Yoga has become quite an international cultural phenomenon in the past few decades. It is now estimated that somewhere around three hundred million people practice yoga worldwide, which is nearly the same number of people who live in the entire United States. Yoga is consistently advertised—both by the yoga industry and by the current government of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi—as an extremely ancient Indian spiritual and physical practice that dates back thousands of years in more-or-less its present form.
This narrative, however, is not entirely accurate. It is true that there was an ancient Āstika philosophical school called yoga and that modern yoga has been influenced by traditions that ultimately grew out of this school. Nonetheless, nothing closely resembling modern āsana-centered yoga-as-exercise ever actually existed in the Indian subcontinent in ancient times. Haṭhayoga, the immediate precursor to modern postural yoga, only first started to emerge around a thousand years ago during the medieval period and did not start to develop into modern yoga until the nineteenth century, under the heavy influence of European “physical culture” exercise regimes.
Why it matters whether yoga is really ancient
Whether postural yoga is actually an extremely ancient Indian practice is no matter of mere trivia. The modern international yoga industry is a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut. The companies that are involved in this industry bring in massive revenues. For instance, the company Lululemon Athletica—which is primarily known for making yoga attire, yoga mats, and other yoga products—reported a net revenue of four billion U.S. dollars in 2019 alone.
The yoga industry markets yoga in its modern postural form as an authentic, five-thousand-year-old practice originating in ancient India. Most people who go into yoga do so believing that this story is true. Upon discovering that this belief is not entirely accurate, some people might not unjustifiably feel that they have been swindled.
Whether postural yoga is as old as it is popular believed to be carries immense present-day political ramifications as well. The current Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, an avowed Hindu nationalist, and members of the far-right Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to which he belongs, have latched onto the idea of yoga in its modern postural form as an extremely ancient and uniquely “Hindu” tradition.
Modi has publicly promoted the fact that he practices yoga every day and made the promotion of yoga an important part of his personal public image. On 27 September 2014, Modi gave his very first speech before the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), in which he proposed making 21 June “International Yoga Day.” In his speech, Modi declared:
“Yoga is an invaluable gift of India’s ancient tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and the nature. By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help in well being. Let us work towards adopting an International Yoga Day.”
The first celebration of “International Day of Yoga,” as it became called, was held on 21 June 2015. Celebrations were held in cities all over the world, but especially in India. The main road of New Delhi was converted into an area where thousands of participants could practice yoga. The holiday has been celebrated every year since then.
The explicit purpose of International Day of Yoga is not just to promote yoga, but to promote the specific conception of yoga as an extremely ancient and uniquely “Hindu” tradition dating back thousands of years. Shripad Yesso Naik, whom Modi appointed as his official “minister of yoga,” is quoted in this article from The Week as saying: “There is little doubt about yoga being an Indian art form. We’re trying to establish to the world that it’s ours.”
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of Narendra Modi meditating with hundreds of other participants at an International Day of Yoga celebration in New Delhi on 21 June 2015
A few important disclaimers
Before I dive into this issue any further, I feel I should clarify a few things about myself and my background. First, I do not practice yoga myself. In fact, I have never actually been to a single yoga class of any kind in my life. This means that everything I am about to say about yoga comes from the perspective of an outsider historian—not the perspective of a first-hand practitioner.
Second, although I do study history, my main area of study is ancient Greece and Rome, not India. Everything I am about to say about the history of yoga therefore relies heavily on the work of scholars in the fields of South Asian studies and religious studies.
My account of yoga’s pre-modern history in particular relies on the article “Contesting Yoga’s Past: A Brief History of Āsana in Pre-modern India,” which is a summary of a talk given by Seth Powell, a PhD candidate at Harvard Divinity School on 14 October 2015, and the article “Yoga, Brief History of an Idea,” written by the scholar David Gordon White. I also, of course, rely on the many ancient primary sources that I quote and reference in the text below, which were mostly brought to my attention through reading the articles I have mentioned here.
With those disclaimers out of the way, let’s dive in.
“Five thousand years”?
If you search the internet, you’ll find a lot of contradictory claims about how old yoga supposedly is, but the most common claim seems to be that it is “five thousand years old.” This claim is certainly not based on any kind of reliable evidence and seems to be based on the unwarranted assumption that yoga must be as old as the oldest pre-Vedic civilization in the Indian subcontinent.
The earliest civilization in the Indian subcontinent is, of course, the Indus Valley Civilization, which first arose sometime around 3300 BCE, reached maturity sometime around 2600 BCE, fell into decline sometime around 1900 BCE, and eventually disappeared sometime around 1300 BCE. “Five thousand years ago” would be 3000 BCE, which would correspond to the very earliest phase of this civilization, before it even reached its maturity.
The problem is that there is absolutely no evidence of anyone practicing yoga in the Indus Valley Civilization at such an early date. Even those who wish to argue that some form of meditation existed in the Indus Valley Civilization that would later become incorporated into the ancient Āstika philosophical school of yoga, which predates postural yoga by several thousand years, cannot find evidence to support this until the late period of the Indus Valley Civilization, which is only around four thousand years ago.
The claim of “five thousand years” is therefore more-or-less bunk.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing a portion of the excavated remains of the Indus Valley Civilization city at the site of Mohenjo-daro
The so-called “Pashupati seal”
The earliest piece of evidence that has been cited for the supposed existence of any form of yoga in ancient India is the so-called “Pashupati seal,” a steatite seal from the Indus Valley Civilization that is currently believed to date to between c. 2350 and c. 2000 BCE. The seal depicts a figure wearing a horned headdress who appears to have at least three faces and who is seated in what superficially appears to be some kind of meditative position. He is surrounded on all sides by animals of various kinds.
Many people have tried to claim that the figure in this seal is practicing yogic meditation and that the seal is therefore proof that yoga existed in its modern form as far back as the Indus Valley Civilization over four thousand years ago. This argument, however, is not nearly so strong as its proponents make it seem.
First of all, it is unclear whether the figure in the so-called “Pashupati seal” is really meditating at all. Although the Indus Valley Civilization had a writing system and there is writing on the so-called “Pashupati seal” itself, no one alive today knows how to read this writing, meaning we have no written evidence to accompany this seal that might be able to guide our interpretation of it. All we can say for certain is that the figure depicted in the seal—who may be some kind of deity—is sitting.
Moreover, even if we could say that the figure depicted in the seal is indeed meditating, this would not prove that yoga existed in its complete modern form four thousand years ago, since modern postural yoga generally involves a lot more than just sitting and meditating in a single position. There are also many forms of meditation that are not associated with the yogic tradition.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the so-called “Pashupati seal,” which comes from the Indus Valley Civilization and dates to between c. 2350 and c. 2000 BCE
Etymology of the word yoga
Leaving that matter aside, let’s talk about the actual history of yoga, starting from the very beginning. The word yoga is derived from the Sanskrit word योग (yóga), which, as bizarre as it may sound, originally literally referred to the act of yoking livestock together. It is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *yewg-, which means “to yoke,” “to harness,” or “to join together.” Our English word yoke is derived from this exact same Proto-Indo-European root, meaning the words yoga and yoke are actually cognates.
In ancient India, war chariots were one of the main things that people normally used yokes for. Thus, the word yoga came to refer to a war chariot through a process of metonymy. This is how the word is most often used in the Vedas, the earliest surviving Hindu texts. The Ṛgveda, the oldest of the Vedas, is thought to date to sometime between c. 1500 and c. 1200 BCE, making it roughly the same age as the standard Akkadian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The term yoga continues to be mostly used to refer to a war chariot in Sanskrit texts until the Kāṭhaka Upaniṣad, a Hindu text that was most likely written in around the third century BCE. In this text, Yama, the god of death, teaches a young Brahmin boy named Nachiketa about the philosophy of yoga.
ABOVE: Painted relief carving from Sankara Mutt, Rameshwaram, showing Yama teaching Nachiketa about yoga
In the Kāṭhaka Upaniṣad 3.3–9, Yama explains that the relationship between a person’s ātman (i.e., their inner self), their body, and their intellect is akin to the relationship between a warrior riding in a chariot, his chariot itself, and his charioteer. Here is what he says, as translated by Patrick Olivelle:
“Know the self as a rider in a chariot,
and the body as simply the chariot.
