Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Volume 23 Article 17

January 2010

Book Review: "Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice"

Harold Coward

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Recommended Citation Coward, Harold (2010) "Book Review: "Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice"," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 23, Article 17. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1469

The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Coward: Book Review: "Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice" 62 Book Reviews

There is much to be learned from and seem to reflect a presumed position of privilege appreciated in Schouten's Jesus as Guru. for Caucasian, WesternlEuropean, Christian However, I was frustrated by phrases such as contexts. "Whoever explores the religion and culture of While dialogue between "East" and "West" India comes fact to face with a different world," sets the context for the book in the introduction, (1) or " ... Since then, it is no longer possible to in the Postscript Schouten acknowledges, " .. .in

i imagine Indian society and culture without the past quarter of a century the voice of Hindus i I Christ." (4) Following an informative in the dialogue has grown silent." (260) Perhaps intermezzo on Frank Wesley's depiction of future work can assess why this might be so and Jesus as a blue hued child like Krishna, I wonder work to build a new conversation. why he felt the need to say, "The representation of Jesus is certainly not very (accurate Swasti Bhattacharyya historically." (127) These examples, alld others, Buena Vista University

Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice by Mark Singleton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. viii + 262 and The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Edwin F. Bryant. New York: North Point Press, 2009, pp. lxvii + 598.

BEFORE tackling· Mark Singleton'S Yoga emphasized mental practice and tended to shun Body, one should first read Elizabeth De the as ana or posture side as being unsuitable, Michelis' A History of Modem Yoga Singleton notes that by the 1920s posture (Continuum, 2004) where she sets the context oriented forms of yoga began to re-emerge and for the various forms of modern postural or dominate. This then is the focus of Singleton'S asana yoga in Vivekananda's lectures on Raja Body Yoga, namely to offer a good explanation Yoga in 1896 delivered just after the Chicago of why as ana or postural yoga was initially Parliament of Religions. While Vivekananda excluded, and to describe. the various ways in purports to be presenting Patanjali's Yoga, he is which it was eventually reclaimed. Body Yoga, actually basing his version of Yoga on says Singleton, "aims to indentify the factors Keshubchandra Sen along with Theosophy, that initially contributed to the shape that William James, Krishnamurti and others, and transnational yoga has taken today, and ends up emphasizing mental practice over the constitutes in some ways a 'prehistory' of the physical. Having identified the intellectual root international asana revolutiop. that got into full of Modern Yoga as Vivekananda's Raja Yoga, swing with B. K. S. Iyengar and others from the De Michelis shows how in the twentieth century, 1950s onward." Singleton supports this two developments arise out of Vivekananda, contention by noting that in doing the literature namely Modern Postural Yoga and Modern review for Yoga Body, the English language Meditational Yoga. Mark Singleto~ studied yoga manuals from the late 1800s to about 1935 these historical developments pf yoga together largely follow Vivekananda's mental yoga in with De Michelis (also his phD: supervisor) their approach. In surveying the holdings of when the two of them plus Suzanne Newcombe Cambridge University Library and the British organized the Modern Yoga Graduate Workshop Library in London, as well as Stanford at the Divinity Faculty, University of Cambridge University'S Green Library and the University of in 2006. Singleton's attention came to be California, Berkeley 'library, Singleton found focused on a gap in the development of the that the as ana or practice oriented Anglophone Postural Yoga side arising from Vivekananda. yoga manual begins to emerge as a genre only While Vivekananda's 1890s Raja Yoga during the 1920s. It is these manuals that

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provide the focus for Singleton's very detailed culture. Although in practical Anglophone yoga study. Although Singleton acknowledges that in primers of the. first decades of the twentieth

