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| Subject | Modern yoga |
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| Genre | Social history, Religion |
| Publisher | Continuum |
Publication date | 2004 |
A History of Modern Yoga is a 2004 book of social and religious history by the scholar of modern yoga Elizabeth De Michelis. It introduced a typology of modern yoga including modern postural yoga.
Yoga became widespread in the Western world in the late 20th century, but received little academic attention until the 21st century, broadly starting with Elizabeth De Michelis's book, based on her doctoral thesis. It encouraged other scholars, including De Michelis's pupil Mark Singleton in his 2010 book Yoga Body , to investigate the origins of the modern, global, yoga phenomenon. [1]
Elizabeth De Michelis is a scholar of religion specialising in the history of modern yoga. In 2006, she was instrumental in creating the Modern Yoga Research website. In 2016 she set up AMRAY (Association Monégasque pour la Recherche Académique sur le Yoga) to support yoga studies research, and helped to organise a conference on yoga at the Jagiellonian University, Krakòw. In 2018 she initiated the Journal of Yoga Studies and serves as its senior editor. [2]
The book is in two parts, first a "prehistory" of modern yoga, and then an account of what De Michelis means by modern yoga, distinguishing subtypes "Modern Psychosomatic Yoga" (as in Sivananda Yoga), "Modern Postural Yoga" (as in Iyengar yoga, Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, and many other schools) and "Modern Meditational Yoga" (as in Transcendental Meditation). [3]
The book is illustrated with 14 monochrome photographs including three of Keshubchandra Sen, four of Vivekananda and his book, and four from pages of B. K. S. Iyengar's books.
Harold Coward, reviewing the book in Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies , notes that De Michelis distinguishes between Patanjali's account of yoga in his classical Yoga Sutras and Vivekananda's personal reinterpretation of yoga for the modern world in his 1896 Raja Yoga. [4]
Elephant Journal notes that the well-researched book sets modern yoga in its cultural context, but that it "then leaps forward" [5] from Vivekananda at the end of the 19th century to Iyengar in the mid-20th. [5]
Suzanne Newcombe, in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, notes that the book started the academic focus on contemporary yoga with its definition and analysis of "modern yoga". [1]
Albertina Nugteren, reviewing the book in Aries, notes that it promises to provide a historical overview of the transformation of yoga when it crossed the cultural boundary from India to the West, but that "the story cannot be told in full, and [the] author has to make choices." [6] As a result, the book is more of a "preliminary overview", [6] but it does three useful things: it links modern yoga's birth to Vivekananda's 1896 Raja Yoga; it provides a workable typology of modern yoga; and it presents one example, Iyengar yoga, in detail. In Nugteren's view, modern postural yoga, "so important in the context of contemporary society's stress on fitness and a perfect body", [6] differs in emphasis from traditional yoga "in India and elsewhere" [6] but "is not divorced from" [6] its spiritual and ethical values. [6]
Lola Williamson, reviewing the book in Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review, calls it "a comprehensive overview" that traces modern yoga's foundations in 19th century esoteric systems from East and West and a mix of early 20th century ideas such as New thought, mesmerism, Neo-Vedanta and Raja Yoga, all the way to the globalisation of yoga. [7]
Swami Vivekananda, born Narendranath Datta, was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world, and the Father of modern Indian nationalism who is credited with raising interfaith awareness and bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion.
The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali is a collection of Sanskrit sutras (aphorisms) on the theory and practice of yoga – 195 sutras and 196 sutras. The Yoga Sutras was compiled in the early centuries CE, by the sage Patanjali in India who synthesized and organized knowledge about yoga from much older traditions.
Raja Yoga is a book by Swami Vivekananda about "Raja Yoga", his interpretation of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras adapted for a Western audience. The book was published in July 1896. It became an instant success and was highly influential in the Western understanding of yoga.
Swami Vivekananda was a Hindu monk from India. His teachings and philosophy are a reinterpretation and synthesis of various strands of Hindu thought, most notably classical yoga and (Advaita) Vedanta, with western esotericism and Universalism. He blended religion with nationalism, and applied this reinterpretation to various aspect's of education, faith, character building as well as social issues pertaining to India. His influence extended also to the west, and he was instrumental in introducing Yoga to the west.
Karma Yoga is a book of lectures by Swami Vivekananda, as transcribed by Joseph Josiah Goodwin. It was published in February 1896 in New York City. Swami Vivekananda delivered a number of lectures in his rented rooms at 228 W 39th Street in New York City from December 1895 to January 1896. In 1895, friends and supporters of Swami Vivekananda hired Goodwin, a professional stenographer, who transcribed some of the lectures which were later published as this book. Goodwin later became a follower of Vivekananda.
The Song of the Sannyasin is a poem of thirteen stanzas written by Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda composed the poem in July 1895 when he was delivering a series of lectures to a groups of selected disciples at the Thousand Island Park, New York. In the poem he defined the ideals of Sannyasa or monastic life.