Know the intellect as the charioteer,
and the mind as simply the reins.”“The senses, they say, are the horses,
and sense objects are the paths around the them;
He who is linked to the body (ātmán), senses, and mind,
the wise proclaim as the one who enjoys.”“When a man lacks understanding,
and his mind is never controlled;
His senses do not obey him,
as bad horses a charioteer.”“But when a man has understanding,
and his mind is ever controlled;
His senses do obey him,
as good horses a charioteer.”“When a man lacks understanding,
is unmindful and always impure;
He does not reach that final step,
but gets on the round of rebirth.”“But when a man has understanding,
is mindful and always pure;
He does reach that final step,
from which he is never reborn again.”“When a man’s mind is his reins,
his intellect his charioteer;
He reaches the end of the road,
the highest step of Viṣṇu.”
It is from this extended metaphor that the Āstika philosophical school of yoga would eventually take its name. Interestingly, the metaphor of the soul as a charioteer seems to have been rather common in the ancient world, since the Athenian philosopher Plato (lived c. 429 – c. 347 BCE) uses the exact same metaphor in his Phaidros 246a–254e.
In any case, the Kāṭhaka Upaniṣad 3.10–11 immediately goes on to establish a hierarchy of mind-body constituents that would become foundational to yogic philosophy for several centuries. It declares, in Olivelle’s translation:
“Higher than the senses are their objects;
Higher than sense objects is the mind;
Higher than the mind is the intellect;
Higher than the intellect is the immense self;”“Higher than the immense self is the unmanifest;
Higher than the unmanifest is the person (i.e., Púruṣa);
Higher than the person there’s nothing at all.
That is the goal, that’s the highest state.”
The Kāṭhaka Upaniṣad says all this, but it says very little to speak of about gymnastic postures or physical exercises. The things that most people today would recognize as “yoga” are virtually absent.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a relief carving from the Virupaksha Temple at Pattadakal in Karnataka, dating to between the sixth and eighth centuries CE, depicting scenes of chariot warfare from the Mahābhārata
The Bhagavad Gītā and the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali
The Bhagavad Gītā is a 700-verse Sanskrit passage that is included in the Mahābhārata, a much longer epic poem. It is generally thought to have been composed sometime around the second century BCE or thereabouts. In the poem, the warrior Arjuna experiences great apprehension about going into battle against his own cousins, the Kauravas, so he seeks counsel from his friend and charioteer Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa progressively reveals to Arjuna the secrets of the universe, eventually revealing that he is, in fact, none other than the incarnation of Viṣṇu, the Supreme God of all things according the Hindu theistic tradition of Vaishnavism.
The poem also contains a brief passage in which Kṛṣṇa associates yoga with the word आसन (āsana), which means “seat,” “position,” or “posture.” The Bhagavad Gītā 6.11-12 reads as follows, as translated by Barbara Stoler Miller:
“He should fix for himself
a firm seat [i.e., āsana] in a pure place,
neither too high nor too low,
covered in cloth, deerskin, or grass.”“He should focus his mind and restrain
the activity of his thoughts and senses;
sitting on that seat [i.e., āsana], he should practice
discipline [i.e., yoga] for the purification of the self.”
In this poem, the word āsana simply refers to the place and position in which a person sits in order to meditate.
The word āsana is used in very much the same sense in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, a famous collection of aphorisms about yoga that was originally composed sometime in around the fourth or fifth century CE that is traditionally attributed to an author named Patañjali. This use of the word āsana is quite different from how the word is normally used in modern postural yoga, in which āsana usually refers not to a sitting position for meditation, but rather a standing or stretching position, usually as part of a sequence.
Indeed, the whole purpose of ancient philosophical yoga was very different from the purpose of modern postural yoga. The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali states that the goal of yoga is to attain the metaphysical state of कैवल्य (kaivalya), which means “detachment” or “self-isolation.” It says nothing whatsoever about improving one’s physical health or relieving stress.
A commentary on the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali written in around the fifth century CE titled Bhāṣya includes a list of eleven different āsanāni (and, yes, that is the nominative plural form of āsana in post-Vedic Sanskrit), using the term to refer to the posture in which a person sits while they meditate. All eleven āsanāni listed in the commentary are sitting positions.
ABOVE: Illustration by Mahavir Prasad Mishra showing the god Kṛṣṇa revealing his teachings to Arjuna, as described in the Bhagavad Gītā
Emergence of Haṭhayoga
Starting in around the eleventh century CE, a tradition known as Haṭhayoga began to develop. The name is derived from the Sanskrit word हठ (haṭha), meaning “force” or “violence,” combined with the word yoga. This form of yoga began to place much greater emphasis on āsanāni than previous forms of yoga. It also began to put greater emphasis on things like प्राणायाम (prāṇāyāma), which means “breath control,” and मुद्राः (mudrāḥ), which literally means “seals” and refers to symbolic gestures, which are usually performed using the hands.
The Vimānārcanākalpa, an early Haṭhayoga text written in around the eleventh century CE or thereabouts, is possibly the oldest surviving text that describes non-seated āsanāni. One of the positions it describes is the mayūrāsana, or “peacock pose,” which is where a person balances their body above the ground on their hands, with their body held perfectly horizontal.
Early Haṭhayoga texts like the Vimānārcanākalpa describe relatively few āsanāni, but, in around the sixteenth century CE, there was a huge explosion in the number of āsanāni. The Yoga Pradīpikā, a Haṭhayoga text that was originally written in the year 1737, lists no less than eighty-four different āsanāni, twenty-four different mudrāḥ, and eight different prāṇāyāma exercises.
An illustrated edition of the Yoga Pradīpikā from the year 1830 depicts many of the gymnastic poses that are described in it.
ABOVE: Illustration from an 1830 illustrated edition of the Yoga Pradīpikā showing a man performing the svastikāsana, or “swastika pose”
ABOVE: Illustration from an 1830 illustrated edition of the Yoga Pradīpikā showing a man performing the sarvāṅgāsana, or “shoulder stand”
ABOVE: Illustration from an 1830 illustrated edition of the Yoga Pradīpikā showing a man performing the mayūrāsana, or “peacock pose”
ABOVE: Illustration from an 1830 illustrated edition of the Yoga Pradīpikā showing a man performing the kapāla āsana, or “headstand”
Hindu yogis in the nineteenth century: naked male ascetics smeared in ash
Despite the emergence of more elaborate gymnastic-style poses in early modern Haṭhayoga, the overall flavor of yoga in India in the nineteenth century was still very different from the flavor of postural yoga in the west today.
Practitioners of yoga were almost exclusively male mendicant ascetics, who practiced extreme self-denial, lived naked in the streets or in the wilderness, wore their hair in long tangles, smeared their bodies in the ashes of funeral pyres, ate very small quantities of food according to strict vegetarian principles, and passed their teachings to their students in secret, primarily by word-of-mouth.
In general, ascetic yogis in India in the nineteenth century were looked upon as social pariahs and outcasts from mainstream society. In many ways, they were much more like the Kynikoi of ancient Greece than the practitioners of yoga exercise today.
ABOVE: Late nineteenth-century photograph of a Hindu yogi lying in the street of Kolkata, naked, with long, tangled hair and his skin smeared in the ashes of a funeral pyre
Swāmi Vivekānanda and the popularization of yoga in the west
This brings us to the figure of Narendranath Datta, who was born in 1863 into an extremely elite Bengali Kayastha family in Kolkata. In around 1881, he became a student of the Hindu religious leader Ramakrishna. He remained so until Ramakrishna’s death in 1886. In December 1886, he took monastic vows. He travelled all over India between 1888 and 1893, living with very few possessions. In around 1893, he adopted the new name Swāmi Vivekānanda.
It’s fair to say that Swāmi Vivekānanda was not much of a scholar in the traditional sense, but he was an extraordinarily gifted orator and a shrewd cultural salesman. He was also young, quite handsome, extremely charismatic, and charming. An avowed Indian nationalist, he made it his mission to promote the image of India as the homeland of profound spirituality to the whole world.
