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Yoga in Premodern India Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs The Revival of Yoga in Contemporary India Book Section How to cite: Newcombe, Suzanne (2017). The Revival of Yoga in Contemporary India. In: Barton, John ed. Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2017 Oxford University Press Version: Accepted Manuscript Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.253 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-research-encyclopedias-religion-9780199340378?cc=gb&lang=en& Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk The Revival of Yoga in Contemporary India Suzanne Newcombe Summary The word yoga refers to a multifaceted array of beliefs and practices. Yoga is twinned with sāṃkhya as one of the six orthodox darshanas (worldviews) of Hindu philosophy, with Patañjali’s Yogaśāstra having been codified by around the fifth century of the Common Era. A distinct body of texts known as the haṭhayoga corpus appears around the 11th century and emphasizes physical practices most likely used by ascetic communities. The ultimate aim of yoga is described by various words (e.g., kaivalya, samādhi, mokṣa, etc.); it is often described as an experience of an individual soul’s uniting with the divine, and/or becoming liberated from the material world. These historical precedents have continuities with contemporary yoga practices, and for many Indians today, yoga is understood as the essence of Indian spirituality. Yoga, however, took on new meanings in the late colonial period, becoming a mental, physical, and ethical discipline to aid in the struggle for an independent Indian nation state; a scientific, evidence-based practice to improve health and well-being; and a template for the evolution of an individual as well as humanity as a whole. At the same time, yoga kept an association with liberation and the realization of the ultimate nature of reality. In the early 21st century, all these meanings remain current in the Indian context, where yoga is continuing to experience a revival. In India, yoga is understood as a unique and valuable cultural resource that has the potential to revitalize both an individual’s health and the Indian nation-state, being an exemplar of the unique insights that Indian traditions can give to the rest of the world. Despite a notable shift in what is understood by yoga in the modern period, yoga continues to be a multivalent and increasingly popular practice in contemporary India. Keywords yoga, yog, asana, pranayama, AYUSH, naturopathy, physical culture, Indian nationalism, swadeshi, swaraj Yoga in Premodern India In order to understand the idea of a yoga revival in contemporary India, a brief overview of “yoga” in the premodern and colonial periods is important. Many of the historical antecedents have continuities with contemporary practices, and the major historical texts are frequently referenced in order to authenticate them. Evidence of ascetic practices for meditation and concentration, which are associated with yoga in the modern period, date to the period of the Guatama Buddha; various understandings of yoga are also presented in the Mahābhārata.1 A variety of similar meditative techniques were developed among Jains, Buddhists, and other non- Brahmanic mendicant groups well before the common era.2 In India, ascetics may hold a posture for long periods of time, for example, holding an arm up or standing on one leg for years, hanging upside down on a tree, as tapas, a challenging practice done to achieve spiritual insight, gain supernatural powers, and/or as penance. These practices of tapas (sometimes associated with yoga) are documented in the Mahābhārata and in the first reports of European travelers to India, and continue to be observed in contemporary India.3 Patañjali’s Yogaśāstra (the sutras and their commentary) is a work of Sanskrit aphorisms that was codified between 300 and 500 CE. This text has become a central reference point for the contemporary yoga revival, with many current practitioners referring back to it to explain the nature and goals of their practice.4 In general, academic scholarship closely associates Patañjali with dualistic sāṃkhya philosophy, which holds that consciousness (puruṣa) can be experienced as unfettered by the empirical world (prakṛti). The Yogaśāstra outlines eight parts of a practice aṣṫāṇgayoga (eight-limbed yoga), which has the goal of experiencing a complete cessation of the fluctuations of the mind and the ultimate nature of reality. The first “limb” is yama, ethical disciplines, which include specific directives toward nonviolence (ahimsā), truthfulness (satya), not stealing (asteya), celibacy/controlled sexuality (brahmacharya), and not having more possessions than necessary (aparigraha). While the yamas are concerned with the relationship between individual and society, the second “limb,” niyama, consists of instructions for an individual’s self-discipline. The niyama are broken down into cleanliness (śauca), contentment (santoṣa), austerities (tapas), study of the self (svādhyāya), and Iśvarapraṇidhāna, which is understood as a practice of devotion to “Lord,” or puruṣa, and later taking the meaning “God” (Brahman). The third limb is that of posture (āsana) and the fourth is of controlled breathing (prāṇāyāma). The final “limbs” described by Patañjali are (5) withdrawal of the sense organs from external objects (pratyāhāra), (6) concentration on an object (dhāra), (7) concentration without an external object (dhyāṇa), and (8) the goal of yoga, that is, absorption of the individual with the ultimate reality (samādhi). This schema is referenced continually in the presentation of yoga in contemporary India. Much of Patañjali’s text describes and sometimes warns against the development of siddhis, or supernatural powers, which may develop with the practices, and could distract the practitioner from the ultimate goal of samādhi. Possible siddhis include the power of changing size, becoming invisible, levitating, entering another’s body, or becoming physically immortal.5 Belief in the possibility of yogis and ascetics having access to these powers contributes to a continuing social ambiguity toward the figure of the traditional yogi.6 Contemporary teachers of yoga have selectively emphasized various aspects described in the Yogaśāstra, sometimes arguing that the entire eight-limbed path can be accessed by an intense focus on parts of the path. Additionally, many contemporary practitioners of yoga have read the Yogaśāstra with lenses assuming a nondual nature to reality (based on Advaita Vedānta) and bhakti (devotion to God), which became more dominant soteriologies in India after the codification of the yogaśāstra. Also in the second half of the first millennium, yoga became associated with tantric sectarian groups, most often Śaivite, but related practices also can be found in Buddhist, Jain, and other texts. Tantric practices are usually associated with a focus on self-divination through the use of mantra, sometimes including a variety of deliberately transgressive practices and rituals, which could help the practitioner towards liberation and develop occult powers.7 From the 8th to 10th centuries, tantric practice increasingly focused on techniques relating to achieving liberation (mokṣa) through activating a series of energetic centers (cakras or padma) and channels (nāḍī) within the body through a series of meditation, breathing, and mantra practices.8 In this milieu, there begins to appear the image of the goddess Kuṇḍalinī, imagined as a snake dwelling in the lowest chakras, who must be induced to climb up the spine to the highest chakras to facilitate liberation. From the 7th century onward, similar practices, glossed as tantric yoga, were promoted amongst both Śaivites and Buddhists with the aims of promoting health, longevity, and physical immortality in association with the aims of spiritual liberation.9 Sometimes these practices involved sexual activity and later the use of mercury-based elixirs. In the South of India, tantric practices are associated with the Cittar/Siddha teachers of Triumūlar and Bogar, while in North India, they are associated with the “Nāth” teachers of Matsyendra and Gorakh.10 Claims for continuity with these lineages and ideas resurface in contemporary yoga milieus. Transgressive tantric practices have always been socially marginal; while many of those contributing to the revival of yoga in modern India sought to minimize the associations of yoga with tantra, others found them inspiring.11 The conflation of yoga with tantra has contributed to widespread Indian associations of morally ambivalent and potentially dangerous yogis, which continues as a narrative in contemporary India.12 Complex physical postures (āsana) became associated with techniques leading to mokṣa and siddhis in Sanskrit texts from the 11th century onward; this body of practice is known as haṭha yoga and is associated with a variety of populations and metaphysical systems. In this corpus of texts, specific breathing techniques (prāṇāyāma) are associated with “locks” in the physical body (bandhas), “seals” (mudrās), and cleansing techniques (kriyā). In this literature, the circa 15th-century
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