Fakirs, Yogins & Europeans (Chapter2)
---early representations of yogins by European visitors to India & their status in European scholarship (Orientalism of the late 19th century)
- Most likely to be defined by Indian and European critics with black magic, perverse sexuality, alimentary impurity.
- Admired rational, philosophical & contemplative aspects of yoga while condemning the obnoxious behavior to and queer ascetic practices.
- Exclusion of hatha yoga in the initial stages of the popular yoga revival
- Early European Encounters
- Ancient Greeks ; gymnosophists
- European Colonists: conflate the hatha yogin with Mohammedan Fakir (Sufi) 17th century-on (enticing ethnographic accounts of weird and painful austerities)
- Social group of itinerant renouncers known for disreputable behavior, mendicancy and outlandish austerities. (SANNYASI)- regarded with hostility and suspicion
- Compared to occultists in Europe (Bernier-France)
- Naked, covered in ashes with long matted hair, lomg twisted nails, sitting under trees engaging in painful austerities “vegetative rather than rational beings…who are seduced by a life of lazy vagrancy by their own vanity” (318)
- John Ovington: possessed by the delusions of Satan. Compares them to the Bohemians of France
- John fryer: “Vagabonds and pests of the nation they live in”
- Dissolute, licentious, profane
- Fighting Yogis & Bhakti Ascendency
- Yogis were difficult people for colonial powers to control
- 15-19th centuries there were organized bands of militarized yogis controlling trade routes across northern India.- challenged political hegemony of the east India Trading Company.
- Threat to British economic interests
- Saiva (Shavist) vs Vaisnava (Vaishavist) Yoga practice
- British favored Vaisnava who as mercantile & commercial elites preferred a more devotional (denominational) practice. Against wandering Saiva yogis.
- Offense to be naked or carry a weapon
- Large numbers forced into yoga showmanship (not traders anymore)
- Despised rather than honored by orthodox Hindus: casteless Yogin was the embodiment of ritual impurity, as well as an emblem of savagery and backwardness from which colonial Hindus sought to dissociate themselves.- pariah of colonial India.
- Akharas (militant yogis) had a physical regiment which prepared them for their labor which included postures along with combat techniques.—why modern postures are different than the ones identified in traditional hatha yoga texts (warrior postures, etc.???)
- 19th century Scholarship
- During the decade of Vivekananda, it is not uncommon to see European scholarship characterizing yogis as dangerous, tricksters vagabonds in contrast to “true” practitioners of yoga (devotional).
- Neither legitimate representatives of Hinduism or having a serious worldview or philosophy. Nor were their practices valid in themselves.
- Hatha yoga practice holds little interest for these scholars
- Max Mueller “ degeneration from an earlier time when contemplative traditions dominated-historical process or corruption
- Admiration of Samkhya & Vedanta
- Narratives of practical yoga as symptoms of religious degeneration (Hopkins)
- Max Webber: “irrational mortification, the hatha yoga of pure magical asceticism” is superceded by Brahmanical (vaisnava) classical holy technique which he compares to contemplative Christianity.
- Will eventually be restored to its pristine glory (protestant narrative)
- Sacred Book of the Hinus (9 volumes): Hinduism by & for Hindus.(Basu)
- Published in English
- Reiterated European views
- Defined modern “Hindusim”
- Vasu’s translations of texts into English determined which would be included in the hatha yoga cannon and mediated the discussion of these texts with European scholars and modern Hindusim of Basu.
- Vasu & the Hatha Yogin
- 1895 edition identifies himself as a “humble servant:” of his guru who under scientific supervision from the maharaja buried himself alive for 40 days (and other feats)
- By 1915 editions of GHS & SS, Vasu condemns “those hideous specimens of humanity who parade through our streets bedaubed with dirt and ash-frightening the children and extorting money from timid and good natured folk.”…”In India, this grotesque beggar-figure is what many may understand by the word Yoga in spite of the apparent fact that all true yogis renounce any fraternity with these”
- Changes yoga/yogi from what it does mean in popular parlance, to what it should mean.
- The modern yogi must be scientific, whereas the hatha yogi is not.
- These practices fall outside the boundaries of wholesome practice or “sattvic sadhana”.
- Omits some practices deemed grotesque from his translations.
- Appropriated from yogin and given to modern scientists and medical doctors. Yogis are rational & scientific.
- Basu, Dayananda, Paul: the Roots of Medical Hatha Yoga
- Dissection by these writers of hatha yoga as scientific and medical phenomenon. Although Tantrics did not see these things as “real” and visible. So much as products of our imagination which are born in sadhana.
Chapter 3 Singleton: Popular Portrayals of the Yogin
The Performing Yogi
· Nagas-ascetics as both sacred, mystical & ecstatic dimensions of experience. Fulfilled image that the British had of them during the 19th century. At the same time. Backward, uncivilized & dangerous.