On 31 May 1893, Swāmi Vivekānanda began an extended tour in which he visited Japan, the United States, and many of the countries in Europe. He visited major cities and gave lectures everywhere he went, attracting massive crowds of westerners who were curious about India and Hindu teachings. As it happens, yoga was one of the most popular topics about which Swāmi Vivekānanda lectured.
ABOVE: Photograph of Swāmi Vivekānanda, taken in Chicago in September 1893
In July 1896, Swāmi Vivekānanda published a book in the English language titled Rāja Yoga, a collection of his own impromptu lectures, in which he presents his own highly syncretic and idiosyncratic interpretation of the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali. This interpretation combines aspects of traditional yogic philosophy and Haṭhayoga spiritual practices with ideas from western science, Transcendentalism, New Thought, Theosophy, and various other western esoteric traditions. Despite its syncretic nature, the book portrays all the ideas it contains as belonging to an extremely ancient tradition of distinctly Indian mysticism.
Rāja Yoga almost immediately became a wildly popular bestseller, in part because it appealed to Orientalist stereotypes about the so-called “eastern world” as mystical and unchanging. It played a defining role in shaping the western perception of yoga. In fact, this one book has been so influential that Elizabeth de Michelis, one of the first religious studies scholars to seriously analyze the history of modern postural yoga, identifies its publication as single-handedly marking the beginning of modern postural yoga.
Swāmi Vivekānanda returned to India in 1897, but he began a second tour of the west in 1899. Although he died tragically young in 1902 at the age of only thirty-nine, he was remarkably successful in his quest to popularize the image of Hinduism as an ancient and profoundly spiritual religion.
ABOVE: Title page of a 1920 edition of Swāmi Vivekānanda’s book Rāja Yoga, which has fundamentally shaped the western conception of yoga
Yogasopana Purvacatuska: the first printed book about yoga with realistic illustrations
Three years after Swāmi Vivekānanda’s death, in 1905, a man named Narayana Ghamande published a book in the Marathi language titled Yogasopana Purvacatuska, which means Stairway to Yoga. This book is significant because it was the very first printed book about yoga to include realistic illustrations of the body in various yogic positions. These illustrations were made using halftone impressions. Naturally, they set the precedent for later books about yoga to use photographs and realistic illustrations.
The book is also significant due to the fact that it was widely printed and distributed. Traditionally, practitioners of Haṭhayoga were supposed to keep their practices secret. Ghamande, however, broke this tradition by publishing his book so it could be distributed widely. In the introduction, he offers a not-so-clever excuse for doing this by simply insisting that no one stipulated from whom he was supposed to keep the practices of Haṭhayoga a secret, nor how much information he was even supposed to keep secret anyway.
ABOVE: Realistic halftone illustration of the mahamudra from the 1905 book Yogasopana Purvacatuska
The “physical culture” movement in Europe and North America
Meanwhile, around the same time that Swāmi Vivekānanda was alive, in Europe and North America, the number of sedentary office workers was growing. As a result, many people—especially middle and upper-class white men in Germany, Britain, and the United States—were becoming concerned about their own physical fitness. In response to this situation, a movement known as “physical culture” emerged that emphasized health and strength training through calisthenics, stretches, and breathing exercises.
Especially in Britain and the United States, the physical culture movement was tied to a philosophical and religious movement known as “Muscular Christianity,” which promoted a conception of masculinity that defined a man’s athleticism and physical health as a direct extension and outward indication of his inner moral worth. This movement saw physical exercise as not just good for a person’s body, but good for a person’s soul as well.
The physical culture movement was also, in many cases, implicitly or explicitly tied to notions of white racial superiority. Many proponents of this movement held the athletic white man as the ideal human being, superior to all others. The Danish gymnast Niels Burkh (lived 1880 – 1950), for instance, who was influential during the later part of the movement, publicly supported the Nazis and argued that gymnastics could ensure the health and physical fitness of members of the supreme Aryan race.
Ironically, western physical culture would ultimately have just as much influence on modern yoga as the South Asian Haṭhayoga tradition—if not more.
ABOVE: Photographs illustrating gymnastic postures from the 1924 book Primary Gymnastics, written by the Danish gymnast and Nazi sympathizer Niels Burkh
Śrī Yogendra
One of the most influential figures in the popularization of yoga during the twentieth century was a man named Manibhai Desai, who was born in 1897 to an Anavil Brahmin family in Gujarat. He later adopted the name Śrī Yogendra and dedicated his life to promoting yoga to non-ascetics who traditionally would not have studied it. To this end, he promoted a simplified version of Haṭhayoga that focused heavily on āsana.
In 1918, he founded The Yoga Institute, the first organized center for modern yoga anywhere on earth, at Versova Beach in Bombay, India. Over the remaining course of his long life, he published over a dozen of books promoting simplified forms of yoga as physical exercise for ordinary laypeople, including Yoga Asanas Simplified (1928), Yoga Personal Hygiene Simplified (1931), Hatha-Yoga Simplified (1931), Facts about Yoga (1971), Why Yoga (1976), Guide to Yoga Meditation (1983), and so on.
Śrī Yogendra blended elements from Haṭhayoga with elements from western physical culture. In fact, many of the āsanāni he taught are not attested in yoga before him, but are virtually identical to poses that are attested earlier in western physical culture. Nonetheless, he presented these positions as belonging to an ancient yoga tradition.
ABOVE: Photograph of the yoga guru Śrī Yogendra as a young man sitting in the siddhāsana
Tirumalai Krishnamacharya and his many students
Swāmi Vivekānanda and Śrī Yogendra were highly influential on the modern yoga movement, but Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (lived 1888 – 1989) is known today as the “Father of Modern Yoga” because he taught so many of the most influential yoga teachers in the west and was so extraordinarily influential in shaping the practice of yoga as it is known today.
Despite his importance in the history of yoga, however, many of the basic facts about Krishnamacharya’s life are disputed. This is in no small part a result of the fact that Krishnamacharya habitually made claims about his own past that were demonstrably false and routinely contradicted himself.
For instance, Krishnamacharya claimed at one point that he spent seven and a half years studying yoga under the instruction of a wise and reclusive guru named Ramamohana Brahmachari, who was allegedly seven feet tall and had allegedly mastered seven thousand āsanāni, in a cave under Mount Kailash in Tibet, where he lived with his wife and three children. There is no evidence to substantiate that Krishnamacharya really studied under such a person or that such a person ever existed other than Krishnamacharya’s own claim.
Krishnamacharya also claimed to have memorized a five-thousand-year-old treatise on yoga titled Yoga Korunta, allegedly written in Sanskrit by a yoga master named Vamana Rishi. He claimed that, after he memorized the text, his only copy of it was eaten by ants and destroyed.
There is absolutely no mention of the Yoga Korunta or its alleged author in any surviving source from before Krishnamacharya, no version of the text itself has ever been found, and there is no evidence to suggest that it ever actually existed other than Krishnamacharya’s claim that it did. Furthermore, Krishnamacharya contradicted his own account of how he supposedly found the text at least half a dozen times. All the evidence suggests that he made the book up completely.
Whatever his actual training was, however, there’s no question that Krishnamacharya was extraordinarily dedicated and physically talented. Here is a video of him practicing yoga in 1938 at the age of fifty, performing postures that few people thirty years younger than him could accomplish.
ABOVE: Photograph of Krishnamacharya practicing yoga
In 1931, Krishnamacharya became a teacher at the Sanskrit College in Mysore and Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV of Mysore invited him to open a yoga school there. The Maharaja gave Krishnamacharya a section of the Jaganmohan Palace that had previously been used for gymnastics to use for his school, which opened in 1933.
At the palace in Mysore, Krishnamacharya developed his own form of yoga, based on the concept of vinyāsa, which refers to the smooth transition between āsanāni in a sequence, coupled with regular breathing. This idea did not exist in yogic practice until Krishnamacharya; instead, historians believe that, before Krishnamacharya, transitions between āsanāni were generally haphazard.
