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47-679: The scholar Elizabeth de Michelis proposed a 4-part typology of modern yoga in 2004, separating modern psychosomatic, denominational, postural , and meditational yogas. Other scholars have noted that her work stimulated research into the history, sociology , and anthropology of modern yoga, but have not all accepted her typology. They have variously emphasised modern yoga's international nature with its intercultural exchanges; its variety of beliefs and practices; its degree of continuity with older traditions, such as ancient Indian philosophy and medieval Hatha yoga; its relationship to Hinduism; its claims to provide health and fitness; and its tensions between

94-646: A continuity? And in the plethora of experiments, adaptations, and innovations that make up the field of transnational yoga today, should we be thinking of all these manifestations as belonging to Modern Yoga in any typological sense? Modern yoga is derived in part from Haṭha yoga (one aspect of traditional yoga), with innovative practices that have taken the Indian heritage, experimented with techniques from non-Indic cultures, and radically evolved it into local forms worldwide. The scholar of religion Andrea Jain calls modern yoga "a variety of systems that developed as early as

141-476: A few yogis' feathers". The yoga teacher Jill Miller, reviewing the book on Gaiam , observes that the book agreed with the intuition that many āsanas were similar to those in martial arts , and that authenticity in yoga was not what it seemed. The author Matthew Remski , writing in Yoga International , called the publication "a watershed moment in the history of global asana culture." He agrees that

188-409: A half hours early each morning and teaching or taking classes in the evenings, but focused his days on studying the history and philosophy of yoga. His studies caused him what he referred to as "something like a crisis of faith", namely, the discovery that modern āsana -based yoga had much more recent origins than was claimed for it. Returning to England, he attended Cambridge University , working as

235-561: 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. Mark Singleton (yoga scholar) 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

282-797: 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 . Singleton was a senior research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London , working on the European Research Council-funded Hatha Yoga Project. As an editor of scholarly texts and essays on yoga, his works have been widely praised and well received by scholars. Gurus of Modern Yoga and Roots of Yoga are both considered important contributions to

329-493: A radical reworking of the haṭha yoga tradition in both content (dropping most haṭha practices other than āsanas ) and purpose (exercise rather than mokṣa , spiritual liberation), and that the incorporation of many standing āsanas into popular yoga reflects the rise of systems of modern physical culture (such as Niels Bukh 's Primitive Gymnastics ) widespread in India during the 20th century. He noted that āsanas were brought to

376-476: A research assistant at the Dharam Hinduja Institute of Indic Research from 2002 to 2003, and earning his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in divinity in 2007 under the supervision of Elizabeth De Michelis . He continued his study of Sanskrit to enable him to access medieval haṭha yoga texts. From 2006 to 2013 he taught at St John's College, Santa Fe . Meanwhile, he served as consultant for

423-430: A rigorous anthropological understanding that acknowledges embodied experience." In Newcombe's view, "rigorous academic reflection" on modern yoga is an "interesting" development, making the book a valuable overview of the field. In 2010 Singleton published a revised version of his PhD thesis on yoga as exercise , Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice ; it argues that certain modern forms of yoga represent

470-495: A scholar of modern yoga, especially in Britain , writes that modern yoga's development included "a long history of transnational intercultural exchange", including between India and countries in the western world, whether or not it is an "outgrowth of Neo-Hinduism". It is seemingly torn between being a secular physical fitness activity sometimes called "hatha yoga" (not the similarly named the medieval practice of Haṭha yoga ), and

517-411: A scholar of yoga's history and practices, states that De Michelis's typology provides categories useful as a way into the study of yoga in the modern age, but that it is not a "good starting point for history insofar as it subsumes detail, variation, and exception". Singleton does not subscribe to De Michelis's interpretative framework, instead considering "modern yoga" to be a descriptive name for "yoga in

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564-418: A single thing, distinctively Indian; and modern global yoga marketing wanting to wrap its product "in the mantle of antiquity" to maximise sales. In 2011, Mallinson pointed out that it had become a catalyst in arguments over "who owns yoga", despite the deep antisectarianism in the medieval texts; and that Yoga Body reiterated that yoga was always meant to be "a practical method of achieving liberation that

