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Contemporary Yoga: Legitimizing Authenticity

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Contemporary Yoga: Legitimizing Authenticity Contemporary Yoga: Legitimizing Authenticity Interviews with Founders of Yoga Schools in Rishikesh Ida Molund Vasstrand Masteroppgave i religionsvitenskap Institutt for arkeologi, historie, kultur- og religionsvitenskap Universitetet i Bergen Spring 2017 (29.05.17) Is this figure seated in a yoga posture? This is a tan steatite seal from the Indus Valley Civilzation (3300–1300 BCE). Some suggests that he is a yogi (Kenoyer 1998) 1 1 For reference to picture, see Kenoyer, 2017. ii Contents Contents ............................................................................................................................................................... iii Preface and Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................... iv Sammendrag ........................................................................................................................................................ vi Map: Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India ................................................................................................................... vii Glossary and Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................... viii Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 – Rishikesh: The Yoga Capital of the World ...................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2 – Background Contextualizing a global phenomenon through historical development ..................... 12 2.1 Authentic, Ancient, and Original ............................................................................................................. 13 2.2 Delineating Yoga – Historical Overview ........................................................................................... 15 2.3 Modern Yoga ..................................................................................................................................... 23 2.4 Postural Yoga and Popular Yoga Systems ......................................................................................... 30 2.5 Concluding Remarks .......................................................................................................................... 32 Chapter 3 – Methods ........................................................................................................................................... 34 3.1 Planning the Fieldwork: Introductory Description ................................................................................... 34 3.2 Design, Recruitment, and Anonymity ...................................................................................................... 39 3.3 Collecting Data in the Field ...................................................................................................................... 48 Chapter 4 – Interviews and Analysis .................................................................................................................. 57 4.1 Background .............................................................................................................................................. 58 4.2 Defining Authentic Yoga ......................................................................................................................... 63 4.3 Modern and Postural Yoga Opposed to Authentic ................................................................................... 71 4.4 Other Texts and Influences ....................................................................................................................... 80 4.5 Business Aspects ...................................................................................................................................... 82 Chapter 5 – Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 91 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................................... 98 Appendix A ....................................................................................................................................................... 109 Appendix B ....................................................................................................................................................... 111 Appendix C ....................................................................................................................................................... 112 Diploma for Completed 200 hours TTC ........................................................................................................... 113 iii Preface and Acknowledgements This study is based on a four-month fieldwork in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand in North India, and I want to give my most sincere thanks to all those who contributed with their experiences, beliefs, and knowledge to the contents of this study. I appreciate the overwhelming hospitality, the openness, and the help that I found in the most unexpected places. To those with whom I conducted interviews; I hope you find that I have placed your narratives correctly. I must also thank all those who helped me when I was so sick in Rishikesh – I am forever grateful for all the care and compassion you showed me. I would also like to thank my supervisor Knut A. Jacobsen. Your seemingly bottomless knowledge on India’s ancient and contemporary traditions has been an inspiration for accuracy and expansion of perspective. Lastly, thanks are due to my fellow students and to all dear friends who have lifted both my spirits and the quality of the contents of this study. Point of Departure My first personal encounter with yoga was in a Presbyterian church in Boone, North Carolina. It was church-yoga in a small mountain town in the United States back in 2008. As will be demonstrated here, the meaning of the term yoga is deeply dependent on the context in which it is being used, and for me, for many years, yoga was synonymous to any kind of class found on a fitness center schedule. The apparent characteristics were improvement of cardio, flexibility, strength, coordination and balance, and as all these treats appealed to me I started practicing yoga regularly in the gym with an American yoga teacher named Catherine. She told me that she, and many others like her, had learned yoga by Americans in the US. through lessons on practices like asanas (body postures), anatomy, introduction to Vedic philosophy, and a brief introduction to Sanskrit terminology. I later practiced yoga in various places in the US. and Europe, where typical characteristics of a yoga classes are that the teachers often put their hands together in front of their chest for prayer before and after class, bow their head, and greet us with “Namaste” – a word deriving from Sanskrit, often used as a greeting in many North Indian languages and dialects. iv Many times, the teachers also invite the class to chant “om” together before or after class. “Om”2 is commonly used as a mantra in Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, and that in Hinduism it is considered one of the most important spiritual symbols referring to Atman (the self) and Brahman (the ultimate reality, the supreme principle). Classes always end with few minutes of lying down on your back with your eyes closed; called corpse pose, or savasana – also deriving from Sanskrit. Besides these customs, I didn’t experience yoga as any different form other fitness- classes. Slowly I came to learn that there was more to the concept of yoga than what I first had thought. When visiting India two years after I first had practiced yoga in the US., I learned things about yoga that were similar, yet sometimes contradictive to what Catherine had taught me. As she had seemed so knowledgeable and confident, I was confused about what my first Indian yoga teacher was trying to teach me and I felt he had got it all wrong. When I asked her, Catherine replied that there are many, different styles of asana practice and many styles of pranayama (breathing techniques). She encouraged me to try many styles and ask questions of my teachers. She said that there is not one right answer, but I have come to learn that many claim to have the right answer about what yoga is, or what it should and should not be. Notes on Diacritical Marks and Use of the Term Yoga As this is an ethnographical research project, I have, in agreement with my supervisor, not used diacritical marks besides from doing so in direct quotations. This was done to avoid predicaments between where these marks should be included and where we can assume that the given words have become so common in the English language that they are not needed – such as yogi, guru, chakra, etc. In places where I use Sanskrit terms, these are explained in English. When the term yoga appears with a capital letter, in a compound word, or in italicized letters below, it will be a direct reference to the publication or theory in question. Otherwise, when the word yoga appears by itself, it refers to no definition or system in particular, but implies context dependency. 2 Also spelled “aum”. v Sammendrag Dette prosjektet presenterer en analyse av hvordan grunnleggere av yoga skoler i Rishikesh definerer autentisk
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