Yoga in Modern India

Yoga in Modern India PDF

Author: Joseph S. Alter

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 140084343X

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Yoga has come to be an icon of Indian culture and civilization, and it is widely regarded as being timeless and unchanging. Based on extensive ethnographic research and an analysis of both ancient and modern texts, Yoga in Modern India challenges this popular view by examining the history of yoga, focusing on its emergence in modern India and its dramatically changing form and significance in the twentieth century. Joseph Alter argues that yoga's transformation into a popular activity idolized for its health value is based on modern ideas about science and medicine. Alter centers his analysis on an interpretation of the seminal work of Swami Kuvalayananda, one of the chief architects of the Yoga Renaissance in the early twentieth century. From this point of orientation he explores current interpretations of yoga and considers how practitioners of yogic medicine and fitness combine the ideas of biology, physiology, and anatomy with those of metaphysics, transcendence, and magical power. The first serious ethnographic history of modern yoga in India, this fluently written book is must reading not only for students and scholars but also practitioners who seek a deeper understanding of how yoga developed over time into the exceedingly popular phenomenon it is today.

A History of Modern Yoga

A History of Modern Yoga PDF

Author: Elizabeth De Michelis

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2005-12-08

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0826487726

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Please note: We can't take UK web orders at this time, but further information can be obtained by emailing [email protected]. US web orders are available now.

Gurus of Modern Yoga

Gurus of Modern Yoga PDF

Author: Mark Singleton

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0199938725

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Gurus of Modern Yoga explores the contributions that individual gurus have made to the formation of the practices and discourses of yoga in today's world.

Roots of Yoga

Roots of Yoga PDF

Author: James Mallinson

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2017-01-26

Total Pages: 592

ISBN-13: 0141978244

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'An indispensable companion for all interested in yoga, both scholars and practitioners' Professor Alexis G. J. S. Sanderson Despite yoga's huge global popularity, relatively little of its roots is known among practitioners. This compendium includes a wide range of texts from different schools of yoga, languages and eras: among others, key passages from the early Upanisads and the Mahabharata, and from the Tantric, Buddhist and Jaina traditions, with many pieces in scholarly translation for the first time. Covering yoga's varying definitions, its most important practices, such as posture, breath control, sensory withdrawal and meditation, as well as models of the esoteric and physical bodies, Roots of Yoga is a unique and essential source of knowledge. Translated and Edited with an Introduction by James Mallinson and Mark Singleton

Yoga in Modern Hinduism

Yoga in Modern Hinduism PDF

Author: Knut A. Jacobsen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-11-28

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1351624741

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The Sāṃkhyayoga institution of Kāpil Maṭh is a religious organisation with a small tradition of followers which emerged in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century in Bengal in India around the renunciant and yogin Hariharānanda Āraṇya. This tradition developed during the same period in which modern yoga was born and forms a chapter in the expansion of yoga traditions in modern Hinduism. The book analyses the yoga teaching of Hariharānanda Āraṇya (1869-1947) and the Kāpil Maṭh tradition, its origin, history and contemporary manifestations, and this tradition’s connection to the expansion of yoga and the Yogasūtra in modern Hinduism. The Sāṃkhyayoga of the Kāpil Maṭh tradition is based on the Pātañjalayogaśāstra, on a number of texts in Sanskrit and Bengali written by their gurus, and on the lifestyle of the renunciant yogin living isolated in a cave. The book investigates Hariharānanda Āraṇya’s connection to pre-modern yoga traditions and the impact of modern production and transmission of knowledge on his interpretations of yoga. The book connects the Kāpil Maṭh tradition to the nineteenth century transformations of Bengali religious culture of the educated upper class that led to the production of a new type of yogin. The book analyses Sāṃkhyayoga as a living tradition, its current teachings and practices, and looks at what Sāṃkhyayogins do and what Sāṃkhyayoga is as a yoga practice. A valuable contribution to recent and ongoing debates, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Religious Studies, Anthropology, Asian Studies, Indology, Indian philosophy, Hindu Studies and Yoga Studies.

