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You’ll frequently discover casual descriptions of yoga portraying it as a practice with anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 years of history. Scholars now trying to pin down the origin of certain postures show that the timeline for standing, balancing and inverted positions could be considerably shorter– in reality, 200 years or less. The most up to date academic studies indicate that the postures or asanas you exercise in course may be of current vintage as well as a mix of Hindu and other influences.
Ancient Texts
Athletically strenuous yoga such as the influential ashtanga design involves breathing and movement between asanas, which are made to strengthen the body and make it more versatile. Leading yogi Shri Pattabhi Jois developed the postures of ashtanga yoga prior to his death at age 93 in 2009. On his institute internet site, Jois explains ashtanga practice as ‘an ancient system of yoga’ taught by Vamana Rishi, of whom bit’s known. Rishi’s poses were said to be contained in a manuscript called Yoga Kurunta, which means ‘Yoga Team’ in Sanskrit. Jois’s mentor, influential yogi Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, was given the task in 1924 to discover the manuscript in the College Collection of Calcutta, which he did, but its palm-leaf pages were afterwards said to have been eaten by ants.
Scholarship
The ‘lost’ Yoga Kurunta eaten by ants may be just an ease to validate Krishnamacharya’s own catalog of presents. University of New Mexico scholar Mark Singleton, in his groundbreaking 2010 book, ‘Yoga Body: The Beginnings of Modern Posture Practice,’ finds no support for an ancient lineage of modern-day sports postures such as are found in ashtanga or in modern-day yoga classes typically. He writes that while Tibetan systems of physical yoga helped in the West keep an emphasis on postures, physiology and spirituality, Indian yoga ‘has become decontextualized’ from the system it claims to stand for. In shorts, Hindu spiritual texts such as the Upanishads that talk about yoga don’t contain evidence for a posture-based practice as followed by millions today in contemporary Western yoga classes. The primary exception are seated postures, which do appear in old texts and religious art.
Influences
Western gymnastics, particularly as exercised in Denmark circa 1900, and extending workouts for ladies found in popular magazines of the 1930s appear to have actually cross-fertilized with Indian traditions in developing 20th century yoga, Singleton shows. European contortionists and Indian fakirs and wrestlers also appear to have provided motivation for the leading teachers and authors of yoga active in India’s modern yoga capital, Mysore, a city in the southwestern state of Karnataka. India’s yogis and Europe’s gymnastic soldiers proceeded parallel tracks to develop physical activities characterized by deep breathing, stretching and reinforcing, and streaming from one present to another without pauses. Hence when India’s rajas promoted yoga to become more popular, Krishnamacharya grafted gymnastic postures advertised in books and publications of the day onto the earlier yoga traditions of breathing and mind-calming exercise.
Evolution
Yoga presents, even in the 2000s, continue to evolve and recombine with non-Hindu cultural aspects. ‘Boston Globe’ staff writer Linda Matchan writes that there’s a yoga design for each taste, from hip-hop yoga to Bikram or hot yoga to weight-loss yoga as well as ‘Yoga Booty Ballet,’ which blends cardio and dance with yoga positions.
What is the Origin of Yoga Poses?
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