodybuilding, uniquely synthesized within the framework of Patanjalayoga, that is the Astangayoga schema of the Yogasutra
The lost Yoga Korunta?
The ancient and lost YK said to be the authoritative source of Krishnamacharya’s vinyasa “jumping” yoga
the traditional narrative: The method of Yoga taught at KPJAYI is that which has been told by the ancient Sage Vamana in his text called YK. Although many books on Yoga have been written, Vamana is the only one who has delineated a complete practical method. In the 1920’s, the Yogi and Sanskrit scholar T. Krishnamacharya traveled to Calcutta where he transcribed and recorded the YK, which was written on palm leaves and was in a bad state of decay, having been partially eaten by ants. Later, he passed on these teachings to the late Pattabhi Jois, whose school continues to teach this method today
Birch has noted parallels between the Hathabhyasapaddhati and the Śrītattvanidhi, which Krishnamacharya cites as one of his source texts
One must wonder whether the name Yoga Kuruṇṭa was derived from Kapālakuraṇṭaka, the author of the Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati
Salutations to the Sun
One of the signature practices of modern postural yoga
and of Patthabi Jois’ Ashtanga Vinyasa
while worship of the sun is indeed quite ancient in India and can be traced back to the Vedas, the particular flowing postural sequence which today goes by such name is a much more modern innovation in the history of yoga
The earliest reference to suryanamaskara in a sanskrit yoga text is found in the 19th century Jyotsna (commentary) on the Hathapradipika by Brahmananda at HP 1.61. But here, Brahmananda warns aginst its practice, compares it to other forms of extraneous physical exercise including weight lifting.
Singleton and Elliott Goldberg have shown that in 1930s Mysore SN was not considered a part of yogasana but rather a form of gymnastics/bodybuilding
Influence of bodybuilders: Pratinidhi Pant, KV Iyer and his student Anant Rao
Krishnamacharya synthesized this into his classes at the yogashala