Light on Yoga: Yoga Dipika is a 1966 book on the Iyengar Yoga style of modern yoga as exercise by B. K. S. Iyengar, first published in English. It describes more than 200 yoga postures or asanas, and is illustrated with some 600 monochrome photographs of Iyengar demonstrating these.
Modern yoga is a wide range of yoga practices with differing purposes, encompassing in its various forms yoga philosophy derived from the Vedas, physical postures derived from Hatha yoga, devotional and tantra-based practices, and Hindu nation-building approaches.
Yoga as exercise is a physical activity consisting mainly of postures, often connected by flowing sequences, sometimes accompanied by breathing exercises, and frequently ending with relaxation lying down or meditation. Yoga in this form has become familiar across the world, especially in the US and Europe. It is derived from medieval Haṭha yoga, which made use of similar postures, but it is generally simply called "yoga". Academics have given yoga as exercise a variety of names, including modern postural yoga and transnational anglophone yoga.
Mark Singleton is a scholar and practitioner of yoga. He studied yoga intensively in India, and became a qualified yoga teacher, until returning to England to study divinity and research the origins of modern postural yoga. His doctoral dissertation, which argued that posture-based forms of yoga represent a radical break from haṭha yoga tradition, with different goals, and an unprecedented emphasis on āsanas, was later published in book form as the widely-read Yoga Body.
Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice is a 2010 book on yoga as exercise by the yoga scholar Mark Singleton. It is based on his PhD thesis, and argues that the yoga known worldwide is, in large part, a radical break from hatha yoga tradition, with different goals, and an unprecedented emphasis on asanas, many of them acquired in the 20th century. By the 19th century, the book explains, asanas and their ascetic practitioners were despised, and the yoga that Vivekananda brought to the West in the 1890s was asana-free. Yet, from the 1920s, an asana-based yoga emerged, with an emphasis on its health benefits, and flowing sequences (vinyasas) adapted from the gymnastics of the physical culture movement. This was encouraged by Indian nationalism, with the desire to present an image of health and strength.
Joseph S. Alter is an American medical anthropologist known for his research into the modern practice of yoga as exercise, his 2004 book Yoga in Modern India, and the physical and medical culture of South Asia.
Selling Yoga : from Counterculture to Pop culture is a 2015 book on the modern practice of yoga as exercise by the scholar of religion, Andrea R. Jain.
The Path of Modern Yoga: The History of an Embodied Spiritual Practice is a 2016 history of the modern practice of postural yoga by the yoga scholar Elliott Goldberg. It focuses in detail on eleven pioneering figures of the transformation of yoga in the 20th century, including Yogendra, Kuvalayananda, Pant Pratinidhi, Krishnamacharya, B. K. S. Iyengar and Indra Devi.
The history of yoga in the United States begins in the 19th century, with the philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; Emerson's poem "Brahma" states the Hindu philosophy behind yoga. More widespread interest in yoga can be dated to the Hindu leader Vivekananda's visit from India in 1893; he presented yoga as a spiritual path without postures (asanas), very different from modern yoga as exercise. Two other early figures, however, the women's rights advocate Ida C. Craddock and the businessman and occultist Pierre Bernard, created their own interpretations of yoga, based on tantra and oriented to physical pleasure.
Positioning Yoga: balancing acts across cultures is a 2005 book of social anthropology by Sarah Strauss about the history of modern yoga as exercise, focusing on the example of Sivananda Yoga.
Yoga in Britain is the practice of yoga, including modern yoga as exercise, in Britain. Yoga, consisting mainly of postures (asanas), arrived in Britain early in the 20th century, though the first classes that contained asanas were described as exercise systems for women rather than yoga. Classes called yoga, again mainly for women, began in the 1960s. Yoga grew further with the help of television programmes and the arrival of major brands including Iyengar Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga.
The Story of Yoga: From Ancient India to the Modern West is a cultural history of yoga by Alistair Shearer, published by Hurst in 2020. It narrates how an ancient spiritual practice in India became a global method of exercise, often with no spiritual content, by way of diverse movements including Indian nationalism, the Theosophical Society, Swami Vivekananda's coming to the west, self-publicising western yogis, Indian muscle builders, Krishnamacharya's practice in Mysore, and pioneering teachers like B. K. S. Iyengar.
Yoga in Britain: stretching spirituality and educating Yogis is a 2019 book by Suzanne Newcombe on the history of modern yoga as exercise in Britain in the second half of the 20th century, especially in the period between 1945 and 1980. The book has been warmly received by scholars for its depth of study of the history and sociology of yoga in Britain, and its careful placing of its descriptions in specific contexts of time and place.
Props used in yoga include chairs, blocks, belts, mats, blankets, bolsters, and straps. They are used in postural yoga to assist with correct alignment in an asana, for ease in mindful yoga practice, to enable poses to be held for longer periods in Yin Yoga, where support may allow muscles to relax, and to enable people with movement restricted for any reason, such as stiffness, injury, or arthritis, to continue with their practice.
Media related to A History of Modern Yoga at Wikimedia CommonsYoga scholars | ||
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