HISTORY OF YOGA

VEDIC PERIOD – 1500 B.C.E

The actual word "yoga" surfaced around 1500 B.C.E., just as the Harappan civilization began to decline. The
Harrapans' rather rapid demise was helped along, some scholars believe, by an invasion of Aryan barbarians.
These nomadic invaders had no use for the sophisticated urban civilization the Harappans had built and took
little time destroying it. They brought with them Brahmanism, a complex religious tradition based on sacrifice
and ritual that formed the basis of modern-day Hinduism, and introduced the concept of yoga. The sacred
scriptures of Brahmanism, known as the Vedas, contain a mixture of incantations and instructions in both po-
etry and prose. The first three books, Rig Veda, Sama Veda, and Yajur Veda, were used exclusively by the
priestly class of Brahmins; a later, fourth book called Atharva Veda provided householders with spells and in-
cantations for everyday living.

Scholars have a hard time pinpointing the inception of the Vedas, but they generally agree that the scriptures
date back at least 3,500 years. The word yoga has its first mention in the Rig Veda, the oldest of the sacred
texts. This Vedic book, a collection of hymns or mantras, defines yoga as "yoking" or "discipline," but offers no
accompanying systematic practice. The term yoga turns up again in the Atharva Veda, most particularly in the
fifteenth book (Vratya Kanda). Again it refers only to a means of harnessing or yoking. But this time it's the
breath that needs controlling. The Vratya Kanda introduces a group of men, the vratyas, quite possibly fertility
priests, who worshipped Rudra, the god of the wind. Considered horrible outcasts by traditional Brahmins,
these vratyas composed and performed songs and melodies. They found they could sing their songs a lot bet-
ter—and probably hold the notes longer—if they practiced what they called pranayama, a type of breath con-
trol.

This, then, is the very beginning of yoga as we know it, the first mention of a physical action as part of a disci-
pline or practice. Roughly 800 years will pass before history yields more information on yoga's development.

PRECLASSICAL YOGA ERA – 800-500 B.C

Little more than a noun and a nascent discipline in the Vedas, yoga played a more prominent role in the
Upanishads, the sacred revelations of ancient Hinduism. The earliest of these teachings date back to at least
800 to 500 B.C.E. The word Upanishads combines the verb "shad," which means to sit, with "upa" meaning
near, and "ni" meaning down, which suggests that the only way a student could learn the truths hidden in these
revelations was to sit at the foot of his guru or teacher. The Upanishads contained little that we would call
yoga asana practice. Instead, yoga referred in a more general way to a discipline used or path taken to achieve
liberation from suffering.

Two yoga disciplines in particular gained prominence during this time: karma yoga, the path of action or rit-
ual, and jnana yoga, the path of knowledge or intense study of scripture. Both paths led to liberation or en-
lightenment.

The secret teachings of the Upanishads differ in important ways from their Vedic parent texts. The Vedas
taught the fine art of sacrifice—external offerings to the gods in exchange for a peaceful and fruitful life. This
form of karma yoga included specific rituals and sacrifices humans had to perform in order to appease the gods
and be free from suffering. The Upanishads also espoused sacrifice as a means to liberation, but chose an in-
ternal, more mystical expression of that sacrifice.

Gurus taught that the Self or ego (not an animal or crops) must be sacrificed in order to attain liberation. The
means to do that, these revelations showed, came not through action or ritual, but through knowledge and
wisdom (jnana yoga).

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The Upanishads, as a whole, concentrated on these basic truths:

• Your true essence (the Self with a capital "S") is the same as the essence of the universe, or brahman. That
essence—what we might think of as the soul—is called Atman.
• Everyone is subject to birth, death, and rebirth. Your actions in this lifetime determine the nature of your
rebirth (the doctrine of karma). This understanding of karma says that if you perform good deeds
throughout your life, you'll be reborn into the womb of a woman from a high caste; if you do evil, you're
likely to find yourself in the lowly womb of a pig, or a dog, or, perhaps worse, an outcast.
• You can reverse the effects of bad karma through specific spiritual practices (i.e., internal sacrifices) like
meditation and renunciation. Renunciation allows you to offer up the fruits of your actions and to re-
nounce any actions fueled by desire or passion. In much later Upanishads, yoga became known as the path
of renunciation (samnyasa).

One of the earliest Upanishads to teach specific yoga meditation practices was the Maitrayaniya Upanishad
from the second or third century B.C.E. This Upanishad defined yoga as a means of binding the breath and
the mind using the syllable Om. According to its author, "The oneness of the breath and mind, and likewise of
the senses, and the relinquishment of all conditions of existence—this is designated as yoga." The Maitrayaniya
took the concept of yoga a step further by presenting an actual method or discipline for joining or yoking the
universal brahman with the Atman within all beings. This six-fold yoga path includes controlling the breath
(pranayama), withdrawing the senses (pratyahara), meditation (dhyana), concentration (dharana), contempla-
tion (tarka), and absorption (samadhi). Elements of this six-fold path expanded somewhat, and would resur-
face in the second century C.E., in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra.

The vibrational power of sound, as exemplified in the primordial word Om, came to signify the inner meaning
of a yogi's actions, and speech enabled the yogi to express that meaning. Today, as in the days of the Upani-
shads, the guru's words impart wisdom to his students and, for the more devotionally adept, chanting the name
of a god or goddess remains a powerful vehicle for transformation.

The most famous—and most beloved—of all yoga texts, the Bhagavad Gita ("The Lord's Song") has its roots
in the mystical, revelatory literature of the Upanishads. No one knows for sure how old this scripture is—it
quite possibly dates from the third century B.C.E.—but we do know that it provides the most comprehensive
description of yoga at that time. Later folded into the canon of the Mahabharata, India's well-known epic tale,
the Gita brought together moral teachings and mystical lore as Lord Krishna instructed his pupil Arjuna on
the ways of the world. While the Maitrayaniya Upanishad outlined a six-fold path to liberation, the Gita advo-
cated a three-pronged approach: karma yoga, the path of service; jnana yoga, the path of wisdom or knowl-
edge; and bhakti yoga, the path of devotion.

