The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books)

By David Gordon White

Together with fewer than 2 hundred verses written in an imprecise if no longer impenetrable language and magnificence, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra is this present day extolled via the yoga institution as a perennial vintage and consultant to yoga perform. As David Gordon White demonstrates during this groundbreaking examine, either one of those assumptions are flawed. almost forgotten in India for centuries and maligned while it used to be first came upon within the West, the Yoga Sutra has been increased to its current iconic status—and translated into greater than 40 languages—only during the prior 40 years.

White retraces the unusual and circuitous trip of this confounding paintings from its historical origins down via its heyday within the 7th via 11th centuries, its slow fall into obscurity, and its sleek resurgence because the 19th century. First brought to the West by way of the British Orientalist Henry Thomas Colebrooke, the Yoga Sutra used to be revived principally in Europe and the United States, and predominantly in English. White brings to lifestyles the unbelievable forged of characters whose interpretations—and misappropriations—of the Yoga Sutra ended in its respected position in pop culture this present day. Tracing the outstanding trajectory of this enigmatic paintings, White’s exhaustively researched ebook additionally demonstrates why the yoga of India’s previous bears little resemblance to the yoga practiced this present day.

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Indb 143 2/27/2014 9:23:49 AM ning, whereas on his approach domestic from his place of work, a vio­ lent thunderstorm broke out simply as he used to be passing by means of his destiny master’s madrasa. considering that his outfits have been soaked, the Sufi grasp lined Ramachandra, the long run Hindu Mahatma, with a hot duvet. Then the Mahatma suddenly misplaced his senses, and with out hesitation the Maulawi disclosed his complete religious wealth via a flight of sophisticated en­ ergy (shakti-­pat) to the center of Ramcandraji, therefore pleasurable the desires of his personal venerable master . . . in response to whom someday a Hindu boy could come to fulfill the Shah who used to be to bestow this Divine wisdom on him, considering this technological know-how initially belonged to the Hindus. 1 This hagiographical account, striking in its eu­ menism, instructs all who've ears to listen to that an­ cient Hindu knowledge used to be transmitted via a Muslim grasp to a Hindu disciple, through the Tantric means of shakti-­pat, so that that disciple impart stated wisdom to Hindus and Muslims alike. And this is often what Ramchandraji did, delivering guideline in a mix of meditational recommendations, Hatha Yoga, and such Sufi practices as visualization (muraqaba) and “the technology hidden within the breast” (ilm-­i-­sina). simply because his day task as tax collector usually took him at the highway, he used to be in a position to commit his evenings to guide to a transforming into cir­ cle of fans, and so Ananda Yoga speedy unfold throughout north India’s Gangetic heartland. one hundred forty four White. indb a hundred and forty four † † bankruptcy eight 2/27/2014 9:23:49 AM † † † † a sequence of successors furthered the growth of Ananda Yoga, which this day counts a few 100,000 advert­ herents throughout India and around the globe. during the last 4 many years, the formal hyperlinks among Ananda Yoga and the Naqshbandi order have fallen away, and whereas kin among the 2 teams have remained cordial, the language of yoga that Ananda Yoga and its offshoots hire has turn into more and more Hinduized. This has specially been the case with the Sahaj Marg, a global offshoot of Ananda Yoga, which has expressly changed Sufi terminology with cognate phrases from the Yoga Sutra, pointed out in its teachings as Raja Yoga. The Islamic embody of items yogic has no longer been restricted to India. Yoga has been well known around the Muslim international for a number of a long time, with yoga facilities thriving in nations around the center East—includ­ ing in Iran, with out interference from the Iranian the­ ocracy. even though, in recent times, the beast of id politics has reared its gruesome head, with an outright ban on yoga that the govt. of Malaysia issued (and quick lifted) in November of 2008, and a fatwa opposed to Muslims working towards yoga that Indonesian cler­ ics emitted months later. In either situations, it was once the perceived Hindu content material of yoga perform that was once judged anathema to the genuine Islamic religion. Muslim ideologues haven't held the monopoly on non secular intolerance, besides the fact that. In 1989, Cardinal Ratzinger, the long run Pope Benedict, warned Catholics of the risks Yoga Sutra within the Muslim global White.

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