Yoga

• 1. Introduction

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  Yoga, in the words of the scholar David Gordon White, has "a wider range of meanings than nearly any other word in the entire Sanskrit lexicon." That is a surprising claim about a word many people now link mainly to exercise. Yoga is a group of physical, mental and spiritual practices that began in ancient India with a philosophy of their own. Their aim was to master body and mind and so reach liberation, known as moksha. Hindu, Jain and Buddhist traditions all practised it, and modern versions are followed around the world. How could a single word stretch so far? Where did these practices come from, and who first gave them a name? What did the earliest teachers hope to gain from them? And how did a discipline of release from worldly attachment travel across the globe and change shape on the way?

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• 2. The Word and Its Meanings

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  The Sanskrit word योग grows from the root yuj, which means to attach, join, harness or yoke. English still carries a cousin of it, because "yoke" descends from the same Indo-European root. Scholars Jones and Ryan suggest the name probably arose because early practice was about restraining the senses, pulling them in like reins. Later the word also became a metaphor for linking a person to the divine.

  Mikel Burley traces the first use of the root to hymn 5.81.1 of the Rigveda, a dedication to the rising Sun-god. There it has been read as "yoke" or "control". Pāṇini, writing in the 4th century BCE, observed that the term could come from two roots: yujir yoga, meaning to yoke, and yuj samādhau, meaning to concentrate. Traditional commentators on the Yoga Sutras consider the second root correct. Vyasa, who wrote the first commentary on that text, says yoga means samadhi, or concentration.

  Old texts define the word in strikingly different ways. The Maitrayaniya Upanishad, from about the 4th century BCE, explains it as the joining of breath, the sacred syllable Om and the universe in its many forms. Haribhadra Suri, a Jain author of the 6th century CE, describes it as the coming together of correct knowledge, correct doctrine and correct conduct. The Yogabija, a hatha yoga work of the 14th century CE, calls it the union of all dualities, including the sun and the moon.

  Modern scholars have given up hoping for one tidy definition. Knut Jacobsen counts five principal meanings: a disciplined method for reaching a goal, techniques for controlling body and mind, the name of a school of philosophy, a family of traditions with prefixes such as hatha, mantra and laya, and the goal of the practice itself. James Mallinson prefers to keep the focus on meditation as a path to liberation. A person who follows the path with deep commitment is a yogi, and a woman may also be called a yogini.

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• 3. Roots in Dispute

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  Scholars agree on one point about the beginnings of yoga: they lie somewhere in ancient India. Beyond that, two broad theories compete. The linear model, mostly supported by Hindu scholars, holds that yoga has Vedic origins and later shaped Buddhism. The synthesis model, favoured in Western scholarship, holds that yoga blends indigenous non-Vedic practices with Vedic elements.

  Heinrich Zimmer defended the synthesis view. He saw yoga as part of a non-Vedic system of eastern India that also included Samkhya, Jainism and Buddhism. Richard Gombrich and Geoffrey Samuel later placed the śramaṇa movement in the non-Vedic eastern Ganges basin, in a region called Greater Magadha. Thomas McEvilley proposed a middle path, with a pre-Aryan prototype that the Vedic period refined. Gavin Flood warns that any clean split is too simple, since continuities link renunciation and Vedic Brahmanism.

  The Pashupati seal of the Indus Valley Civilisation fed one famous claim. Karel Werner, Thomas McEvilley and Mircea Eliade believed its central figure sits in the Mulabandhasana posture, which would place yoga's roots there. Newer scholarship rejects the idea. Geoffrey Samuel, Andrea R. Jain and Wendy Doniger call the identification speculative. They note that the figure's meaning will stay unknown until the Harappan script is deciphered.

  The Vedas, codified between about 1200 and 900 BCE, are the only texts preserved from the early Vedic period. They hint at yogic practice, mostly among ascetics outside or on the fringe of Brahmanism. Hymn 10.136 of the Rigveda, its youngest book, was codified around 1000 BCE and portrays an outsider to the Brahminic establishment, the long-haired muni. Werner wrote in 1977 that the Rigveda does not describe yoga at all. Yet he held that the indirect evidence leaves no doubt about "spiritually highly advanced wanderers."