Like Śrī Yogendra before him, Krishnamacharya incorporated positions and exercises from the western physical culture movement into his version of yoga and falsely presented them as having been part of the yoga tradition since ancient times. The scholar Norman Sjoman argues in his book The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace, which was published in 1996, that Krishnamacharya directly copied some of the āsanāni he taught from the Vyayama Dipika, a manual of British-style gymnastics written by the Mysore Palace gymnasts who had come before him.
During his time at the Mysore Palace, Krishnamacharya taught many students, including his brother-in-law B. K. S. Iyengar (lived 1918 – 2014), who went on to develop his own style of yoga known as Iyengar Yoga. Unlike Śrī Yogendra, who was generally quite mellow, Krishnamacharya had a fiery temper and he was known to be an extremely demanding, harsh, and even abusive teacher.
ABOVE: Photograph of a yoga class taught by Krishnamacharya at the Mysore Palace in 1934, a year after his school opened
Indra Devi
One of Krishnamacharya’s students was a woman originally born in Riga, Latvia, in 1899 under the name Eugenie Peterson. She travelled to India for the first time in 1927. She eventually became a film star, performing under the stage name Indra Devi, and married a diplomat.
While she was living in Mysore, she witnessed one of Krishnamacharya’s yoga demonstrations and was so impressed that she begged him to let her become his student. At first he refused, since he believed that yoga was primarily a discipline for men and he had not taught it to any woman outside his own family. Then Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV intervened on Devi’s behalf and, in 1938, Krishnamacharya reluctantly agreed to teach her. She became the first woman to attend the school from outside Krishnamacharya’s family.
The next year, Devi left to go to Shanghai with her husband. Krishnamacharya told her to teach what she had learned. Consequently, she taught the very first recorded yoga classes in China out of the house of Soong Mei-ling, the wife of President Chiang Kai-shek. Most of her students were American and Russian women.
In 1947, Devi travelled to the United States and opened the first yoga studio in Los Angeles, California, at 8806 Sunset Boulevard. Here, she taught a form of yoga very different from what she had learned from Krishnamacharya. Her form of yoga was less physically demanding, consisting of only a few āsanāni, which were meant to be performed slowly. She also deliberately omitted the more spiritual aspects of yogic practice, instead marketing yoga primarily as a health exercise, saying that she preferred to leave the spiritual aspects to actual yoga gurus.
She marketed yoga as a health practice to relieve stress and anxiety, provide relaxation, and maintain health. She also specifically marketed it towards women, claiming that it could help women to keep looking young and beautiful. These changes all represent a very sharp break from the masculine ascetic yoga that had been practiced in India.
Devi’s students included renowned female celebrities, including the actresses Eva Gabor, Greta Garbo, Jennifer Jones, and Gloria Swanson, and the dancer Ruth St. Denis. This clientele greatly enhanced her reputation and helped bring yoga to attention among women in the United States. Devi published multiple books about yoga, all of them promising that yoga would bring people extraordinary benefits. These books include Forever Young Forever Healthy (1953), Yoga for Americans (1959), and Renew Your Life Through Yoga (1963).
While Devi did not remain young and healthy “forever” like the title of her first book promised, she did indeed live an extraordinarily long life. Devi died on 25 April 2002 at the age of 102 years. Thus, a woman who was born during the reign of Queen Victoria lived long enough that, by the end of her life, she could have ordered one of her own books off Amazon.
ABOVE: Photograph of Indra Devi, who opened the first yoga studio in Los Angeles, California, and taught yoga to many Hollywood celebrities in the 1950s
So-called “Kemetic yoga”
Although nothing closely resembling modern postural yoga ever existed in ancient India, this modern form of yoga is at least loosely based on real Hindu and Buddhist spiritual practices that go back several hundred years. It is therefore not a wholesale invention of nineteenth and twentieth-century western commercialism.
There are, however, versions of yoga that have only emerged even more recently that make entirely fraudulent claims about their origins. For instance, some of my readers may have heard at some point about something calling itself “Kemetic yoga.” Promoters of this form of yoga claim that it originated in ancient Egypt, but this is certainly false.
So-called “Kemetic yoga” is purely a marketing gimmick with no historical validity whatsoever. There is no evidence to suggest that anyone in ancient Egypt ever practiced any form of yoga. If you read through articles about so-called “Kemetic yoga,” you’ll find that they never reference any kind of ancient Egyptian texts or archaeological evidence to support their claims.
You see, consumers of yoga products overwhelmingly tend to be petite middle-class white women. At some point, a Black man named Asar Hapi realized that he could probably make a lot of money by marketing yoga to Black people. Thus, he made up his own version of yoga and started claiming that it originated in ancient Egypt. He called it “Kemetic yoga,” after Kemet, which is believed to have been the name the ancient Egyptians used for their own country.
This illustrates how modern capitalism can invent and aggressively promote entirely imaginary spiritual traditions merely for the sake of profit.
ABOVE: Image from CNN’s Travel Trends depicting people practicing so-called “Kemetic yoga”
Orientalism and denying yoga’s history
Ironically, even though the Modi government has worked to promote the impression of yoga as an extremely ancient practice that has survived for thousands of years virtually unchanged, this conception of yoga actually plays into the Orientalist stereotype of the so-called “eastern world” as stagnant and unchanging.
If we continue to insist that yoga in its modern form is essentially the same and unchanged from thousands of years ago, we are simply denying its history and stripping it of all cultural context. By sharp contrast, if we acknowledge that the form of yoga that most people today are practicing is very unlike anything that existed in the Indian subcontinent in ancient times, we can better recognize both the complex history of yoga and the historical forces that have shaped it.
Having a more complex understanding in this way is actually good for Indian culture overall, because it allows us to see that culture as dynamic, changing, and multi-layered, rather than as a stagnant and ossified caricature.
Conclusion
The bottom line here is that the form of āsana-centered yoga-as-exercise that is most widely known in the west today is not ancient. In fact, depending where you want to draw the line, it is arguably less than a century old, albeit based on older practices. Ultimately, though, I think that most modern yoga practitioners probably don’t really care how old the yoga they are practicing really is; what matters to them is whether it is actually good for you.
I am, of course, not a medical expert, so I’m probably not the best person to answer this question, but my suspicion is that yoga is probably good for you—or, at least, it’s better for you than doing nothing at all. I certainly don’t believe the hype about yoga making you stay young and healthy forever, but it involves physical exercise and meditation, which are both things that, as I understand it, are generally considered to be good for physical and mental health.
In other words, if you like yoga, don’t let my historical pedantry stop you from enjoying it.
Good to see you back to your “old self” (pun intended). I physically was never able to do Hatha Yoga and so I always preferred studying Vedanta (which incorporates some yogic philosophy). I’m always struck by the claims yogic practitioners make about how “scientific” yoga is. Yoga is fundamentally dualistic (mind /=body) and so is at odds with mainline Neuroscience, etc. I think it may have some physical benefits like making it easier to sleep etc. but there is really no evidence for a Jiva of any kind as described in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. I haven’t read the full article yet but in case you haven’t read Mark Singleton’s book on this subject, it’s considered the “go-to” resource for the origins of Hatha Yoga. As for the East not changing, there is some truth to this. For instance, there has been very little progress made in Jain Metaphysics since the medieval period and even less development from the Sankhya school of philosophy. So yes and no.
Always appreciate you insightful articles. Just a note on some of the sources you used. The history timeliness you use are from envious westerners who tried to concoct an entire language called Indo-European because they couldn’t bring themselves to accept Vedic Indian culture was older and superior to Europe’s, who were living in thatched huts as hunter-gatherers essentially when Indians were building elaborate temple complexes. And that’s not hyperbole. Sanskrit grammer and vocabulary, syntax etc is far superior to even Latin and Greek. In the words of philologist and judge in Calcutta, William Jones in 1785 (an expert in multiple languages and founder of the Asiatic Society):
The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.
It’s based on outdated 19th century racism from the likes of the discredited Max Meuller, etc. a Christian bigoted fanatic. The British wanted To think of themselves as ‘bringing civilization’ to the Indians, who considered beef-eating westerners as mlecchas and yavanas (barbarians). Just like Victorians projected their homosexuality back onto the ancient Greeks and Romans who were actually very conservative societies. They tried to use exceptions to artificially create the rule (Their women generally covered their heads when in public like they still do today. Like Indians as most ancient cultures valued chastity as The highest virtue). Many Dilettantes of Ancient Greek and Indian histories take the words of people like Max Mueller etc as gospel even to this day.