In the Bhagavad Gita, jnana yoga signified meditation, or the path of wisdom, much as it did in the Upani-
shads. Using this type of yoga, a practitioner would try to discriminate between real and unreal, in an attempt
to separate the Self from the non-Self. Karma yoga of the Gita was still a yogi's path of action, what Krishna
called Arjuna's sva-dharma. As a warrior, Arjuna's obligation (his dharma) is to fight against the forces of evil,
no matter what. And if he were to decide he doesn't like fighting, could he sell his wares in the marketplace
instead?

He can't, Krishna tells him. He's not a member of the merchant class, and he has no right to perform someone
else's duties. In fact, doing one's duty poorly accumulates better karma than doing someone else's well. What if
Arjuna knows the battle he's engaged in is wrong? It doesn't matter, says Krishna. The outcome of the battle
makes no difference; it's Arjuna's duty to fight no matter what. He must practice what the Gita called buddhi
yoga.

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Buddhi yoga, the Bhagavad Gita's melding of karma (action) and jnana (knowledge) yoga principles, taught
that the yogi must never be attached to the outcome of his actions. What mattered was not whether Arjuna
won or lost in battle, only that he perform his duty (his sva-dharma) and then offer up the fruits of his actions
to Krishna, his Lord. In this way, Arjuna's sva-dharma became a form of internal sacrifice.

The Gita dedicated most of its later chapters to bhakti yoga, the path of devotion, most particularly devotion to
Krishna himself. While a yogi could achieve liberation through what the Gita called "disinterested action," he
attained an even higher state of awakening by worshipping Krishna. The concept of universal consciousness,
or brahman, developed out of the metaphysical teachings of the Upanishads. Yoga has lots of names for it: At-
man, the transcendental Self, the Divine, isvara, purusha, pure awareness, the seer, the witness, and the
knower are but a few of the more popular ones.

At this point in preclassical yoga, everything resided within this consciousness and nothing existed outside of
it. It was both the seer and the seen, and even the act of seeing. Purusha, the Upanishads taught, was all-
knowing, pure, male, and infinite. Some schools of yoga and Hindu philosophy taught that this universal con-
sciousness manifested itself in everything, beginning with the grossest, most visible realm of the five bhutas
(air, fire, water, earth, and ether) and moving into the subtlest realm of the soul or Atman. Toward the middle
of the preclassical period, a rather radical metaphysical school called Samkhya surfaced. Although not a school
of yogic thought, per se, this parallel tradition—which existed anywhere between 400 and 200 B.C.E. and
owed its teachings to an obscure sage named Kapila—developed the basis for a more modern yogic world
view. What made Samkhya so radical? Certainly not its tenet that yogis must renounce the world in order to
transcend it and be relieved of their suffering.
!
The concept of samnyasa (renunciation) is as ancient as the earliest Upanishads. By the time Samkhya ele-
vated this well-established concept, mainstream yoga philosophy felt that renunciation alone was not enough.
Yogis had to practice karma yoga (the path of action) and jnana yoga (knowledge or meditation) to achieve
true liberation. Samkhya became radical when it taught that the visible world was not a manifestation of the
Divine. According to Kapila, nature and, in fact, all of creation was separate and distinct from the universal
consciousness, although the manifest world could be illuminated by purusha. Suffering, according to the Sam-
khya tradition, occurred when the yogi became attached to things that were not the Self, and when he mistak-
enly identified those things with pure consciousness (purusha). Although this dualistic, rather heretical teach-
ing failed the test of time, the Samkhya tradition created a sophisticated cosmology that explains the difference
between the seer (purusha) and that which is seen. Subsequent schools of yoga rejected the Samkhyan's dual-
istic view of suffering, but borrowed its larger world view, which goes something like this: There are two
separate forms of reality or existence—purusha (the pure, transcendental spirit, which is male) and prakriti
(matter or nature, which is female). Purusha is all-knowing, without beginning and without end. It has no
characteristics and is completely immobile. It simply exists as pure consciousness. It is the seer. Prakriti, on the
other hand, is in constant motion, creative, active, distinct, but unconscious. She is all that is seen. She has, in
fact, created everything in the universe by manifesting herself in three ways: sattva, rajas, and tamas. These
three manifestations of her nature are called gunas. They exist simultaneously, but in varying degrees of
prominence, in everything in the cosmos. Prakriti dynamically creates these phenomena; purusha passively
illuminates them.
• Sattva is the guna of the mind and the cognitive senses (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin). The mind
coordinates all biological and psychic activities and the cognitive senses keep us connected to the ex-
ternal world.
• Rajas is the guna of gross motor responses and physical experience. When this guna predominates, the
senses of yearning—the voice, hands, feet, anus, and genitals—become active. Rajas makes physical
experience possible, and controls the activity of the body.
• Tamas is the guna of darkness and inertia. When this guna predominates, the five subtle elements be-
come active—these are the potential of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, which give rise to the
structure of existence.
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In the early Samkhya system, the gunas were neutral manifestations of prakriti; only later did they become
aligned with certain qualities. The Bhagavad Gita also taught that the gunas came from nature, but believed
that their existence bound humans to a particular body.

Sattva, for example, denoted goodness and pure essence. The Bhagavad Gita taught that a sattvic nature was
illuminating and "immaculate." The downside of having a sattvic nature was that a yogi could too easily be-
come attached to the joyful feelings it produced. Being rajasic, in the Gita, meant he was bound by and at-
tached to action. Rajas energy is dynamic, passionate. Later Upanishads translated rajas to mean greed, lust-
fulness, desire, possessiveness, passion, and clinging to material goods. Tamas became known as an obstacle
that would bind a yogi to a life of sloth, heedlessness, and despondency. Its energy is heavy, slow, and thick.
These gunas appear later on in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra.