  The Atharvaveda and the Brahmanas, composed around 1000-800 BCE, mention techniques for controlling the breath and the vital energies. Whicher argues that the Vedic rishis practised a proto-yoga of sacrificial mysticism, with concentration, ascetic effort called tapas, and breath control during the recitation of hymns. Jacobsen adds that the austerities of Vedic priests preparing for a sacrifice may be precursors too. In his view the muni of the Rigveda and the vratyas of the Atharvaveda probably contributed even more. The Rigveda also holds the Nasadiya Sukta, which suggests that an early contemplative tradition existed among the Brahmins.

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• 4. Wanderers and Witnesses

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  The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, from around 900 BCE, contains one of the earliest references to meditation. Its hymn 1.5.23 mentions pranayama, the focus on breath. The Chandogya Upanishad, dated around 800-700 BCE, describes five vital energies and, in hymn 8.15, pratyahara, the withdrawal of the senses. The Taittiriya Upanishad of the 6th century BCE defines yoga as mastery of body and senses. The Katha Upanishad then gives the first known use of the word in its modern sense: steady control of the senses that, with the stilling of mental activity, leads to a supreme state. White calls it the earliest extant systematic account of yoga. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad describes a posture with the body upright, the breath restrained and the mind focused, preferably in a cave.

  Geoffrey Samuel says the best evidence to date points to the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, during India's second urbanisation. In his account, yogic practices grew in the same ascetic circles as the śramaṇa movements of Buddhists, Jainas and Ajivikas. Mallinson and Singleton add that these groups were the first to use mind-body techniques, known as dhyāna and tapas, in pursuit of freedom from rebirth.

  The Pāli Canon shows the Buddha borrowing from the śramaṇa tradition. In three passages he describes pressing the tongue against the palate, to control either hunger or the mind. Elsewhere he sits with a heel pressed against the perineum, a posture similar to some modern ones meant to evoke Kundalini. The Satipatthana Sutta and the Anapanasati Sutta treat mindfulness and breathing. Werner holds that only with Buddhism, as set out in the Pali Canon, can we speak of a systematic school of yoga practice preserved in full. Jain meditation is thought to have come earlier, and the earliest yoga practices may belong to the Jains around 900 BCE. Because Jain sources are later than Buddhist ones, the two are hard to separate. Most other yoga systems of the age, hinted at in the Upanishads, have been lost.

  When Alexander the Great reached India in the 4th century BCE, he brought Greek academics who wrote about its geography and customs. One was Onesicritus, later quoted in Book 15 of Strabo's Geography. He describes yogis who were aloof and held "different postures - standing or sitting or lying naked - and motionless." His colleague Calanus was first refused an audience, then invited because he came from a "king curious of wisdom and philosophy." The yogis told them that life's best doctrines "rid the spirit of not only pain, but also pleasure" and that "there is no shame in life on frugal fare." Charles Lanman saw in such ideas possible roots of the calm and mindfulness found later in Patanjali and Buddhaghosa.

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• 5. Epic and Sutra

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  Deep in the Shanti Parva, the twelfth book of the Mahabharata, a section called the Mokshadharma describes nirodhayoga, the yoga of cessation. This early form asks the practitioner to withdraw step by step from thoughts and sensations until the self, purusha, is realised. The epic treats Samkhya and yoga as nearly identical and defines the purpose of yoga as uniting the individual ātman with the universal Brahman.

  The Bhagavad Gita, which sits inside the Mahabharata, has 18 chapters and 700 verses, and each chapter is named for a form of yoga. Mallinson and Singleton say the Gita takes yoga from the world of renunciates and teaches that it fits ordinary life. Only the fruits of action must be given up. It introduces three major paths: karma yoga for action, bhakti yoga for devotion and jnana yoga for knowledge. Some scholars assign the first six chapters, 280 verses, to karma yoga, the middle six, 209 verses, to bhakti yoga, and the last six, 211 verses, to jnana yoga. In verse 2.48 Krishna's teaching asks for equal-mindedness in success and failure, "Such equanimity is called Yoga." In verse 2.50 it says "Yoga is skill in action."