611-454: A spiritual practice with historical roots in India. She noted that the historical , sociological , and anthropological aspects of modern yoga were starting to be researched. The scholar of religion Anya Foxen writes that "modern postural yoga", especially in America , was created through a complicated process involving both cultural exchange and syncretism of disparate approaches. Among

658-654: 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", differs in emphasis from traditional yoga "in India and elsewhere" but "is not divorced from" its spiritual and ethical values. 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

705-575: 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

752-610: Is a collection of mostly original translations of over one hundred yoga texts, mainly from Sanskrit but with texts from The sources were written in Sanskrit , Tibetan , Arabic , Persian , Bengali , Tamil , Pali , Kashmiri , Old Marathi , Avadhi , and Braj Bhasha , the last two being early forms of Hindi . Its eleven themed chapters cover many of the traditional practices of yoga (such as āsana , prāṇāyāma , mudrā , meditation , and mantra ) as well as essential contexts for practising yoga (such as preliminaries to yoga practice,

799-607: Is continued in post-lineage yoga , which is practised outside any major school or guru 's lineage. The author and yoga teacher Matthew Remski writes that Norman Sjoman considered modern yoga to have been influenced by South Indian wrestling exercises; Joseph Alter found it torn between esoteric and scientific; Mark Singleton discovered a collision of Western physical culture with Indian spirituality; while Elliott Goldberg depicted "a modern spirituality, written through richly realized characters" including Krishnamacharya , Sivananda , Indra Devi , and Iyengar. Suzanne Newcombe ,

846-468: 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

893-444: Is traditionally believed to be the ur-system of modern postural yoga, equating them does not account for the historical sources". According to her, asanas "only became prominent in modern yoga in the early twentieth century as a result of the dialogical exchanges between Indian reformers and nationalists and Americans and Europeans interested in health and fitness". In short, Jain writes, "modern yoga systems ... bear little resemblance to

940-479: The yogic body , siddhi or special powers, and mokṣa , liberation). The book, published in 2017, has a main introduction summarizing the history of yoga and yoga scholarship, while each chapter has its own shorter contextual introduction and notes. Scholars reviewing Roots of Yoga universally welcomed the wealth of sources, from ancient times to the 19th century, made available for the first time in English in

987-830: The Jagiellonian University , Krakòw. In 2018 she initiated the Journal of Yoga Studies and serves as its senior editor. 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 ). The book

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1034-610: The Smithsonian exhibition Yoga: The Art of Transformation , contributing also to the exhibition catalogue. After leaving the St John's College faculty, he went on to serve under James Mallinson , a renowned indologist , as a senior research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) from 2015 to 2020. At SOAS, he worked on the European Research Council-funded Hatha Yoga Project, researching and translating yoga practice texts from Sanskrit and other languages. At

1081-524: The new thought movement, again explicitly rejecting the practice of asanas and hatha yoga. A few decades later, a very different form of yoga, the prevailing yoga as exercise , was created by Yogendra , Kuvalayananda , and Krishnamacharya , starting in the 1920s. It was predominantly physical, consisting mainly or entirely of asanas , postures derived from those of hatha yoga, but with a contribution from western gymnastics ( Niels Bukh 's 1924 Primary Gymnastics ). They advocated this form of exercise under

1128-595: The tantra -based Kripalu Yoga of Swami Kripalvananda and the Siddha Yoga of Muktananda ; the Bhaktiyoga of Svaminarayana , as of Sathya Sai Baba ; the "inner technology" of Jaggi Vasudev 's Isha Yoga and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar 's "Art of Living"; and finally the Hindu nation-building approaches of Eknath Ranade and of Swami Ramdev . Through the work of these gurus, yoga has been widely disseminated across

1175-576: The 19th century as a [response to] capitalist production, colonial and industrial endeavors, global developments in areas ranging from metaphysics to fitness, and modern ideas and values." In contemporary practice, modern yoga is prescribed as a part of self-development and is believed to provide "increased beauty, strength, and flexibility as well as decreased stress". Modern yoga is variously viewed through "cultural prisms" including New Age religion, psychology , sports science , medicine , photography , and fashion . Jain states that although "hatha yoga