Samkyhan philosophers believed that the only way out of this erroneous attachment to objects and desires was
for the yogi to renounce the world completely. Through renunciation, the yogi could experience universal con-
sciousness (purusha) and foreswear the natural world.

CLASSICAL YOGA - 2nd Century, C.E.

The most famous proponent of the Samkhya world view was an enigmatic philosopher/writer known only as
Patanjali. Nearly every yoga teacher today is familiar with his treatise, the Yoga Sutra, which is considered to
be the first systematic presentation of yoga, and reveres its author as the father of modern yoga. Actually, no
one really knows who Patanjali was, although speculation varies widely. Was he a simple grammarian, a
teacher of Samkhya philosophy, or an incarnation of Shesha, the thousand-headed ruler of serpents? Whoever
else he was and whatever else he did, Patanjali clearly succeeded in codifying the concepts of an ancient, oral
tradition. His collection of 195 sutras (aphorisms or "terse statements") compiled most probably in the second
century c.e., provides the first practical treatise on daily living, beginning with how to conduct oneself in soci-
ety and culminating in the act of final liberation or enlightenment. Because Patanjali believed one could attain
final liberation only with the help of a guru, these aphorisms are not really a self-help guide. They exist to as-
sist the guru in his teachings.

Like the followers of Samkhya before him, Patanjali embraced a dualistic view of existence. On the one hand,
he taught, there is purusha, the all-present, all-knowing ethereal consciousness, made up of countless Atmans,
who watch as the cosmos unfolds before them.

Male, formless and unmanifest, Purusha attaches to nothing; immobile yet pervasive, he simply sees all and
knows all. Prakriti, on the other hand, is nature incarnate. Female, visible, and dynamic, prakriti constantly
moves, creating and changing as she goes. She is all that is manifest in the world. Existing only to serve pu-
rusha, prakriti is unconscious and insentient. Nature exists, according to Patanjali and the Samkhyan philoso-
phers, through a complex interplay among the three gunas—sattva, rajas, and tamas—which are visible as-
pects of her character. Much like in the Bhagavad Gita, Patanjali aligned these gunas with specific characteris-
tics in humans. When the element sattva presents itself, according to this philosophy, the energy is light, clear,
and joyous; a predominance of rajas produces passionate feelings, desire, and even greed, as one becomes at-
tached to worldly goods; when tamas gets the upper hand, it brings energy that is slow, heavy, and thick, and
can bind a person to a life of sloth and despondency. Like the Samkhya philosophers, Patanjali believed suffer-
ing resulted when humans become attached to external phenomena, when they hold on to the fruits of their
actions or when their desires (all the shoulds, wants, and needs in life) pull them away from their connection to
a higher consciousness. Patanjali thought that conflict among the three gunas, each vying for dominance, was
at the heart of human suffering. Sattva may bring feelings of joyfulness, he reasoned, but being attached to
those feelings is no better than holding on to the greed of rajas or being stuck in the despondency of tamas.

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Much like the Bhagavad Gita—and diametrically opposed to the renunciation espoused in Samkhya—Patan-
jali wrote that only hard work (karma yoga) and deep meditation (jnana yoga) could relieve human suffering
and lead to liberation. In fact, only through strict adherence to his eight-limbed path of yoga (ashtanga yoga)
could a yogi tame the gunas and bring them back into balance, as they existed in primordial nature. Ultimately,
said Patanjali, by releasing attachments to the natural world, a yogi could allow the transcendental quality of
purusha to shine through his true Self.

Although yogis eventually rejected Patanjali's dualism entirely, they continued to use and expand upon his
eight-limbed yoga path. This combination of practices still serves as a blueprint for living in the world and as a
means of attaining enlightenment, although modern-day teachers no longer believe students must master the
limbs in succession.

Although he is best known as the chronicler of the eight-limbed yoga path, Patanjali also presented a version
of kriya yoga, the path of transmutative action (i.e., the act of changing into a higher form) in his Yoga Sutra.
Kriya yoga can best be described as a form of internal karma yoga. That is, by perfecting the niyamas or self-
disciplines of Patanjali's eight-limbed path, particularly tapas (austerity), svadhyaya (self-study), and isvara
pranidhana (devotion to the Lord), a yogi erases samskara (subliminal activators) from his subconscious.
Samskara are like karma scars that result from good or bad behavior. They are indelible memories, imprinted
on the subconscious, that propel the conscious mind to act; they are what dictate a person's birth, life experi-
ences, and death.

These activators cause the constant chatter or fluctuations in the mind that separate a person from purusha
and make it impossible for him to experience it. An individual has good kinds of samskara and bad kinds, ac-
cording to the Yoga Sutra. The bad kind keep the conscious mind actively seeking experience outside itself,
regardless of whether that experience is pleasurable or painful. The good kind stop the conscious mind from
seeking and attaching itself to external objects and senses. The resultant cessation (nirodhah) of vritti (fluctua-
tions) and samskara brings true liberation.

POST-CLASSICAL ERA – 21st Century

Patanjali's Yoga Sutra defined yoga practice in the early part of the first millennium, and his eight-limbed path
became a central aspect of the yoga systems that followed. The Yoga Sutra, however, was firmly rooted in the
dualism of Samkhya philosophy, a school of thought that existed alongside the nondualistic Vedic and Gita
traditions without ever supplanting them. Putting a precise date on the decline of classical yoga, as represented
by Patanjali, and the subsequent start of the post-classical period is impossible, because the boundaries sepa-
rating schools of yogic thought were remarkably fluid. Certain concepts and tenets from Patanjali and the
early Upanishads continue unchanged or only slightly modified throughout the post-classical period. Schools
such as tantra or hatha yoga, which took exception to or radically departed from many of these older tenets,
expanded the practice of yoga in often radical ways. The one thing both mainstream and new-age post-
classical philosophers had in common was their rejection of Patanjali's dualistic world view. That marked the
close of one era and the beginning of a new one.