Yoga Body

Yoga Body PDF

Author: Mark Singleton

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-02-25

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0195395344

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Most people assume that 'postural' yoga is an ancient Indian tradition. But in fact, as Singleton shows, this type of yoga is quite a recent development. Singleton presents a study of the origins of postural yoga, challenging many current notions about its nature and origins.

The Path of Modern Yoga

The Path of Modern Yoga PDF

Author: Elliott Goldberg

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2016-07-18

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 1620555689

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A history of yoga’s transformation from sacred discipline to exercise program to embodied spiritual practice • Identifies the origin of exercise yoga as India’s response to the mania for exercise sweeping the West in the early 20th century • Examines yoga’s transformations through the lives and accomplishments of 11 key figures, including Sri Yogendra, K. V. Iyer, Louise Morgan, Krishnamacharya, Swami Sivananda, Indra Devi, and B. K. S. Iyengar • Draws on more than 10 years of research from rare primary sources and includes 99 illustrations In The Path of Modern Yoga, Elliott Goldberg shows how yoga was transformed from a sacred practice into a health and fitness regime for middle-class Indians in the early 20th century and then gradually transformed over the course of the 20th century into an embodied spiritual practice--a yoga for our times. Drawing on more than 10 years of research from rare primary sources as well as recent scholarship, Goldberg tells the sweeping story of modern yoga through the remarkable lives and accomplishments of 11 key figures: six Indian yogis (Sri Yogendra, Swami Kuvalayananda, S. Sundaram, T. Krishnamacharya, Swami Sivananda, and B. K. S. Iyengar), an Indian bodybuilder (K. V. Iyer), a rajah (Bhavanarao Pant Pratinidhi), an American-born journalist (Louise Morgan), an Indian diplomat (Apa Pant), and a Russian-born yogi trained in India (Indra Devi). The author places their achievements within the context of such Western trends as the physical culture movement, the commodification of exercise, militant nationalism, jazz age popular entertainment, the quest for youth and beauty, and 19th-century New Age religion. In chronicling how the transformation of yoga from sacred discipline to exercise program allowed for the creation of an embodied spiritual practice, Goldberg presents an original, authoritative, provocative, and illuminating interpretation of the history of modern yoga.

Yoga and Indian Philosophy

Yoga and Indian Philosophy PDF

Author: Karel Werner

Publisher: Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass

Published: 1977

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9788120806085

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While Indian Philosophy has been in our time the object of mainly academic interest Yoga has become in recent decades and object of wide spread popular interest particularly in the west. But from at least the time of the Upanisads till Aurobindo Yoga has been an important source of inspiration to philosophy in Indian and philosophy in turn has often provided in turn has often provided an initial impetus and motivation for the practice of yoga and has produced various interpretations of Yogic experiences. It is therefore most appropriate that Yoga and Indian philosophy be given equal attention both in the context of academic research and in the framework of popularising Yoga.

The Goddess Pose

The Goddess Pose PDF

Author: Michelle Goldberg

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2015-06-09

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1101874643

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New York Times best-selling author Michelle Goldberg tells the globetrotting story of the incredible woman who brought yoga to the West. When Indra Devi was born in Russia in 1899, yoga was virtually unknown outside of India. By the time of her death, in 2002, it was being practiced around the world. Here Michelle Goldberg tells the globetrotting story of the incredible woman who helped usher in a craze that continues unabated to this day. A sweeping picture of the twentieth century that travels from the cabarets of Berlin to the Mysore Palace to Golden Age Hollywood and beyond, The Goddess Pose brings the Devi’s little known but extraordinary adventures vividly to life.

Yoga in Practice

Yoga in Practice PDF

Author: David Gordon White

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 0691140863

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An anthology of primary texts drawn from the diverse yoga traditions of India, greater Asia, and the West. Focuses on the lived experiences in the many world of yoga.