1222-473: The 2009 collection Yoga in the Modern World edited by Singleton and Jean Byrne, notes that several of the chapters "successfully combine emic experience (seen from inside) with an etic analysis. Burley and Liberman openly declare that, in addition to being established scholars, they also teach forms of modern yoga. For Nevrin, Smith, and Strauss, experiencing the practice of yoga is an inherent part of

1269-508: The USA and some parts of Europe around the 1960s. And, spiritual gurus began to offer what they referred to as solutions to the problems of modern life. As new-age high profile individuals, such as the Beatles, tried out yoga, the practice became more visible and desirable as a means to improve life. The idea of yoga as "modern" was current before any definition of it was provided; for example,

1316-515: The West, explicitly excluding forms seen only in India, proposed four subtypes. From the 1970s, modern yoga spread across many countries of the world, changing as it did so, and in De Michelis's view becoming "an integral part of (primarily) urban cultures worldwide", to the extent that the word yoga in the Western world now means the practice of asanas, typically in a class. Mark Singleton ,

1363-471: The Western world in the early 20th century by Yogendra ; postural yoga was developed further by Kuvalayananda , Vishnudevananda , and by Krishnamacharya and his pupils Indra Devi , B. K. S. Iyengar , and K. Pattabhi Jois . Singleton notes that while some āsanas are undoubtedly ancient, traditional sources such as Patanjali's Yoga Sutras say nothing of the best-known modern yoga poses like downward dog . Krishnamacharya 's method, Singleton wrote,

1410-472: 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." As a result, the book is more of a "preliminary overview", but it does three useful things: it links modern yoga's birth to Vivekananda's 1896 Raja Yoga ; it provides

1457-600: The book is "uncomfortable", gently deconstructing terms like "original" and "authentic", pointing instead to the student-teacher relationship. He finds the book strongly "yogic", weaving together "the cultural and the personal". He has written about his work in The New York Times and the Yoga Journal , including a tribute to B. K. S. Iyengar , an Indian yoga teacher who brought yoga as exercise to Westerners. In 2014, Singleton and Ellen Goldberg edited

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1504-479: The collection Gurus of Modern Yoga . Scholars reviewing the book found it an important and substantial addition, even "outstanding", to the often limited scholarly analysis of modern yoga gurus, especially of female leaders, though some regretted the lack of a chapter comparing existing work, or an overall conclusion." She finds its inclusion of women gurus "an important contribution". While working at SOAS, he co-authored Roots of Yoga with Mallinson. This

1551-476: The despised Nath yogins, by not mentioning them. Blavatsky helped to pave the way for the spread of yoga in the West by encouraging interest in occult and esoteric doctrines and a vision of the "mystical East". She had travelled to India in 1852-3, and became greatly interested in yoga in general, while despising and distrusting hatha yoga. In the 1890s, Vivekananda taught a mixture of yoga breathwork ( pranayama ), meditation , and positive thinking, derived from

1598-431: The field of yoga. Singleton spent three years in India in the 1990s learning yoga intensively, both physically and mentally, becoming a qualified teacher of Iyengar Yoga and Satyananda Yoga . He said that the classes and workshops that he took were aimed mostly at " Western yoga pilgrims ", and that authentic, traditional Indian yoga was strikingly difficult to find. He continued his intensive yoga practice with two and

1645-635: The grounds that it is covertly Hindu, while the "Take Back Yoga" campaign of the Hindu American Foundation has challenged attempts to "airbrush the Hindu roots of yoga" from modern manifestations. Modern yoga, he writes, uses techniques from "a wide range of traditions, many of which are clearly not Hindu at all". While yoga was integrated with Vedantic philosophy, "the first text to teach hathayoga says that it will work even for atheists, who ... did not believe in karma and rebirth". Elizabeth de Michelis A History of Modern Yoga

1692-630: The guise of the supposed specific medical benefits of particular postures, quietly dropping its religious connotations, encouraged by the prevailing Indian nationalism which needed something to build an image of a strong and energetic nation. The yoga that they created, however, was taken up predominantly in the English-speaking world, starting with America and Britain . The popularity of modern yoga increased as travel became more feasible, allowing exposure to different teachings and practices. Immigration restrictions were relaxed from India to