Understanding the concepts of duality (dvaita) and nonduality (advaita) is no easy task. Both schools of
thought believed in a universal consciousness that is formless, omnipresent, and immortal. Judeo-Christians
call this the soul; for Patanjali it was purusha, and the nondualistic tradition of Advaita Vedanta called it At-
man or Self. Although this Atman resides in each one of us, he (purusha may be formless, but he's still consid-
ered to be male) cannot be understood by the senses—he can't be seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted.
Both schools understood that humans suffer when they become disconnected from this higher Self, and both
believed that liberation comes when humans realize their true, transcendental Self.
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 HISTORY OF YOGA
For the dualist in preclassical and classical yoga, this suffering occurred when someone held onto and became
subsumed by everything that was not the Self—in other words, when he came to believe that all he did, all his
relationships, actions, feelings, thoughts, or motives made up his true Self. A person could free himself from
suffering only when he let go of his attachments to such things and realized—not with the intellect, but with
the heart—that the transcendental Self resided within and that the Self was the ultimate reality.

For the nondualist in pre- and post-classical yoga, suffering began when an individual tried to make a distinc-
tion between Self and no-Self; when he failed to understand that he was a small part of something much larger
than himself; when he forgot that everything he did, all that he sensed, was simply a manifestation of the tran-
scendental Atman or purusha.

A nondualist released himself from suffering when he came to understand that his Self was not separate, but
an integral part of the transcendental Self or Atman. Today, it might be easy to understand the difference be-
tween these philosophies if we paraphrase Shakespeare. For the dualist, "all the world's a stage" and the play
prakriti (nature, primordial matter) puts on is for the benefit of purusha (universal consciousness, transcen-
dental Self). The story is make-believe; the parts the actors play are not the same as the lives they lead; and the
roles they take on are separate from who they really are. Obviously, to mistake the action on stage for real life
would be confusing at best; knowing that the actor who plays Hamlet is in fact not Hamlet makes a world of
difference.

The world's stage, for the nondualist, looks quite different. The play, while different than real life, is not sepa-
rate from it. The play can't exist without the actors, who are real people, but playacting is only one aspect of
who the actors are. The actors are real people; the roles they play, the script, the music are all contained within
real life. Anyone who views the play as its own reality, separate from everything else, will get terribly con-
fused.

It's somewhat easier to see the Divine in the mundane when you take the nondualistic view of reality, because
the Divine is everywhere and in everything. When Atman or purusha is separate, how can anyone glimpse its
luminous nature in everyday life? Patanjali never really answered that question, but later commentators ex-
plained that by practicing yoga (the eight-limbed path), the yogi attains the highest level of existence. At this
point prakriti becomes so transparent and illuminating (sattvic) that purusha, the transcendental Self, shines
through and reveals himself. The path toward true liberation lies in experiencing (not just believing) the uni-
verse as one. This combination of jnana yoga (yoga of wisdom and knowledge) and karma yoga (yoga of tak-
ing action) is similar to the ideas espoused in the Bhagavad Gita.

Hatha Yoga
Hatha yoga, out of which came the physical postures the Western world now embraces, first appeared in the
ninth or tenth century. Despite its rather detailed and complex philosophic underpinnings, it was little more
than a small and somewhat radical sect during the post-classical period. In fact, among some Hindus of the
period, hatha yoga had the reputation of being nothing short of heretical in its focus on the physical and in its
fascination with magical powers. Hatha yoga's principles arose from tantra, and incorporated elements of
Buddhism, alchemy, and Shaivism (worship of the transcendental Shiva).

Hatha yogis believed that creating polarities (male vs. female, hot vs. cold, happy vs. sad) caused suffering and
brought about disease, delusion, and pain. The very name hatha yoga, a combination of "ha," meaning sun, and
"tha," meaning moon, denotes the union of opposites. Hatha also means a force or determined effort, and yoga,
of course, translates as yoke or joining together. Therefore, hatha yoga implies that it takes a lot of strength,
discipline, and effort to unify opposing forces and to bring together the body and the mind. The biggest obsta-
cles to practice for the hatha yogi include greed, hatred, delusion, egoism, and attachment.
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 HISTORY OF YOGA
Interested less in the sexual union of opposites than tantrikas, hatha yogis strove to transform the physical
body into the subtle, divine body and thereby attain enlightenment. The transformed body was said to be im-
pervious to disease, void of any defects, eternally youthful, and the bearer of paranormal, magical powers. Be-
fore hatha yoga students could even hope to accomplish such transformation, however, they had to learn an
intricate physiology of the body, including the muscles, organs, chakras (energy channels), and tissues, and the
gods that govern each. Hatha yogis also had to perform intense purification rituals before they could begin
asana and pranayama practices. As with all yoga practice at the time, yoga students received instruction from
their gurus.

Even though hatha yoga remained a somewhat marginal sect during the post-classical period, it produced an
impressive number of treatises and prescriptive manuals. The first and primary text was written by a yogi
named Goraksha, the person most often deemed the father of hatha yoga. Like most early gurus, Goraksha
was a rather elusive figure. Quite possibly a member of the weaver caste in the Punjab, he probably lived in
the ninth or tenth century c.e., although later hatha yoga texts also place him in the twelfth or thirteenth cen-
tury. Goraksha founded the Natha sect of yogis and was considered by some to be a miracle worker, saint, and
revered teacher.

His earliest writing, the Siddha Siddhanta Paddhati, introduces several important elements of hatha yoga, in-
cluding the idea that the physical body is only one level of embodiment. There are five others, moving from the
grossest (garbha or physical) body to the subtlest (para or transcendental) body. He also delineates nine en-
ergy channels or chakras, three signs or lakshya (literally, visions), and 16 props or adhara, upon which a yogi
focuses attention (the ankle, the thumb, the thighs, the navel, etc.).