· Yogi Bava Lachman Dass
o 1897: Performed 48 postures as part of a sideshow at the London Aquarium.
o Called “contortions for cash” (The Strand)
o Abound in India, a ruse that fools Indians, but not Savvy Londoners
o Postural contortion for entertainment-not unknown in Europe an Americas. Part of the larger culture which made freak shows popular and later circus & other travelling sideshows.
· “Posture Master” traditionally found in the royal courts.
o Similarities with advanced postures in yoga…coincidence or based on the limitations of the human body?
o India’s addition to the menagerie of European sideshows.-VULGAR
o See photos comparing “anatomy of a contortionist” to Iyengar photos in LOY
· Yogi-Fakir as Magician
o Emphasize the wondrous powers which can be acquired through yoga.
o Fortune teller, sorcerers, miracle workers…attached to the occult
o Popular British cultural icons like Aleister Crowley in his “Eight Lectures on Yoga” marries the occult to yoga in the popular imagination
§ Merged tantric yoga with western esoteric sexual practices based on speculation and Orientalist biases.
§ Hatha Yoga practice leads to the acquisition of Siddhis. & is therefore NOT referenced when physical practice of asana becomes popular.
o Well into the 20th century popular literature supports this association of the yogi/fakir with the magician & occultist.
o VICTOR DANE (the only white yogi 1933): The Naked Ascetic, documents great feats of magic (bullet proof yogis, poison drinking, mesmeric powers. Also an ardent physical culturalist. Authored Modern Fitness (1934) and published a monthly, Sporting Arena magazine. Also show great concern for the physical perfection of the body.
o EDMOND DEMAITRE: (1936-semischolarly ethnography) Berates the unseemly behavior and backward religious rites of Saiva yogis he documents while contrasting them to one favorable example of a Vivekananda quoting Bhakti yogi in a temple in Benares.
§ Indians distanced themselves from these practices for which Europeans had such a lurid fascination in order to be taken seriously by the colonial powers.
§ Yoga has been trying to uncouple itself from these negative associations ever since Vivekananda
· Vivekananda & Anti-Hatha Sentiment
o Raja Yoga (1896) Vivekananda became the public face of the Yoga renaissance, and became instrumental in defining MODERN YOGA.
o Rejects in total physical practice of hatha yoga (practices are too difficult to learn and do not lead to much spiritual growth)
o Makes men live longer and gives them superior health. Only tangential to spiritual growth-spiritual attainment is superior.
o Raja yoga vs hatha yoga…impediment and distraction to the real work of mind and spirit
o (Bharati) argues that only since the turn of the century has there been a clear distinction between meditative & physical practice (pejorated)
o Try to reverse the image of yoga and its associations with magic & occultism-also helped to define yoga s RELIGION…since some things “count” as religion in the western mind and others (magic) do not.
o Used Matthew’s Gospel AGAINST hatha yoga practice
· Vivekananda & Max Muller
o Biography of Ramakrishna
§ Argues that hatha yoga has tarnished the West’s idea about Indian religion and should be dispelled.
§ “…[certain type of Indian ascetic and the] tortures which some of them, who hardly deserve to be called Samnyasins, for they are not much better that jugglers or hatha yogins, inflict on themselves, the ascetic methods by which they try to subdue and annihilate their passions, and bring themselves to a state of extreme nervous exhaltation accompanied by trances or fainting fits of long duration.” (Muller 1898)
§ Insisted on the philosophical sophistication of Indian thought and therefore acted as Vivekananda’s ally. Unconpromising rejection of the “sin & darkness” of hatha yogis as well.
§ He felt yoga had degenerated in modern times into its most practical and degenerate forms. (didn’t like Vivekanada either and was a critic of the Chicago Parliament of Religions in 1898)
· Fakirs Avenue: Blavatsky & Hatha Yoga
o Theosophical constructions of yoga were extremely influential in shaping attitudes about modern yoga.
o Distain & distrust of hatha yoga is frequent in her writings & function as foils for theosophical renditions of yoga
o “common ignorant sorcerer, the embodiment of a triply distilled selfishness, who converses with the devil, and in whom ascetic practices are “une maladie hereditaire”…are strongly urged to avoid attempting any of these hatha yoga practices lest they succumb to the inevitable demise that had already befallen foolhardy disciples of her acquaintance.
· Anti-Hatha Yoga Propaganda in Early Yoga primers
o Associated with mercenary yogi terror & fakirs
o Stories abound of hatha yogis who dupe the female European & American public and return home to their “natural state” with stories about the weakness of the American female.
o Later became sanitized as a health tool and methodological precursor to the real work of the mind.