1739-473: The many ingredients are the subtle body and various strands of Greek philosophy, Western esotericism , and wellness programs for women based on such things as the teaching system of François Delsarte and the harmonial gymnastics of Genevieve Stebbins . James Mallinson , a scholar of Sanskrit manuscripts and yoga, writes that modern yoga's relationship to Hinduism is complex and contested; some Christians have challenged its inclusion in school curricula on

1786-407: The modern age". He questions the De Michelis typology as follows: Can we really refer to an entity called Modern Yoga and assume that we are talking about a discrete and identifiable category of beliefs and practices? Does Modern Yoga, as some seem to assume, differ in ontological status (and hence intrinsic value) from "traditional yoga"? Does it represent a rupture in terms of tradition rather than

1833-558: The modern world in his 1896 Raja Yoga . Elephant Journal notes that the well-researched book sets modern yoga in its cultural context, but that it "then leaps forward" from Vivekananda at the end of the 19th century to Iyengar in the mid-20th. 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". Albertina Nugteren, reviewing

1880-472: The origins of the modern, global, yoga phenomenon. 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

1927-627: The philosopher Ernest Wood referred to it in the title of his 1948 book Practical Yoga, Ancient and Modern . Elizabeth de Michelis started the academic study of modern yoga with her 2004 typology. She defined modern yoga as "signifying those disciplines and schools which are, to a greater or lesser extent, rooted in South Asian cultural contexts, and which more specifically draw inspiration from certain philosophies, teachings and practices of Hinduism ." With Vivekananda 's 1896 Raja Yoga as its starting point, her typology of yoga forms as seen in

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1974-551: The physical and the spiritual, or between the esoteric and the scientific. In the early years of British colonialism in India, the elites from the United States, Europe, and India rejected the concept of hatha yoga and perceived it as unsociable. By the late 19th century, yoga was presented to the Western world in different forms such as by Vivekananda and Madame Blavatsky . It embodied the period's distaste for yoga postures and hatha yoga more generally, as practised by

2021-501: The same time, he served as the co-chair for the American Academy of Religions group studying yoga in theory and practice. In 2009, Singleton began editing scholarly collections on yoga. His works have been considered valuable in the field of yoga. One of his books, Yoga Body , has gained a wider readership despite its scholarly approach, attracting both praise and criticism. The researcher Suzanne Newcombe , reviewing

2068-491: The western world, and radically transformed in the process. Health benefits have been claimed; yoga has been brought to a "spiritual marketplace", different gurus competing for followers; and widely differing approaches have claimed ancient roots in Indian tradition. The result has been to transform yoga from "a hidden, weird thing" to "yoga studios on almost very corner", in a "massive transition from spiritual practice to focusing on health and fitness". The trend away from authority

2115-515: The yoga systems that preceded them. This is because [both] ... are specific to their own social contexts." Modern yoga has been led by disparate gurus for over a century, ranging from Vivekananda with his Vedanta -based yoga philosophy to Krishnamacharya with his gymnastic approach, his pupils including the influential Pattabhi Jois teaching asanas linked by flowing vinyasa movements and B. K. S. Iyengar teaching precisely-positioned asanas, often using props . The gurus' approaches to yoga span

2162-542: Was "a synthesis of several extant methods of physical training that (prior to this period) would have fallen well outside any definition of yoga," making use of haṭha yoga, the British army's calisthenic exercises, and Niels Bukh 's primary or primitive gymnastics from Denmark. The book was widely read both by scholars and by practitioners, arousing sometimes strong reactions. The book was attacked from two sides: saffronising Hindu nationalists wanting to reclaim yoga as

2209-505: Was open to all, irrespective of philosophy or theology". Mallinson questioned Singleton's view that modern postural yoga was only lightly related to medieval haṭha yoga, giving examples of asanas with definite medieval origins. Harold Coward, reviewing Yoga Body for the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies , admired its analysis and accessibility. The yoga instructor Timothy Burgin, reviewing it for Yoga Basics, calls it "fascinating and remarkable", both well-documented and likely to "ruffle

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