Svatmarama Yogin, who called himself a disciple of Goraksha (even though he came a few centuries later),
wrote a second treatise, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, probably during the mid-fourteenth century. This text de-
scribes sixteen postures, most of which are variations of Padmasana (the cross-legged Lotus pose), several pu-
rification rituals, eight pranayama techniques (primarily to retain the breath), and ten seals (mudras) with spe-
cific bandhas, or locks to constrict the flow of prana or life force. As Svatmarama explained, before the mind
can even hope to control the senses, the breath must neutralize the mind. Steady, rhythmic breathing calms the
mind, freeing it from external distractions; a calm mind in turn reins in the senses. Although decidedly nondu-
alistic in nature, Svatmarama's six-limbed yoga path was exclusively for the attainment of samadhi through the
practice of raja yoga (the yoga of Patanjali).

The Gheranda Samhita, a late-seventeenth-century manual based on the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, offers seven
niyamas, or disciplines necessary for yoga practice: cleanliness, firmness, stability, constancy, lightness, percep-
tion, and nondefilement. The manual's author, the sage Gheranda, prescribes 32 asanas and 25 mudras. He
also outlines an intricate purification system. But despite this emphasis on the physical body, Gheranda be-
lieved that a yogi attains liberation or ecstasy ultimately through the kindness of his guru.

Perhaps the most comprehensive—and the most democratic—treatise on hatha yoga, the Shiva Samhita may
have been written toward the end of the post-classical period, as late as the early eighteenth century. It empha-
sizes that even a common householder (a common male householder, that is) can practice yoga and reap its
benefits—a concept that would have startled earlier proponents of yoga. The Shiva Samhita outlines the intri-
cacies of esoteric physiology, names 84 different asanas—the most wide-ranging list to date—and describes
five specific types of prana (or life force), providing explicit techniques to regulate them. Unfortunately, only
four of the asanas are described in detail. Just like all hatha yoga philosophy, the Shiva Samhita postulates
that performing asanas will cure a yogi of all diseases and bestow upon him magical, superhuman powers.

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The Yoga Upanishads
Despite their overriding popularity in the West today, both tantra and hatha yoga were considered radical de-
partures from mainstream yoga, which was far more widespread and popular throughout the post-classical
period. This more conservative strain of yoga incorporated much of preclassical yogic thought as well as
Patanjali's eight-limbed yoga path, without, of course, his dualistic world view. Roughly two-thirds of the way
through the post-classical period, a group of 21 secret teachings called the Yoga Upanishads surfaced.

Most likely written between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries c.e., these sacred texts elaborated on par-
ticular practices of yoga, including a few asanas and some of the pranayama and mudras Western practitioners
know today. Their emphasis, decidedly nondualistic in flavor, remained focused on the proper way to achieve
liberation. Instructions on how to recite the sound Om show up in several of these texts; others demonstrate
an elaborate means of breath control (pranayama); still others teach the student how to use inner sound
(hamsa) to transport the self toward liberation.

One of the Yoga Upanishads, Tejo Bindu Upanishad, grafts seven new limbs onto Patanjali's eight-limbed
yoga path. To the precepts and disciplines (yamas and niyamas), asana, pranayama, withdrawal (pratyahara),
intense concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana), and liberation (samadhi) of the Yoga Sutra, the Tejo
Bindu adds mula bandha (root locks), equilibrium, steadiness of vision, tyaga (abandonment), mauna (si-
lence), desha (place), and kala (time). In a similar vein, other Upanishads offer additional yamas, niyamas, and
asanas, provide bhutas or elements upon which to concentrate in pratyahara, and outline new methods to con-
trol the breath.

The Tri Shikhi Brahmana Upanishad actually mentions 17 different asanas and details practices for purifying
the channels (nadis) of the inner body, and for proper breath control (pranayama).
Much like Patanjali, the authors of the Yoga Upanishads saw many obstacles to practice, which could prevent
a yogi from achieving samadhi. One text (the Yoga Tattva Upanishad) lists laziness, boastfulness, and sexual
fantasies as impediments to liberation. It deems keeping bad company and becoming attached to the fruits of
one's practice (i.e., enjoying the magical powers one attains) equally bad. The author of the Tejo Bindu Upani-
shad concurs, but can't help adding excessive sweating, absentmindedness, stupor, and being distracted to the
list.

Yoga Comes West

The American brand of yoga we love today focuses primarily on the physical poses called asanas and is thus
clearly an offshoot of hatha yoga, even though jnana yoga (the path of knowledge) and the raja yoga of Patan-
jali's Yoga Sutra were the first to gain currency in the West. Like Indian yogis, the first Westerners to encoun-
ter yoga were more interested in—and fascinated by—methods and practices that took them out of their bod-
ies, transcending the physical to put them in closer touch with the absolute. According to yoga scholar Georg
Feuerstein, the Western love affair with all things Eastern began in the third century b.c.e., once Alexander
the Great's conquests opened up Persia and India. Even before that, Plato and Aristotle paid homage to East-
ern philosophy in their writings.

Nearly 50 years before yoga landed on American shores, a group of Englishmen formed the Asiatic Society of
Bengal (in Calcutta) and took it upon themselves to study all things Indian. Their research and translations
included essays on the Vedas, yoga, and the poetry of Shankara (800 c.e.). Society member Sir Charles Wilk-
ins published the first English-language translation of the Bhagavad Gita in 1785, his colleague Sir William
Jones weighed in with his own translations of the Isha Upanishad and a collection of hymns from the Vedas,
and Henry Thomas Colebrooke wrote essays on the Vedas and on yoga, most particularly the Samkhya
Karika, Ishvara Krishna's commentary on Samkhya.

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 HISTORY OF YOGA
The contemplative paths of yoga also resonated with a group of American intellectuals and self-described tran-
scendentalists that included Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson and that drew inspiration from
the Bhagavad Gita. Fifty years later, Madame Blavatsky, a Russian immigrant, occultist, and student of an-
cient India, established the Theosophical Society in New York City and in Europe. Her writings, most particu-
larly Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), captivated her audience with the secrets of the an-
cient Vedas.