There is not a shred of evidence for any aryan invasion into India or Proto-Indo European language. In fact the latter is completely concocted by envious linguists who don’t want to credit Indians with having an older or founding culture. They are racists who don’t want to accept Indians as their forefathers. If there was such an invasion where is it described in the Vedas? The Mahābhārata alone is eight times the length of the Iliad and odyssey combined; its three king James’ Bibles, and is only considered an appendage to the vast main body of vedas (called an Itihasa along with the Ramayana). Yet no mention of Vedic aryans invading India? The claim is the vedas are from ca 1500 Bc—a completely arbitrary number. And the aryans are said to have invaded around 2200 bc. According to mainstream indologists of the West. Did they forget their homeland? It’s like claiming modern Americans forgot they came from Europe 500 years ago and completely excluded it from the record.
It’s all British propaganda to justify their crimes and invasion of India. That’s why Germans who had no such motive glorified Vedic culture. In fact it was said that Germany was united by its love of sanskrit as each major university in the 19th century had a sanskrit department.
There is literally not a shred of archaeological evidence for an Indo-European homeland in the Eurasian steppes-not one shred of pottery; nothing. Such theories started with the bigot Christian preacher Max Muller, who was hired by the British crown to discredit Indian culture. He admits all his theories were based on pure speculation.
Astronomical calculations mentioned in the Vedas match the Feb. 18 3102 bce date for the beginning of Kali Yuga 5,000 years ago. They describe an alignment of the 5 planets and the sun & moon (Strangely enough, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto also lined up on that day—heavenly bodies unknown of at the time); that has only happened about three times during that whole period until now, and only calculable using computers—meaning the date was already known (calculating by hand backward yields too large a margin of error).
Satellite photos have discovered the Sarasvati’s riverbed as well, precisely where the vedas describe. For its width to have matched the Vedic description, the vedas would have to have been written way before 2200 bce, when the river dried up.
Astronomical observations when calculated backwards to descriptions of the stars’ location date the vedas even further back, up to 50,000 years. Note that such calculations are practically impossible to calculate retroactively without use of modern computers (the margin of error would be too great).
The vedas are famous for their astronomical observations via the jyotisha Shastras such as Surya Siddhanta. They also give ages of the earth in epochs of billions of years, as observed by Carl Sagan:
“The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths.
It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang.”
-Cosmos
The Vedas (Ramayana) even describe four-tusked elephants. Four-tusked Gomphotheres and Mastodons lived over 2 million years ago, around the time the Ramayana took place (the third age of man out of four; a thousand such ages equal one day of Brahma). They also mention ape men.
The Vedas also mention the Timingila fish—an aquatic whose food was whales. The Megalodon is a prehistoric shark said to measure 60-70ft, weighing between 170-210 thousand lbs (the largest Great Whites come in at about 2,000 lbs). According to the vedas there are 8.4 million species so it’s perfectly reasonable such species exist.
So before we pass final judgement on the antiquity of the Vedas and yoga we should weigh the facts above. I suspect there will be a lot of revision in the not-too distant future regarding all sorts of human antiquity.
This article is uncharacteristically biased and uninformed on the part of its usually insightful writer. Some of the perfectly outrageous characterizations — that the Hindu practitioners and teachers of yoga in the West were influenced by “New Thought” and Theosophy more than the other way around, predominantly, for example — are sheer cultural appropriation. I never thought I would see Spencer Alexander McDaniels sink to it, but as he admits, this is not his area of expertise. I agree with you, Vishnujana, that he has been led astray in places by his ethnocentric Western sources.
That said, Spencer did not argue that *Indian culture* is not 5000 years old. His main thesis, that the *physical exercise* emphasis is highly influenced by Western culture and is not the original form or main focus of yoga is correct. *Yoga* is 5000 years old and is indisputably Indian in origin, in the sense that three forms of discipline that “yoke” the body and mind to the person driving are that old: the path of jnana yoga or wisdom, the path of bhakti yoga or devotion and the path of karma yoga or service. These are the 3 paths of yoga in the classical Indian sense. Hatha yoga is newer than the oldest understanding of the word and practice of yoga in the form that Westerners practice as exercise is greatly impacted by the manner and purpose in and for which it was transmitted and appropriated.
Rather than recognizing that his sources’ perspective is a Western commentary on the limits and *reductive nature of the Western practice of yoga*, Spencer has chosen to see this temporally local, popular practice as representative of an entire ancient, real and far deeper tradition. It is the equivalent of my looking at contemporary Protestant practice of exporting commercialized Christmas and mistakenly pointing out that since Santa Claus is not 2000 + years old, the Christian practice of charity is actually a myth, highly influenced by the Western exposure to what are now called “Third World” nations in the 19th century, where Christians learned for the first time *a little bit* about how to share and be open-hearted from more traditionally grounded people. You can see where someone might get that impression, but it would be basically as biased and as incorrect as aspects of this article are and I would never actually argue it.
“Some of the perfectly outrageous characterizations — that the Hindu practitioners and teachers of yoga in the West were influenced by “New Thought” and Theosophy more than the other way around, predominantly, for example — are sheer cultural appropriation.”
It was the Greeks who introduced idol worship into India, so if anybody is guilty of cultural appropriation, it’s probably the Indians who never worshiped Murthis until the arrival of Hellenism. Also, as Spencer noted in an earlier article, the deity Vajrapani is modeled directly off of the Grecco-Roman god Herakles (Hercules). Also, it was the Hindu gurus who appropriated Jesus and used him to try and show that Vedanta/Yoga were the “true” interpretations of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels. Swami Vivekenanda used the expression “all religions are true” in Chicago during his famous speech at the Parliament of Worlds Religions. That is a universalist outlook that has no precedent in traditional Hinduism (even Adi Sankara never said Islam was true) but rather sounds more like something a Unitarian Universalist would say. Vivekenanda’s guru would later claim that he was in fact Jesus Christ, Krishna, et.al. Bhakti yoga is roughly contemporary with the Maccabean Period (second century BCE) and so is not really “ancient”.
I’m not taking ownership here of everything every Indian has claimed or done or written in the past to defend or characterize it more positively in the face of your disdain. I have said what I have to say to you all in one place below.
Greeks brought every idea into India? Hilarious.
Zero, distance from earth to moon and much more scientific concepts were from India. Bhaskara, Aryabhatta being ones who can be noted.
Now to sculpting. We knew sculpting much before west can claim anything.
Example: Jagadhodarana temple Mandya, Melukote temple, Anantapadmanabha temple, Tirupati temple. One of the most amazing structure.
The carbon dating has acknowledged tha date much before you told about introduction of idol worship.
Now coming to the statement of Swami Vivekananda. The reason of the statement is Hinduism is not a religion. It is a belief, interpretation. Even atheists are part of Hinduism. Atheists are called demons in Christianism right? We do not say so.
Again looks like hate against east. Baseless claims. If you think your statements are correct. Ask the Europeans, who have doctorates from Ivy league Universities chose Hinduism. Ask them why they chose Hinduism.
I can understand your hate feeling.
“Greeks brought every idea into India? Hilarious”
Put on your reading glasses. I said IDOL WORSHIP was introduced into India by the Hellenists. I did not say that “every idea” was introduced into India by the Hellenists (Alexander was Makedonian).
“Zero, distance from earth to moon and much more scientific concepts were from India.”
Sure, I admit that the Indians were the first to conceptualize the concept of “zero”. What’s your point? That has nothing to do with Hinduism, let alone yoga, aside from the fact that the person who came up with it was at least nominally a Hindu. Also, Eratosthenes knew the earth was round whereas even the late Shrimad Bhagavatam (11th century by many counts) describes the earth as *flat*.
It is not only him, who told that Hinduism is not a religion, but a belief.
Ask your fellow citizens who believes Hinduism. I have met many from west, my brother is a business analyst. He has got many doubts cleared from them regarding financial atmosphere. Initially I was amazed that people from west belive Hinduism. They told me that, main reason was because Hinduism is a belief.