  The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali date to the early centuries of the Common Era. The text's original name may have been the Pātañjalayogaśāstra-sāṃkhya-pravacana, placed around 325-425 CE. Its base is Samkhya, but it accepts a personal god. Max Müller wrote that the two philosophies were popularly distinguished as "Samkhya with and Samkhya without a Lord." The work has four chapters, called padas, with 51, 55, 56 and 34 sutras. They cover absorption, practice, supernatural abilities and absolute freedom. Sutra 1.2 offers the famous definition: "Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of mind."

  Sutra 2.29 sets out eight limbs. The first two are the five abstentions, the yamas, which include non-violence and truthfulness, and the five observances, the niyamas, which include purity and contentment. Next come asana, meaning "seat", then pranayama, breath exercises, and pratyahara, the withdrawal of the senses from outside objects. The last three are dharana, fixing attention on one object, dhyana, intense contemplation, and samadhi, the merging of consciousness with the object of meditation. Larson sees the text as a synthesis of Samkhya, Abhidharma Buddhism and the ascetic tradition of meditation. Since the 12th century, yoga has counted as one of the six orthodox philosophical schools of Hinduism.

  Other traditions were building their own systems during the same centuries. The Jain Tattvarthasutra defines yoga as the sum of all activities of mind, speech and body. The Buddhist Yogācāra movement was systematised at the height of the Gupta period by Asanga and Vasubandhu, and its Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra was translated into Tibetan and Chinese. The Yoga Yajnavalkya, cast as a dialogue between the sage Yajnavalkya and the philosopher Gargi Vachaknavi, names eight asanas, among them Swastika, Padma and Mayura. Later hatha yoga texts, including the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, borrowed from it.

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• 6. Medieval Turns

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  The Alvars of South India began the Bhakti movement between the 6th and 9th centuries, and it spread across India by the 12th to 15th centuries. It stressed a personal god, and Shaiva and Vaishnava traditions folded the meditative exercises of the Yoga Sutras into devotion. The Bhagavata Purana teaches viraha bhakti, a yoga of separation that concentrates on Krishna.

  Adi Shankara, in the 8th century, wrote commentaries on jnana yoga within Advaita Vedanta. There, yoga is a withdrawal from the particular toward the universal, ending in contemplation of oneself as consciousness. The Yoga Vasistha, which teaches seven stages of practice through short stories and anecdotes, was among the most popular Hindu yoga texts before the 12th century.

  Tantra had begun to arise in India by the 5th century CE. By about the 10th century its practices appeared in nearly complete form in Buddhist and Hindu texts. Tantric yoga developed elaborate visualisations, including meditation on the body as a small copy of the cosmos. It used mantras, breath control and teachings about the nadis, the chakras and Kundalini. Compilation of Vajrayana Buddhist texts started in the 7th century, and Tibetan translations were finished the following century. The Nyingma school practises yantra yoga, which combines breath work and meditation.

  The first references to hatha yoga appear in Buddhist works of the 8th century. By the turn of the first millennium it had emerged from tantra. It joined elements of Patanjali with postures and breathing exercises, and its asanas grew into the full-body postures people know today. Its main texts include the Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Svātmārāma in the 15th century and the Gheranda Samhita by Gheranda in the late 17th century.

  In the 15th and 16th centuries, yogic groups became prominent in Punjab just as Sikhism was beginning. Guru Nanak recorded dialogues with the Jogis, a Hindu community that practised yoga. He rejected the austerities and rituals of hatha yoga and urged sahaja yoga or nama yoga instead. As the Guru Granth Sahib records his words, "You must discipline your mind."

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• 7. Faith and Suspicion

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  Al-Biruni, a Persian scholar of the early 11th century, lived among Hindus in India for 16 years and, with their help, translated several Sanskrit works. One was Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. His version kept many core themes but restated some sutras and commentaries to suit monotheistic Islamic theology. It reached Persia and the Arabian Peninsula by about 1050. In the 16th century the hatha yoga text Amritakunda was translated into Arabic and Persian.