By 1893 Americans were sufficiently smitten by yoga exotica to embrace Swami Vivekananda, the first Indian
spiritual teacher (and perhaps the first East Indian) they had ever seen. Vivekananda spoke passionately about
raja yoga at the first Parliament of World Religions held that year in Chicago, and the crowd went wild. He
lectured extensively for another two years before moving on to European cities and then returning to India.
When he came back to the United States in 1899, he set up the New York Vedanta Society, a still-thriving
community dedicated to four branches of yoga practice: bhakti (devotion), karma (service), jnana (knowl-
edge), and raja (the eight-limbed path of Patanjali's Yoga Sutra).

About the same time, the Germans discovered the beauty of the Sanskrit language and the mystery of the Ve-
das. Although several scholars of the Romantic era welcomed the rich literature of India, Max Muller, com-
parative religions pioneer, most influenced Vedic scholarship and helped birth the flurry of European transla-
tions of ancient Indian texts that continued throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. Among
the greatest of these was the work of Johann Wilhelm Hauer, who, according to Feuerstein, was the first to
study the history of the Vedas. He produced a translation of Patanjali's Yoga Sutra as well. Of course the Eng-
lish and the Germans weren't the only Europeans to gravitate toward yoga research. Feuerstein mentions Poul
Tuxen, a Dutch scholar, who wrote a history of the yoga tradition in 1911. Twenty years later, Swedish re-
searcher Sigurd Lindquist published two books on yoga, focusing on its psychological aspects, and by the
1940s, the Frenchman Jean Filliozat had added his translations of several works, and Italian scholar Giulio
Cesare Evola his own writings on tantra yoga.

Yoga asanas gained a little more prominence in America around the turn of the twentieth century when hatha
yoga adherents began to look more seriously at the physical benefits of their practice. Back in India, partly in
an attempt to shore up hatha yoga's sagging popularity, Paramahansa Madhavadasaji encouraged local scien-
tists and medical doctors to explore the physiological aspects of asana practice.
One of his students, Kuvalayananda, established the first institute devoted solely to such exploration—the
Kaivalyadhama Ashram and Research Institute in Pune, India. Madhavadasaji sent another of his adepts, Yo-
gendra Mastamani, to the United States to set up the first American branch of the institute. Mastamani's con-
nections with the Eclectic Physicians and Benedict Lust, the founder of naturopathy, gave yoga a foothold in
the burgeoning holistic medicine practice of the day.

Up through the mid-1920s, Americans embraced a steady stream of Indian swamis coming to the West. But in
1924, the federal government imposed a quota on Indian immigration. No longer able to bring their gurus
stateside, Americans traveled to India to find them. Paul Brunton, a former writer and editor, discovered one
of yoga's greatest teachers, Ramana Maharshi, and wrote A Search in Secret India in 1934, to introduce him
to the world.

J. Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher, drew huge numbers of followers, beginning in the early 1930s and
culminating at his death in 1986. For many, Krishnamurti epitomized jnana yoga, about which he so elo-
quently spoke, and his life and teachings influenced thousands of educators, philosophers, and laypeople.
Krishnamurti was also an enthusiastic student of yoga asanas, spending many summers in Gstaad, Switzer-
land, with yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar and, later, with yogi T.K.V. Desikachar.

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 HISTORY OF YOGA
In 1947, Theos Bernard, another passionate student who studied in India for many years, wrote Hatha Yoga:
The Report of a Personal Experience, one of the first guidebooks to yoga asanas. Indra Devi, after studying
with yoga master T. Krishnamacharya in India, wrote how—to manuals and had scores of Americans bending
and stretching to her guru's yoga. In 1950, Richard Hittleman, a spiritual disciple of Ramana Maharshi, began
teaching the physical aspects of hatha yoga in New York City. By 1961, thanks to the power of television,
Americans everywhere were learning a non-religious, decidedly unspiritual form of yoga exercise. The teacher
was the same Hittleman, who hoped to convince these new converts that yoga meditation and philosophy
could forever change their lives. His books, including The Twenty-Eight-Day Yoga Plan, sold millions of cop-
ies and put hatha yoga on the American map. Ten years later, yoga teacher Lilias Folan consummated Amer-
ica's love of this gentle physical form of yoga in her PBS-TV series "Stretching with Lilias." Her openhearted,
energetic manner convinced millions more that anyone could and should practice yoga. Today she has pro-
duced 11 yoga videos, which have sold more than 700,000 copies, and she continues to teach and lead work-
shops all over the world.

While America's World War II generation moved and stretched to the yoga of Richard and Lilias, the postwar
baby boomers there and abroad yearned for a more spiritual awakening. These young college-age kids turned
on and tuned in to Eastern spirituality in general and yoga principles in particular through Autobiography of a
Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda. Although written in 1946, this introduction to the power of yoga spoke to a
generation of young people in the 1960s and '70s who wanted more spiritual and transcendental experiences
than they could get in their local churches or synagogues.

Many of these seekers incorporated asanas into their yoga practice, but their primary goal was enlightenment,
not perfect alignment in Downward-Facing Dog. Many of these same novices embraced the teachings of an-
other bhakti yogi, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose Transcendental Meditation enticed everyone from college
freshmen to the Beatles, with its offer of experiences even more awesome than drug-enhanced trips.
Richard Alpert, a Harvard professor fired for his psychedelic experiments, found that a spiritual lifestyle could
be even more powerful and life affirming than all his past acid-trips. He left for India in the late '60s and re-
turned to America as Ram Dass, adept of Neem Karoli Baba. His book, Be Here Now, opened the eyes and
hearts of many thousands of Western students. Ashrams and spiritual communities burgeoned during the '60s
and '70s, and while some taught aspects of yoga asana and pranayama, the other paths—bhakti, jnana, and
karma yoga—prevailed.