Coming to Yoga. We need to read widely before making any statement right?
I can give many points as to why Yoga is ancient. Either it maybe just seen as exercise or, whole for yoga is.
We both need to read and interpret before making any statement.
The mention of Adi Shankara writing no observations about Islam. The priority of Adi Shankara was to strengthen the base of our belief, not to show hate against anyone.
Read his writings, you will understand his priorities.
“Initially I was amazed that people from west belive Hinduism”
Given many Indian Hindus reject the Aryan Migration Theory (which explains how Eastern Europeans practiced the Vedic religion contemporaneous with Indian Hindus long before the “modern” period) I cannot say I’m surprised at your surprise. I’ve read Shankaracharya. He was a Fideist (Wittgenstein would be a “western” example). Fideism is a false belief in my view so I do not consider him a great philosopher. Ramanuja was even worse (he argued that it was impossible, even in principle, to prove that God existed; hence, one must simply have faith in the scriptures without the aids of science or reason). Madhvacharya was even worse: he claimed to be the wind god, Vayu; fabricated his “sources” and to this day, his successors view it as sinful to cross the “black waters” to the West. How is that “scientific”??
“The Vedas (Ramayana) even describe four-tusked elephants. Four-tusked Gomphotheres and Mastodons lived over 2 million years ago, around the time the Ramayana took place (the third age of man out of four; a thousand such ages equal one day of Brahma). They also mention ape men.”
A four-tusked elephant is not difficult for the imagination, so that proves nothing. The Ramayan describes Dadaji (Hanuman) lifting a mountain and throwing it into the Indian Ocean, hardly something possible or that has been scientifically verified.
“There is literally not a shred of archaeological evidence for an Indo-European homeland in the Eurasian steppes-not one shred of pottery; ”
Bhai, there is no archeological evidence for the introduction of most languages anywhere, that’s why it’s called “paleo-linguistics”. Maybe you can explain why there are so many cognates between Greek and Sanskrit prior to the Yavana (Greek) invasion of India? As Edwin Bryant in his seminal book “The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture” (Oxford: 2001) notes on p.99 :
“The date of the Mitanni kingdom helps secure the date of the composition of the Rgveda in India to around the middle of the second millennium BCE…The Rgveda, compiled some time after the arrival of the Indo-Aryans (but long enough to be several generations removed from any memories of their migrations), shows little awareness of the flourishing urban cities of the Mature Harappan period. It does, however, show clear linguistic traces of non-Indo-Aryan language speakers that preceded the Indo-Aryans on the subcontinent. These pre-Indo-Aryan speakers eventually became co-opted into the Aryan fold-but not without introducing syntactical, phonemic, and lexical innovations into the intruding language.”
“The Mahābhārata alone is eight times the length of the Iliad and odyssey combined; its three king James’ Bibles, and is only considered an appendage to the vast main body of vedas (called an Itihasa along with the Ramayana”
Who gives a damn how long those texts are? Being a long book does not make said book contain truth or falsehood. Newton’s Principia is shorter than the Mahabharata but that does not make its content less true. The Mahabharata has been redacted so many times that it is impossible to speak of an “ur-text” (original form of the text), contrast this to the Bible (we have manuscripts dating to within a hundred years of the composition of the books of the New Testament, for instance).
Dashama Skanda bhagavatha while talking about Varaha Avatara clearly states that earth is round. Not flat.
Coming to Mahabharatha. It is not some book. It is an important text. The reason is, we need to read it through interpretation. One example I can give is when Ravana is given 3 gifts. However, it was clearly stated to him that, no penance can stop the supreme being kill him.
Rama immediately after his studies could have killed. There was no need to go to vanavasa, Sita being captured. Why did the supreme being go for vanavasa? Here every phrase is a teaching, not a story.
Coming to Mahabharata, I will give an example of Anushasana Parva. This chapter teaches us important disciplines of life. Mahabharatha contains Uma-Parameshvara conversation. For what they discuss, they know knowledge of. Then why discuss it? It is for ungrateful souls like us.
Archeological Evidence? Skeletons are found in Krushestra and weapons too, the place where the war took place according to the text. Carbon dating the same proves that it is more than 5k years old.
Veda and Ramayana cannot be same.
Now coming to three important thoughts of Hinduism. Advaita, Vishistaidwata and dwaita. Can you please tell me on what basis are you coming to the said conclusion.
Ramanujacharya told god didn’t exist? interesting observations. Please do tell me as to how you came to the conclusion of these three beliefs.
Will be waiting for your basis for the statements
Read the works of those three acharyas instead of rehashed talking points and you’ll understand.
https://www.amazon.com/Madhvas-Literary-Sources-Some-Observations/dp/8177420283
“Ramanujacharya told god didn’t exist? interesting observations. Please do tell me as to how you came to the conclusion of these three beliefs.”
You’re either terrible with English or just refuse to read what I wrote. I said that Ramanuja (as every scholar on his teachings knows) thought that one could not prove god exists, not that god didn’t exist, LOL.
https://www.academia.edu/3843908/A_Hindu_Argument_Against_Design_Why_and_How_R%C4%81m%C4%81nuja_Rejected_Ny%C4%81ya_Arguments_for_the_Existence_of_God
well looks it like I didn’t read your phrase correctly.
Yup, like Acharya Shankara avoids being definitive about a supreme being. He avoids being definitive of a supreme being. He doesn’t write about Vishnu Sarvottamatva or Rudra sarvattomatva. The reason being, he had more priorities than to mention who the supreme being is. Shankara had the responsibility to put together Hinduism. At his time, the belief was ripping apart. His writing was more concentrated on Hinduism to make sure, the belief stays.
Bhaskaracharya one of the first to comment on the writings of Acharya Shankara. He doesn’t observe every phrase of Acharya Shankara and also avoids articulating about the supreme being. In his observations, he doesn’t even mention the name of Shankara. He limits the observations. He refutes the claim of Maya or nonexistence and the basic reasoning of truth. Shri Vidyaaranya one of the best scholars of Advaita. He while interpreting the texts of Acharya Shankara, he disagrees with the notion of truth written by Shankara. He mentions that basic reasoning cannot be jumped over to further observations.
Until Ramanuja, no one is definitive about the supreme being.
Meanwhile, Ramanuja was clear the supreme being is not bodiless. That, there is no singularity, that there no ekam sarvam. That. Second that, Lord Vishnu is the supreme being.
Now coming to Madhwacharya’s observations. His writings are particular about realism. He observes that there is nothing Maya. He mentions that nothing can be non-being. He mentions that everything is definitive. That there is nothing otherwise. There is nothing ‘otherwise’. Doubt is always avoided.
He further mentions about three instruments of universal relation. That is to say, proof. Here we can read that perception, inference and word are the important instruments. That would mean, there is nothing obviousness.
I can write more. These are some examples where Madhwa talks about being realistic.
What I have written above may be a bit confusing. As you said, my English is too bad. And also, if want to read about these stuffs, there are other sources, not academia. I wasted 4 weeks in academia when I was writing about Constitution not even religion or belief. Scroll, academia is a waste.
Can you please give tell me on what basis that you are telling about the date of Vedas.
I already gave you a citation for why I think the Vedas are not as ancient as some people think. Go read it.
Varaha Purana mentions the conversation between Dasharatha and Lord Venkateshwara. When Lord says, he will talk birth as his son. According to scientists, Rama Setu is at least 15k years old. Then how old the texts can be?
You keep making things worse for yourself. Adi Shankara wrote “bhaja govindam” and said that “visnu sahasranamam is always to be chanted”, hardly something a true impersonalist would say. Also, the existence of a bridge does not prove that the events of the Ramayana happened anymore than the existence of London proves that Hogwarts is real. Scholars date Ramayana no earlier than 200BCE. The Ramayana is a work of fiction.
Steve Macgillble sir, if you have studied the text so much. Can you tell me as to why ‘Lakshya’ is one of the most important words in the definitive study, before we study further. Explain about Pramana, why is it that, we need to get a definitive definition of the word. But, at the same, we shouldn’t do so.