the post World War II years there was an century asana r6mains largely absent, Singleton I explosion of interest and publications on yoga, finds that through these experiments in synthesis these works were not included in his study - but asana or postural yoga gradually becomes the he does say that they continue to privilege most prominent practice component in postural over mental yoga. mainstream modem yoga. Chapter 6 focuses on In the first half of Yoga Body, after a brief the contributions of gymnastics and overview of. yoga in India (especially Hatha bodybuilding to this nationalist man-building Yoga), Singleton examines the figure of the process, while chapter 7 examines the female yogin as he appears in travel writing, contributions of spiritualized methods of scholarship, popular culture, and the literature of movement and dance common in women's popular practical yoga in the 1890s. Chapter 2 physical culture classes of the early twentieth examines early European encounters with yogins century. Chapter 8 identifies the major influence and notes their inferior status during colonial that· photographic realism contributed to rule, especially hatha yoga practices. In chapter reversed perceptions of yoga of the body. 3, the author shifts focus to the hatha yogin Finally, in chapter 9 Singleton examines the street performer who does this to earn a living. influential postural forms developed by T. With the advent of photography, the contortions Krishnamacharya as a yoga teacher in Mysore of the hatha yogin became grist for the Western during the 1930s and 1940s. Here Singleton conception of "exotic India". This along with the agrees with much of Norman Sjoman's earlier downgrading of the posture-practicing yogin by analysis which argues that the "godfather" of Vivekananda, Blavatsky and others in the late today's global asana boom is T. 1800s led to the distaste for and exclusion· of Krishnamacharya, who evolved his influential asana practices in early Western Anglophone postural forms out of .the royal gymnastics yogas. In this way Singleton convincingly tradition of the Mysore Palace. l Singleton's explains how postural yoga comes to be so conclusion does not focus on the derivation of undervalued and little practiced in the anglo specific yoga postures (as Sjoman does) but world during the years immediately following rather on the powerful synthesis of Western and Vivekananda's Raja Yoga lectures. . Indian Modes of physical culture, contextualized Part II of Yoga Body (chapters 4-7) provide within traditional hatha yoga. a careful· and very detailed analysis of the For readers of this journal, a sidelight in particular modifications hatha yoga had to Singleton's detailed scholarly analysis is the role undergo to escape from being· seen as a blight that some esoteric forms of Christianity played .. and instead regain a positive perception in the in all of this. Singleton finds, for example, that modem West. Chapter 4 examines the late Mary Eddy Baker's Christian Science ideas of nineteenth and early twentieth century the power of positive' thinking to actuate the influences of Western physical culture diversity in the world found their way into (gymnastics and bodybuilding techniques) practical yoga manuals during the first half of introduced into India by organizations such as the twentieth century (p. 130). New Thought the Indian YMCA. Chapter 5 shows how during together with movements like theosophy and the same period as ana yoga traditions began to New England Transcendentalism also played a be combined with Western physicai'~cl!.lture role in bridging between institutional practices into a reworked "indigenous" man­ Christianity and the development of popular building that could support the recovery of postural yoga. Indian national pride and counter the colonial -,Yoga Body, with its focused and careful perception of Hindu Indians as weaklings. scholarship, is an excellent contribution to our Chapters 6 and 7 consider early twentieth­ und~rstanding of how asana yoga evolved in the century developments of these first experiments decades after Vivekananda and became the basis in synthesizing yoga and European physical for much of the postural yoga experienced in

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol23/iss1/17 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1469 2 Coward: Book Review: "Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice" 64 Book Reviews

Anglophone culture today. It will be a mass-produced consumerisms - the indulgence particularly valuable resource for graduate of the senses and the mind - as the highest and students wanting to do research on today's most desirable goal of life." (p. xvii) Yet as the modern yoga in relation to its Indian roots. I Gita tells us, desire is never satisfied and burns especially appreciate Singleton's careful like fire - it is the internal enemy that destroys avoidance of the temptation to treat Patanjali's people. This insight, says Bryant, is found in the Yoga Sutras or classical hatha yoga texts as the ancient Hinou; Buddhist and Jaina thought. They "gold standard" against which modern yoga may all taught that the more we desire, the more we be compared and criticized for its divergences. are frustrated, and the more we strive to ,satisfy The author rejects such essentialist textural this frustration, the more we damage ourselves approaches and instead engages in a scholarly and our environment. What Patanjali offers in study of the synthesis instead of hatha yoga with his systemization of this ancient teaching is a various western influences and an open analysis clear critique of the mind-set of consumption of the resulting modern forms of postural yoga. and an alternative way to live that remains as By contrast, Edwin Bryant's book does take relevant for today as it was for Indian society in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali along with its Patanjali's time (c. 200 CE). But it is a solution commentaries and scriptural antecedents as the that requires gaining control over the mind and key text upon which to focus. What Bryant its desires - the main focus of Patanjali's yoga offers is nothing less than a new edition, practice. As Bryant puts it, "an abandonment of translation and commentary of the foundational the consumer mentality requires the full eight text of the Yoga School of Classical Indian limbs of yoga, beginning with the yamas and Philosophy. My teacher, Professor T. R. V. nujamas. Without these, attempts to perfect the Murti, with whom I read the Yoga Sutras in third limb of yoga, asanas, postures, are simply traditional line by line guru-sishya style, used to physical gymnastics." (p. xvii) say that the student's responsibility was not just Equating yoga practice with physical to pass on the teachings of a tradition or line of postures alone (as Singleton'S Yoga Body shows teachers (guru-parampare) but to add to it by is often the modern experience) misses the. bringing out new insights. In his book, Bryant whole point of Patanjali' s approach - especially succeeds in making just such a contribution in if done with the view to improve the sensual the Commentary he produces which is both easy prowess arid appearance of the body in order to to read for today's students and offers scholars a maximize physical and mental pleasure. Bryant distinctive interpretation that Bryant qraws from concludes, "Without recognizing the actual goal the traditional commentaries, especially that of of yoga, the realization of the true self as other Vijnanabhiksu, (along with quotes from the than the body, mind, and sensual apparatus, Upanisads, Gita and illustrative stories drawn modernity may not have progressed in attitude II from his own translation of the Bhagavata and presupposition concerning life's goals from !! Purana). What Bryant does most effectively is to those lusty performers of Vedic sacrifice." (p. place the teaching of Patanjali in the context of xvii) the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain thinking of his day In reading the Yoga Sutras with Professor and at the same time to make it relevant to the Murti, I learned that in contrast to the monism of struggle with comsumerism, technology and Advaita Vedanta, Patanjali's sutras were sensory gratification that dominate society dualistic, seeing purusa and prakriti as distinct today. As Bryant puts it, while modern societies realities. In his Commentary, Bryant has no longer sacrifice animals to the gods, redte convinced me that this understanding of the Vedic hymns or pour ghee into the fire in order· Sankhya-Yoga school was likely a later to obtain material goods, the difference is development when the six astika schools of mainly that today we use different machine­ Hindu philosophy and the various Buddhist based industrial technologies in our attempt to schools developed canons of thought far more satisfy ourselves with material goods. "Our rigid than was likely the case at the time of modern world has universalized, idolized and Patanjali. Bryant's opening History of Yoga and