  Mainstream Sunni and Shia Islam did not accept yoga, though minority groups did. Sufis, particularly in South Asia, adopted Indian postures and breath control. Muhammad Ghawth, a 16th-century Shattari Sufi who translated a yoga text, was criticised for his interest and persecuted for his Sufi beliefs.

  Modern rulings have been sharper. Egypt's Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa issued a fatwa against yoga in 2004, and Islamic clerics in Singapore did so earlier. In 2008 Malaysia's top Islamic body issued a legally enforceable fatwa calling yoga haram. Malaysian Muslims who had practised for years called it insulting, and the prime minister clarified that exercise was allowed but chanting religious mantras was not. Indonesia's Ulema Council followed in 2009, banning chanting and mantras but permitting yoga purely as exercise.

  Turkey's religious affairs head, Ali Bardakoğlu, said in May 2009 that yoga and reiki were commercial ventures that could lead to extremism. Iran's yoga association reported about 200 centres in May 2014, a quarter of them in Tehran, though conservatives objected. Nouf Marwaai brought yoga to Saudi Arabia in 2017 and helped make it legal, despite threats from her community, which calls it un-Islamic.

  In Christianity, some believers keep the physical side of yoga and pair it with prayer. They rename poses in English and drop Hindu mantras and philosophy, which has drawn charges of cultural appropriation from various Hindu groups. The Vatican issued documents in 1989 and 2003, the latter a 90-page handbook, that were mostly critical of Eastern and New Age practices. It warned that concentrating on the body "can degenerate into a cult of the body." The same text allowed that prayer might be enriched by methods from other cultures, so long as they fit Christian beliefs about ultimate reality.

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• 8. Yoga Reaches the West

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  In 1851 N. C. Paul published his Treatise on Yoga Philosophy, a sign that educated Western readers were noticing Indian thought. Swami Vivekananda, the first Hindu teacher to promote yoga to Western audiences, toured Europe and the United States in the 1890s. He found ground prepared by the New England Transcendentalists, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, and by Theosophists such as Helena Blavatsky. His version of yoga had no asanas. He also introduced the Yoga Sutras to the West, though they became prominent only after hatha yoga succeeded in the 20th century.

  In 1925 Paramahansa Yogananda came from India and founded a Kriya Yoga school in Los Angeles, becoming one of the first Indian yoga teachers to settle in America. Mircea Eliade later brought tantric yoga into Western view with his book Yoga: Immortality and Freedom.

  The yoga of Western studios is largely a 20th-century blend of hatha yoga with Western physical culture and women's harmonial gymnastics. Shri Yogendra and Swami Kuvalayananda pioneered it. Before 1900, hatha yoga had few standing poses. The Rajah of Aundh, Bhawanrao Shrinivasrao Pant Pratinidhi, pioneered the Sun Salutation in the 1920s. Krishnamacharya, working in Mysore from the 1930s to the 1950s, added many standing poses borrowed from gymnastics.

  His students shaped the field. Pattabhi Jois created ashtanga vinyasa yoga, which led to Power Yoga. B. K. S. Iyengar founded Iyengar Yoga and systematised the asanas in his 1966 book Light on Yoga. Indra Devi taught yoga to Hollywood actors, and Krishnamacharya's son T. K. V. Desikachar founded the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandalam in Chennai. Bikram Choudhury and Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh also founded schools. The Joga Pradipika illustrated 84 asanas in 1830. Light on Yoga showed about 200, and Dharma Mittra performed over 900 by 1984.

  The United Nations General Assembly named the 21st of June the International Day of Yoga, and it has been celebrated since 2015. On the 1st of December 2016 UNESCO listed yoga as an intangible cultural heritage. Researchers have also studied its health effects. Practice appears beneficial for low back pain and stress, and after three months it can improve function and pain in chronic low back pain. A 2015 systematic review found that yoga may ease symptoms of prenatal depression. For back pain, though, there is no evidence that it beats other back-pain exercises.

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