Contributions To Modern Yoga

Three main contributions which we will look at over the course of this semester:

1. Hindu Nationalism arising out of British Colonial Rule
2. The Physical Culture Movement
3. Orientalism: The West's love affair with all things Eastern

How did Yoga transform in this transition from Eastern to Western?

1.  Counter-Culture to Pop Culture
2.  Male practice to Female Practice
3.  Meditational Philosophy to Motivational Exercise 

 Why is this important?

• Hindu Nationalist Philosophy: develops as a result of the independence movement which frees India from British colonial rule. 
• In an effort to reestablish a sense of pride and a powerful identity, India looks to its cultural history. 
• Often reaffirms Orientalist philosophies that see Eastern cultures as "spiritually superior"
• India identifies unique cultural/scientific arts that represent its cultural superiority
• Yoga, Bodybuilding, wresting, Theater, Dance, Ayurveda
• Primacy of postural yoga (asana) is a new phenomenon which does not appear to have any antiquity including the medieval practice of Tantra. (Hatha Yoga Pradipika)
• Beginnings- Vivekenanda (1890s), was a presentation of yoga as a PHILOSOPHY (specifically denying the efficacy of the physical practice of yoga)
• Before this yoga practice was associated with the hatha yogis of the Nath lineage, but employed more loosely to ascetics, magicians & street performers & associated with backwardness and superstition
• Look here at WHY asana was initally excluded from these practices and HOW it was eventually reclaimed.
• Physical practice is in full swing with BKS Iyengar in the 1950s and onward.
• The influence of the international PHYSICAL CULTURE MOVEMENT (19^th century)
• Quasi-religious movements of PC went through Europe to India where they were infiltrated with popular new forms of Indian nationalist Hinduism
• includes the Eugenics movement associated with ultra-nationalism of the Nazi Party
• Movements found their way from India to America
• Now a merging of these two movements
• Orientalism
• 19^th century European scholars who studied the texts & traditions of Asia
• Prevalent attitudes about yoga among Orientalists saw it as an example of the spiritual superiority of the East.