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his introduction to his Commentary skillfully the sense of stretching exercises or bodily poses immerses one into the intellectual context of but rather as a physical seat. Patanjali dedicates Patanjali's time: Rather than rigid separation only three of 195 sutras to this aspect of the into specific schools, each with their own practice - the purpose of as ana being to keep the doctrine and way of realizing release of moksa, body still so that it cannot rush here and there Bryant convincingly suggests that during the after material and sensuous desires. Also, a centuries leading up to and immediately controlled and quiet body supports the majority following Patanjali, thinkers drew broadly from of Patanjali's practices that aim at bringing the a common pool of ideas including the distracted and grasping mind under control. In Upanisads,Gita, Puranas, as well as Jaina and relation to the modem postural yoga traditions Buddhist thought and a variegated group of studied in Singleton's Yoga Body, Bryant practices going by the name yoga. Thus, in his observes· that "the perception of yoga as systemization of yoga in the Yoga Sutras, primarily ... asana in the sense of bodily Patanjali sieved this pool of ideas for a poses .. .is essentially a modem Western psychology of the mind and a technique for phenomenon and finds no precedent in the extracting the atman or purusa from the mind's premodern yoga tradition ... " (p. xxx) materialistic mancinations so that moksa or Both of the books offer excellent, user freedom from rebirth could be realized. While friendly, but serious scholarship suitable for Patanjali's Yoga Sutra systemization is in graduate and senior undergraduate students. The explicit opposition to Vedic ritualism, according works of De Michelis and Singleton offer the to Bryant, it does not reject the underpinning of best analysis of modem yoga teaching and the external world as the Upanisadic Brahman, practice while Bryant's translation, Commentary localized in living beings as atman or purusa. and Introduction to Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is Much is drawn from the Gita's Chapter 6' now my book of choice for serious senior description of yoga as a practice to purify the students. Bryant's book serves as both a atman. Patanjali includes many of the Gita yoga concordance of commentaries and a commentary practices in his list of yamas and niyamas, on key scriptures and commentaries without including meditation upon and dedication to the which the Y oga Sutr~ are unintelligible. After God - Isvara-pranidhana (Sutra 1:23) which Bryant I would then send the student to Yoga: leads Bryant to conclude that the Yoga Sutras is India's Philosophy of Meditation (Vol. XII of an inherently theistic text (here he 'agrees with the Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies) edited Ian Whicher who made the same argument by Gerald Larson as the basic reference text for earlier in his 1998 book, Integrity of the Yoga Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and the classic&! Yoga Darsana).2 Seeing the Yoga Sutras as inherently School.3 theistic is also a challenge to my teaching from Murti, but after reading Bryant's fine ext~dYf Notes seven page commentary on sutra 1:23 Isvara­ 1. Norman E. Sjoman,' The Yoga Tradition of pranidhana I am convinced. Christian scholars the Mysore Palace. New Dehli: Abhinav, 1996. will also find this passage of interest for it is one 2. It is of interest to note that Whicher, De of the only sutras wnere the "pull yourself up by Michelis and Singleton all did their yoga your own self-discipline" approach gives way to research at the Cambridge Faculty of Divinity divine grace. (p. 81-7) with Julius Lipner playing a guiding role. Going back to the issues of the place of 3. Yoga: India's Philosophy of Meditation. physical postures, Bryant makes clear that in Edited by Gerald James Larson and Ram both the pre- Patanjali background and in Shankar Battacharya. Dehli: Motilal Patanjali's{ own systemalization there are few Banarsidass, 2008. references to as~na or posture. Of the nine hundred references to yoga in the Mahabharata, Harold Coward there are only two mentions of asana. Neither University' of Victoria the Upanisads nor the Gita speaks of posture in

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