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Yoga Body
Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice is a 2010 book on the origins of modern posture practice 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.
The book attracted wide interest, both among scholars and among yoga teachers and practitioners. Its argument has largely been accepted by scholars, and it has encouraged further research into the nature of modern yoga and its origins.
The book was attacked from two sides: saffronising Hindu nationalists wanting to reclaim yoga as a single thing, distinctively Indian; and modern global yoga marketing wanting to wrap its product "in the mantle of antiquity" to maximise sales.
Yoga Body was published by Oxford University Press in paperback in 2010. A Serbian translation came out in 2015 with a new preface.
The author, Mark Singleton, sets out the book's purpose as follows:
The book targets an essential, but hitherto largely ignored, aspect of yoga's development. Studies of modern yoga have tended to elide the passage from Vivekananda's āsana-free manifestors of yoga in the mid-1890s to the well-known posture-oriented forms that began to emerge in the 1920s. The two main studies in this area to date, by Elizabeth De Michelis and Joseph Alter, have focused on both these moments in the history of transnational yoga, but they have not offered a good explanation of why āsana was initially excluded and the ways in which it was eventually reclaimed.
Yoga Body begins by describing traditional yoga in India, including hatha yoga. It then covers the negative image of fakirs and yogins in the European mind in the period up to the 19th century, leading to the āsana-free yoga that Vivekananda adapted and presented to the West. Next it explores in detail the impact of the international physical culture movement on India in the early 20th century, at a time of rising Indian nationalism, in reaction to British colonialism. It explores, too, the relationship of yoga and Harmonial Gymnastics and esoteric dance. The book then looks at the importance of visual reproduction of images of yoga, through halftone engraving and photography, on the revival of āsana practice. Finally, it examines in detail how Krishnamacharya developed a new approach to āsana practice, with flowing movements (vinyasas), in his Mysore yogashala. Singleton notes that "yoga" has become almost synonymous with the practice of āsanas, something not true of any pre-modern yoga.
The book is illustrated with numerous monochrome photographs of yoga pioneers, asanas, and historic images which set modern yoga in its context. There are images of Indian fakirs, Western contortionists, bodybuilders in the physical culture tradition, and pioneers of modern asana-based yoga such as Krishnamacharya and B. K. S. Iyengar.
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Yoga Body
Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice is a 2010 book on the origins of modern posture practice 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.
The book attracted wide interest, both among scholars and among yoga teachers and practitioners. Its argument has largely been accepted by scholars, and it has encouraged further research into the nature of modern yoga and its origins.
The book was attacked from two sides: saffronising Hindu nationalists wanting to reclaim yoga as a single thing, distinctively Indian; and modern global yoga marketing wanting to wrap its product "in the mantle of antiquity" to maximise sales.
Yoga Body was published by Oxford University Press in paperback in 2010. A Serbian translation came out in 2015 with a new preface.
The author, Mark Singleton, sets out the book's purpose as follows:
The book targets an essential, but hitherto largely ignored, aspect of yoga's development. Studies of modern yoga have tended to elide the passage from Vivekananda's āsana-free manifestors of yoga in the mid-1890s to the well-known posture-oriented forms that began to emerge in the 1920s. The two main studies in this area to date, by Elizabeth De Michelis and Joseph Alter, have focused on both these moments in the history of transnational yoga, but they have not offered a good explanation of why āsana was initially excluded and the ways in which it was eventually reclaimed.
Yoga Body begins by describing traditional yoga in India, including hatha yoga. It then covers the negative image of fakirs and yogins in the European mind in the period up to the 19th century, leading to the āsana-free yoga that Vivekananda adapted and presented to the West. Next it explores in detail the impact of the international physical culture movement on India in the early 20th century, at a time of rising Indian nationalism, in reaction to British colonialism. It explores, too, the relationship of yoga and Harmonial Gymnastics and esoteric dance. The book then looks at the importance of visual reproduction of images of yoga, through halftone engraving and photography, on the revival of āsana practice. Finally, it examines in detail how Krishnamacharya developed a new approach to āsana practice, with flowing movements (vinyasas), in his Mysore yogashala. Singleton notes that "yoga" has become almost synonymous with the practice of āsanas, something not true of any pre-modern yoga.
The book is illustrated with numerous monochrome photographs of yoga pioneers, asanas, and historic images which set modern yoga in its context. There are images of Indian fakirs, Western contortionists, bodybuilders in the physical culture tradition, and pioneers of modern asana-based yoga such as Krishnamacharya and B. K. S. Iyengar.