A Modern Spin on an Ancient Tradition

So how did yoga become the bending, stretching, twisting discipline we see today in yoga rooms and recrea-
tion centers around the world? How did the yoga canon expand from fewer than 100 postures—most of them
variations on the seated lotus pose (Padmasana)—to more than a thousand, and come to include inversions,
backbends, arm balances, and twists named after animals, gods, and myriad shapes? How did the ancient
yogi's need to strengthen and purify his body translate to a current obsession with flat abdominals, toned bi-
ceps, and the latest in workout wear? Ironically enough, three Indian swamis in the early part of the twentieth
century inadvertently fed this modern fascination with physical prowess by independently studying and ex-
panding the hatha yoga repertoire and presenting it not only to the uninitiated layman, but to women as well.
Swami Kuvalayananda focused primarily on the health benefits of practicing yoga; Swami Sivananda in
Rishikesh and T. Krishnamacharya of Mysore concentrated on developing a richer, more varied system of as-
anas and pranayama techniques. Most scholars would agree that the hatha yoga Westerners enjoy today de-
veloped out of the work of these men.

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 HISTORY OF YOGA
The man who deserves the most credit for creating, or at least influencing, the type of physical yoga that
Americans, Western Europeans, and many Asians embrace today never set foot on Western soil. Sometime in
the early 1930s Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, took it upon himself to champion the beauty and the benefits of
yoga asana. (In a biography, Krishnamacharya says asana practice was so little known in India that he had to
go all the way to Tibet to find a guru to teach him.) Of course, like all serious yogis, his training began with
Patanjali's Yoga Sutra—he was five years old when his father began teaching him in 1893.

No one really knows Krishnamacharya's true yoga journey, not even his family. His life remains shrouded in a
fog of myth, fable, fact, and contradictory memories. Despite this, Krishnamacharya has become the undis-
puted father of modern-day hatha yoga.

Since much of the Indian spiritual tradition has been handed down from guru to student for millennia, it's un-
derstandable that hatha yogis who teach the physical postures would want a similarly unbroken lineage. Un-
fortunately, no such lineage appears to exist. Whether it came from the Yogarahasya, a lost ancient text that
appeared to him in a dream, or from a palm-leaf manuscript called the Yoga Korunta (supposedly devoured by
ants), or from a blend of asana, pranayama, Indian wrestling, and British gymnastics, Krishnamacharya's yoga
represents a uniquely twentieth-century incarnation of a rich and ever-evolving tradition, the underlying tenets
of which have wavered little since the time of the Upanishads.

One old yoga text does appear to have influenced Krishnamacharya. The Sritattvanidhi has fairly recently
emerged from the private library of the Maharaja of Mysore, India, where Krishnamacharya lived and taught.
This treatise, which hails from the early nineteenth century, offers the first manual devoted entirely to the
physical aspect of yoga. You'll find no breathing techniques, no bandhas or mudras to perform, no chakras to
open, and no cleansing rituals to enact. With its 122 postures illustrated and named, the Sritattvanidhi expands
the repertoire to include poses we've all grown to love—handstands, arm balances, ashtangi foot-behind-the-
head poses, and even rope hangings—and could very well be the proof yogis are looking for that a well-
developed asana practice flourished prior to the twentieth century. That well-developed practice, however, in-
corporated much more than just traditional asanas. According to Norman Sjoman, Sanskrit scholar and author
of The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace (Adhinav, 1999), the Sritattvanidhi appears to have borrowed
heavily from an assorted array of gymnastics moves, wrestling exercises, push-ups, and rope tricks, as well as
yoga asanas. Sjoman says this eclecticism inspired and informed Krishnamacharya's teaching.

Krishnamacharya's work began in earnest in the 1930s when he received the financial backing of the Maharaja
of Mysore, whose own ill health drew him to yoga. Krishnamacharya set up classes in a gymnasium at the
Sanskrit College with the goal of introducing the power of yoga to as many students as possible.

Like so many of today's yoga students, however, Krishnamacharya's students—mostly able-bodied, athletic,
young men—were more interested in building strength and fitness and performing near impossible feats than
in any spiritual dimensions of practice.

So Krishnamacharya created sequences that focused on athleticism by incorporating the power of the breath
and the element of meditative gaze (drishti) in a dynamic flow of poses called vinyasa, using all the props and
disciplines at his disposal. To keep his students challenged and focused, Krishnamacharya developed increas-
ingly more difficult sequences, allowing his students to progress to the next level only after they had mastered
the first one.

Once he had developed and perfected his sequences, Krishnamacharya took his show on the road. He and his
students demonstrated yoga asanas to appreciative audiences all over India. Understanding that his audience
came from diverse backgrounds, Krishnamacharya tailored his yoga message to all beliefs and lifestyles, much
as Western yoga teachers do today.
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 HISTORY OF YOGA
Three of Krishnamacharya's most famous pupils emerged from his years in Mysore—Pattabhi Jois, who went
on to develop the school of Ashtanga vinyasa yoga, Indra Devi who became known as the "First Lady of Yoga"
in America, and B.K.S. Iyengar, who created his own unique brand of asana practice, which is known for its
attention to body alignment and for its extensive use of props.

Pattabhi Jois, was just a young boy when he met Krishnamacharya at one of his yoga demonstrations. Jois
studied with Krishnamacharya for several years before leaving for college. Guru and student reunited in My-
sore at the Sanskrit College, and Jois became a faithful follower of Krishnamacharya's methods. Jois credits
his teacher with perfecting the Ashtanga vinyasa system, a tradition that he says draws inspiration from the
classics—the Yoga Sutra, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika—as well as from modern West-
ern disciplines. Just as Krishnamacharya did in Mysore, Pattabhi Jois and his disciples continue to teach a set
sequence of poses (linked by the breath), the purpose of which is to create tapas, or heat in the body, in order
to cleanse and purify.