Sanskrit is not superior. As well as these complexes are not something that only Indians did Sumerian civilization also created ziggurat of ur ever try to read about it.
Moron Sumerian language is older than Sanskrit try to read about it. Ever heard of cuneiform writings and guess what there is a mountain of evidence about the proto-Indo European language. You are just using WhatsApp forwards or some junk article to prove somehow Indian culture is better than every other culture and western researchers have contributed nothing. This whole cosmology frenzy is not limited to Indians it is very well mentioned in Egyptian texts. The eternal cycle is not limited to fricking India only just like the concept of the cosmic egg.
You are just like Egyptian nationalists who try to show that somehow ancient Egypt gave everything to the world. These hyper-nationalist sentiments are prevalent all over the world. The Islamic nation nationalists argue that Quran has every scientific knowledge, greeks argue about robots present during that time. This just shows that nationalists which are present all over the world they live under a superiority complex.
1. Bhagavad Gita doesn’t give account of previous Avatara of the Supreme being. That is provided in 10th chapter of Bhagavata. This article is a piece of tosh.
2. Before we delve into claims of Yoga. We will go into accounts of eastern civilization. Americans themselves have reported the Adams bridge to be at least 10k-15k old. A perfectly planed bridge of that time, indicates that east was not some start of civilization.
3. Bhagavad Gita is where Krishna teaches not just Arjuna, but us. To learn from it. It is more a verses of interpretation.
4. There are many evidence of Mahabharata being not some myth, but actually happened.
5. I have seen Posts by him as a hate posts against India. Yoga is perfectly read in Veda. So, there is nothing only Europe added to it bullshit. Read it.
6. Yoga is not only physical practice. It is used to control your mind. To is used to close the mind, when it is weak.
This post is slandering Indian culture rather than interpreting about Yoga.
When you say Bhagavad Gita as account of previous Avatara of the supreme being. It only shows, that no research was made before writing this.
7. Swami Vivekananda is not a scholar? Then tell me why was handed a peetha to handle the responsibility? He is respected all over the world because he was a great scholar. Again writing that Swami Vivekananda being not a scholar would account that, not much research was made before writing this. This post calls Samy Vivekananda as cultural salesman. This can be seen as complete hate towards eastern civilization.
8. Yoga is part of life of every India. It is done during pooja. It is not specifically named yoga. The posture clearly is that of mentioned in Veda. Wast of time to write this.
9. Buddhism is not a different religion. There is no surprise to see that Buddhism talks about Yoga.
Much more can be written that this post is a complete tosh. Don’t have much knowledge, don’t write anything.
If you hate us, claim it frankly. Not writing that Swami Vivekananda as salesman.
1. I never claimed that the Bhagavad Gītā gave an account of the previous avatars of Viṣṇu. I don’t know where you are getting the impression that I ever claimed this.
4. I am well aware that there are people who think the Kurukshetra War was a historical event. I personally don’t believe that the war really happened, but this is hardly bias against India, since I don’t believe that the Trojan War or the Exodus really happened either. I tend to be a very skeptical person in general.
5. I do not hate India or Indian people, nor have I written anything that I think could reasonably be construed as hateful towards India. I did write an article in which I argued that Alexandros III of Makedonia did, in fact, win the Battle of the Hydaspes in May 326 BCE (as all historians agree he did). This is hardly a “hate post against India,” though; it is simply a historical post about the outcome of a single battle that happened over 2,300 years ago.
6. This article is not intended as a “hate post against India” in any way either. I am not disputing the antiquity of the Āstika philosophical school of yoga and, in fact, I quote from multiple ancient texts that talk about it. My argument in this article is simply that the form of āsana-centered yoga-as-exercise that has become widely known in the west is not ancient.
7. When I wrote that Swāmi Vivekānanda was “not much of a scholar in the traditional sense,” I did not mean that as an insult; my point was more that he was not interested in writing scholarly types of articles with lots of footnotes. That simply wasn’t his style or his interest. Likewise, when I said he was a “shrewd cultural salesman,” I did not mean that as an insult either; my point was merely that he had a knack for promoting Indian culture in the west. Again, I don’t see how any of this qualifies as “hatred against India.”
I believe that you don’t see it, Spencer, but this is full of stinging micro-aggressions and the whole tone is one of cultural superiority. It takes a lot of nerve to think that you can write and publish such a dismissive article of an incredibly complex and rich intellectual and spiritual tradition with just a cursory selection of secondary sources from outside the culture along with tiny shreds they cite of translated ancient texts dug out from under their fingernails after their attack on the topic — and with no years of focused study at all in the area! I wouldn’t try it myself and I have a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and my father’s whole side of the family are Brahmins from Kerala and I have done some reading. As I said above, you are right that yoga is not merely the “exercises” many Westerners see it to be today; that is a reductive appropriation. If your article framed it that way, I would agree. Look at what you said instead and try to understand why the Indians reading this might be feeling insulted by it. Your understanding of the ancient texts is not the ancient texts. Western practice of yoga as exercise is not the 5000 year old tradition. Yet that yoga is an aspect, a twig on the tree of that older tradition and practice which unites the mind and body under the control of the Self.
There is no such thing as a “micro-aggression”. The oldest Hindu text, the Rg Veda, is younger than some of the Ancient Near Eastern texts (scholars consider the Code of Hammurabi to be several centuries older, I doubt that is due to the “Christian” character of the text). The Rig Veda makes no mention of reincarnation, Yoga, Rishis, Ashrams, etc. It is barely different than Enuma Elish, Genesis, Avesta, and all the other texts from that genre. It was not composed by rishis but by nomads. That does not make the text false, but it does discredit the popular opinion of it being composed in a state of trance. The people who composed the Rig Veda believed that only by offering sacrifices to the gods could one attain Swarga, heaven. There is no mention of Bhakti yoga, Gyan, etc. It was tit-for-tat deal with the devas (gods). The gods were a means to an end, that end was sense gratification. They had no inherent value. Likewise, the devas did not see humans as having inherent value but as a means to provide sacrifice, without which, they would themselves die. It’s due to people like Srila Prabhupada and others that make people think otherwise.
It is not only him, who told that Hinduism is not a religion, but a belief.
Ask your fellow citizens who believes Hinduism. I have met many from west, my brother is a business analyst. He has got many doubts cleared from them regarding financial atmosphere. Initially I was amazed that people from west belive Hinduism. They told me that, main reason was because Hinduism is a belief.
Coming to Yoga. We need to read widely before making any statement right?
I can give many points as to why Yoga is ancient. Either it maybe just seen as exercise or, whole for yoga is.
We both need to read and interpret before making any statement.
Very good article, as usual.
One of my pet peeves is describing any non-Western culture, or cultural practice, as ‘ancient’. It implies that these cultures were always static and unchanging, when they really changed a lot, as every culture does over millennia.
And good luck with the Indian nationalists that will attack you because of this post, spewing bad historical claims… (they already have)
Okay, let’s check your history knowledge. First question, on what basis can you say that it was always something you called ‘static’ right?
we will start with that.
As a white, western yoga teacher I am aware of the varied and fascinating development of yoga. I agree with Spencer that the evidence for western yoga being shaped by non-Indian and fairly recent influences is strong. I don’t claim to be teaching something that hasn’t changed in 5,000 years and I acknowledge that my own practice and teaching reflects both my own understanding of various traditions of meditation, Hatha Yoga pranayama, and physical exercises that may come from a variety of sources, including western ones.
I am curious if my teaching this self-consciously “hybrid” practice of yoga is considered “cultural appropriation” by those of Indian background? But perhaps that’s another article for another time!
An interesting point is that there is evidence that some Indian yoga traditions were intentionally subversive of Hindu orthodoxy and the caste system, being practiced by those marginalized by conventional society. Perhaps yoga is just naturally the kind of thing that “shakes Indra’s throne” and sets up disturbance!
“I am curious if my teaching this self-consciously “hybrid” practice of yoga is considered “cultural appropriation” by those of Indian background? But perhaps that’s another article for another time!”
The creators of the vulgar “Yoga is Dead” podcast certainly think so, but they use concepts culturally appropriated from Critical Race Theory to insult anybody who is white who does or teaches yoga. Given that it was the Indians themselves who watered it down for westerners, I don’t think they have a right to complain….