Before his death in May 2009, many teachers in the United States and Europe traveled frequently to India for
further study with him. Ashtanga-style classes vary from first-series, the beginning level, which focuses on
forward bends, to second, third, or fourth-series classes, which offer increasingly more difficult backbends,
standing poses, twists, and arm balances. All classes include a vinyasa of Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar),
in which students jump from one pose to the next as a way of linking a variety of asanas together. Just like in
the practice of yoga in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, combining the physical poses with attention to the breath brings
the modern-day ashtangi steadiness and ease in the body, increased awareness in the mind, and more openness
in the heart.

B.K.S. Iyengar did not have an easy time being Krishnamacharya's disciple, although he continues to revere
his guru. Unlike Pattabhi Jois and Indra Devi, Iyengar didn't exactly seek out Krishnamacharya as a teacher,
nor does he look back on his student days with much affection. Iyengar grew up in Krishnamacharya's house-
hold as his brother-in-law-a scrawny, sickly child who, by all odds, had very little chance of ever becoming a
yogi. Instead, his duties were relegated to tending the gardens and performing the chores Krishnamacharya
assigned to him. When Krishnamacharya's star pupil vanished from the household only days before an impor-
tant asana demonstration, Krishnamacharya had no choice but to teach this puny pupil in hopes he would rise
to the occasion. And rise he did—Iyengar not only performed very difficult asanas admirably at the demon-
stration, but he went on to assist Krishnamacharya in his classes and other demonstrations throughout the
area. His brief tenure with this "harsh taskmaster" ended when Krishnamacharya asked him to take over a
women-only class in the northern province of Karnataka Pradesh—not exactly a plum assignment—which
Iyengar agreed to do.

From that point on he remained, happily it seems, hundreds of miles away from his guru. Partly because of
this distance, Iyengar had to explore Krishnamacharya's poses on his own. He used his own body as his labo-
ratory, concentrating on precision and internal and external alignment, as he tried to figure out what effects a
pose had on the internal organs as well as the skeletal system. Once Iyengar clearly understood the way an
asana worked, he would then modify it to fit his students' bodies and health concerns. Just as Krishnamacha-
rya adapted his sequences to the competitive nature of his able-bodied young athletes, Iyengar customized the
poses, and even offered props for his less flexible, older clientele. And, as the aged and infirmed among them
began seeking help for their maladies, Iyengar rose to the challenge, creating healing, therapeutic sequences.

This emphasis on the physical body became a signature of Iyengar Yoga, and Iyengar's intuitive, almost un-
canny ability to heal through asana practice has become legendary. He views the body as a finely tuned, highly
sensitive instrument whose vibrations, he says, "express the harmony or dissonance within it." Asanas, he be-
lieves, help the body create or re-create its innate harmony.

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 HISTORY OF YOGA
When performed correctly, asana practice synchronizes the rhythms of the body's physical, physiological, psy-
chological, and spiritual components. Unlike Krishnamacharya, Pattabhi Jois, and Indra Devi, Iyengar waits
until the practitioner has mastered asanas before incorporating pranayama into his method.

Nor does he link the poses together in the same way. He chooses poses that work together, but his concern is
how they achieve balance within the body rather than how they link together. Iyengar continues to teach,
along with his daughter Geeta and son Prasant, at his center in Pune, India. His followers have spread Iyengar
Yoga all over the planet, creating the most well-known style in the world. Even those who teach other methods
often credit the Iyengar method with instilling in them an understanding of the body, the architecture of the
poses, and the means to modify asanas when necessary.

By the time Desikachar asked his father to teach him, Krishnamacharya's own work had changed. Yoga was
no longer reserved only for the select few who were strong and flexible enough to withstand its challenges, or
spiritually attuned enough to understand them. To survive as a teacher, Krishnamacharya had to open his
doors to all kinds of students, including those with physical limitations and non-Hindus. He also needed to
figure out how to teach them. Working one-on-one, Krishnamacharya devised specific practices for each stu-
dent. Krishnamacharya would refine or alter his or her "prescription" to enable the student to grow further in
the practice and to introduce the spiritual aspects of the tradition. This technique laid the groundwork for De-
sikachar's own interpretation of Krishnamacharya's work, which he called Viniyoga.

Desikachar had already finished college with an engineering degree when he decided to devote his life to
studying yoga. Apparently he saw his father—the ever-proper Brahmin—hug a woman who had come to
thank him for curing her insomnia. Whether Desikachar was more shocked by the woman's response or in-
trigued by his father's ability to heal her, he wanted to learn more. Krishnamacharya's response to his son ech-
oed his reaction to Indra Devi and Iyengar's desire to learn—it annoyed him more than it pleased him. To test
Desikachar's resolve, his father began his lessons at 3:30 a.m. seven days a week. He focused only on asanas
and pranayama since Desikachar disavowed any interest in God. Desikachar continued his yoga studies for 28
years, finally understanding, and incorporating, yoga's inherent spiritual dimension.

While he was teaching his son, Krishnamacharya continued to refine his system and developed it into an indi-
vidualized program of asana, pranayama, and devotional chanting. He created programs for the young, the
middle aged, and the elderly. Your youth, Krishnamacharya reasoned, is the time to strengthen your muscles
and enhance your flexibility through challenging sequences; as you mature into your career and family years,
yoga should keep you healthy and stress-free. In your later years, as your focus becomes more internal and
your thoughts turn to God, your yoga should have a more spiritual dimension.

Desikachar has devoted his life to spreading Krishnamacharya's message of yoga to the West and increasing
its connection to science and medicine. Like Iyengar, Desikachar's Viniyoga concentrates on tailoring the yoga
sequences to the needs of the individual, and, like Pattabhi Jois, he emphasizes the power of the breath. How-
ever, Viniyoga's focus lies somewhere between Iyengar's precision and Pattabhi Jois's vigorous movements. A
Viniyoga class is slower than Ashtanga, though it coordinates the breath with the movement. Like Iyengar
Yoga, it is known for its therapeutic applications, though Viniyoga concentrates less on alignment and more on
varying the length and tempo of the inhalations and exhalations. Although not yet as popular in the United
States as Iyengar and Ashtanga Yoga, Viniyoga has touched the lives of countless practitioners all over the
world.

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