Clearly, as I was upset, I did not express myself well enough to be understood. Sorry, I’ll try again. First of all, I was born in the U.S. and my mother’s Northern European ancestors were some of the earliest colonizers and even slave holders, unfortunately, so you might want to re-evaluate what you think I am saying in light of this information. I don’t just attack people for being white.
Second, my sister teaches yoga in Southern California and I did not intend to say that yoga teachers or practitioners of any race are culturally appropriating just by practicing or teaching yoga. That could be gleaned from what I wrote so it was ill-stated. I *do* mean to say some examples of cultural appropriation are: any historic narrative that characterizes the beneficial practice of yoga (a meditative *and* physical practice) as basically *Western;* or the characterization that yoga has roots in ancient India is a bogus claim of fakirs and “cultural salesmanship.” To invoke the stereotype of the huckster Indian pretending to be wise while bilking the credulous white people is an example of a micro-aggression.
The latter as a word, concept and practice does exist, according to Oxford, I copy and paste:
“‘mi·cro·ag·gres·sion
/ˌmīkrōəˈɡreSHən/
Learn to pronounce
noun
a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority.
‘students posed with dry-erase boards documenting their experiences with microaggressions on campus’
indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group.
‘they are not subject to daily acts of microaggression’
Definitions from Oxford Languages”
Finally, Critical Race Theory, similar to yoga as practiced in the West today, is a product of the interaction of cultures and individuals from them in post-colonial times, from Frantz Fanon to present. He wasn’t white and neither are most cultural race theorists. If such a field belongs to anyone by virtue of race (a notion I find silly, showing a lack of understanding of concepts and how humans use them) it would be a mixed race person like myself; even by this vaguely racist thinking you suggest, I am not culturally appropriating anything by using Critical Race Theory.
As long as something is a part of post-colonial, global culture, there seem to be a few white people trying to claim all its current value is really “Western” — meaning the product of white culture when it is actually much more mixed than that — and that the earlier versions or roots of its value in other cultures never really existed.
Your linking ancient India to the Middle East has very little to do with my stake in this discussion as far as I can tell, except to be a part of your project to undermine the value, authenticity and existence of ancient Indian cultural history as such. What is your point in doing that? Why do you want to? That whole topic of the influence of the Near East is a matter of separate debate to me which is unresolved. I tend to think more will be revealed about older history than we currently know about in the future. And for the record, I don’t agree with *everything* the Indian participants said in this discussion, either. Homosexuality has been all over the world forever, for instance, including Greece, and you’re not going to see me with a veil on anytime soon. No one in my father’s family in Kerala wears them, either. It was in ancient times a matrilineal place and the ancient heritage owed to the Dravidians for that is still felt. I am not Dravidian, but I can give credit where it is due and I am a possible recipient of its benefits. This is not too hard. Try it.
I never said ANE influenced yoga. I said that some ANE texts predate the Vedic texts, including the Rig Veda. That’s not undermining the Vedas, just the claim that the Vedas are older than has been established by scholars.
As I explained below, I did not mean that teaching yoga in the West is cultural appropriation. I meant claiming that its benefits are more of a Western creation and arguing that Indian culture’s value and antiquity are greatly exaggerated while doing so is cultural appropriation and a microaggression.
I meant, “above,” not below. But what does it matter? “As above, so below.” As my authentically ancient, Indian father once said, “The wise man dies in the end.” You can’t argue with that. On second thought, you probably *can,* but I won’t argue back, no doubt the Western influence of my Quaker upbringing. Peace out.
arent u the same dude who was saying Alexander won against puru. well this article of urs confirm ur instance. dude. did u take on urself to kinda do propaganda on india.
there u said Alexander won. lol. how?
1.with the Indian king getting more territories than before.
2. by stopping his mission of conquering the world only half way.
3.by dying shortly after the war.
4. should we ignored this logic that his successors invaded the already conquered territory? i think people invade land that are not yet conquered.
5. using reference of a coin where i see a big elephant n a horse.
making references of historians who also claimed alex sister became mermaid. and ask every sailor how is alex.if they say he is now dead, she attack and drown the ship.
the same historian who say he conquered world while infact he didnt even conquered more than 50% of it. i think his map didnt include whole india, china, japan, n other south east countries.
6. by not killing puru like he did to other kings alex fought.
if u said alex and puru war was a draw i could have believe u. but u clearly say he won??
now coming to yoga. dude where ur getting ur facts. the moment i start reading i see such inaccuracy in ur article.
oldest civilization in india subcontinent was just Indus valley civilization 3300 bc?? oh really??
dude then go google dwarka city.which dates to min about 9000 bce.
seems ur reading books written by missionaries who thought that bible is eternal truth n earth was created in 4000 bc n before that there was nothing.
go google poompuhar city in tamil nadu. dated 9500 bce
go google mehargarh farming site ( in present pakistan) dated 7500 bce.
i dont think another specimen of animal were farming in that farming site. so it must be human.
i also dont think a city was created by its sown.
so there was people living india min 10000 bce. u say based on indus valley civilisation there was no other people living in india. ur logic is like there was no americans in america before Christopher stepped there.
n u call urself student of history??
i think ur learning story instead of history.
why did u take so much pain in writing yoga was influenced with modern european exercises shit. why didnt u simply write yoga was invented by europeans itself n indian adapted it or stole it. perhaps that would have brought u more happiness.
The Dwarka city has not been dated yet matt Riggsby wrote an answer to this all this dating before Sumerian civilization is a nationalistic fantasy that we guys have.
https://qr.ae/pGAmZY
Here answer for your reference.
Moron try to refute it with references and evidence don’t use the nationalistic frenzy used here in India which tries to show that somehow everything was invented by Indians. Okay, you don’t believe him how about Jiddu Krishnamurti I hope you know him.
https://youtu.be/chPBmSzvStQ
Krishnamurti stated that the actual yoga was raja yoga which main aim was to encourage everyone to live a highly moral life and to be righteous. So do watch and tell me if Jiddu Krishnamurti is spewing propaganda about Indians.
Very Ironic. I am unable to read many people’s comments due to an advertisement for yoga classes which blocks the text. At least they advertisement is relevant to the article. Usually, I get the advertisement for single unwed mothers. Sounds like teenage mothers are looking for sugar daddies. Over 90% of the ads I get hit with on your Blog run counter to your claimed belief systems and the ideals you profess. This makes you seem hypocritical at best.
I have very little control over the ads that show on my website, since the ads all come from Google. I can block ads from specific advertisers and block certain kinds of ads, but there are so many different advertisers that I can’t possibly block all the ones that I disagree with. I should also note that the kinds of ads that you personally see are heavily influenced by your search history and the other websites you’ve visited. Google collects tons of information about you and they use that information to determine which ads they will show you.
That being said, I don’t use any ads on my website that cover up text or that directly interfere with people’s ability to read. The ads are only supposed to appear at the top, along the sides where there is no text, and in between paragraphs. You should not be getting any pop-ups on my website.
“I have very little control over the ads that show on my website, since the ads all come from Google. I can block ads from specific advertisers and block certain kinds of ads, but there are so many different advertisers that I can’t possibly block all the ones that I disagree with.”
Kind of a weak excuse spoken with the eloquent deflection of a politician. It’s your website!
“Google collects tons of information about you and they use that information to determine which ads they will show you.”
The brilliant people at Google haven’t figured out that some people share phones and other devices. We usually get gay dating site ads after visiting a certain skeptics blog. Hulu is just as bad. My wife set up the account under my name for everything that she watches. I’m sure everyone at Google or Hulu thinks I’m a middle-aged woman, gay, or an extremely confused 12-year-old boy. I really dislike algorithms. They amount to mathematical racism, sexism, exclusion and labeling.
“That being said, I don’t use any ads on my website that cover up text or that directly interfere with people’s ability to read. The ads are only supposed to appear at the top, along the sides where there is no text, and in between paragraphs. You should not be getting any pop-ups on my website.”
The yoga class pop-up ad people didn’t get the memo. I’ll go back and read the comments at another time.