HYP by EU Research

Detail from Rāmcaritmānas mansucript (18th Century), Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur.

Mapping the religiosity, history and culture of yoga Over the past thirty years or so yoga has become an increasingly mainstream activity, yet little is known about its historical roots in South Asia. Dr Jim Mallinson tells us about his research into the origins of haṭha yoga, and how it evolved into the practices that we see in yoga studios across the world today The practice of yoga is becoming increasingly popular across the world, with many people getting into the habit of attending regular classes for a variety of reasons, whether to counter the indulgences of modern life, to relax, or simply to socialise and meet new people. This is very different to earlier practitioners of yoga, says Dr James Mallinson. “All our evidence of yoga practitioners up until around the last 200 years is that they were full-time religious professionals. They were almost always celibate, ascetic men, who had basically given up normal family life,” he outlines. Based at SOAS University of London, Dr Mallinson is the Principal Investigator of an EU-backed initiative investigating the origins of modern yoga, in particular the important branch of Hatha Yoga, which lies at the root of contemporary practice. “We’re trying to map out the development of yoga, from about the 11th to the 19th century,” he explains. Yoga practice This involves investigating the early evidence of yoga practice, with researchers both analysing historical manuscripts and spending time with yoga practitioners to gain deeper insights. While it is known that some of the physical elements of yoga practice date

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Unidentifed goddess (13th Century), Mahudi Gate, Dabhoi, Gujarat, India.

back to at least the time of the Buddha, it was only around 1,000 years ago that they were first written down. “We’re specifically looking at texts on yoga in which the physical methods of practice predominate,” says Dr Mallinson. Research is focused on ten core texts, an unusually small and self-contained corpus mostly written in Sanskrit, which Dr Mallinson and his colleagues plan to edit and translate. “We’ve been helped in establishing that corpus by a text from around the 15th century called the Hathapradipika, which

means the light on hatha yoga,” he continues. “We’ve identified about twenty texts that the Hathapradipika borrowed from, quite a few of which are among the ten texts that we’re editing in the project.” These texts reveal a process of evolution in the practice of yoga. Some of the early Buddhist texts refer to ascetics holding particularly difficult postures as part of their practice, for hours, days, or even sometimes years on end. “Ascetics were known for standing up for years on end for example,” says Dr Mallinson. About 1,000 years ago came the first textual descriptions of specific postures like balancing on the hands, which clearly cannot be held indefinitely. “There’s a quantum change in the notion of postural practices as part of yoga, but it remains a very minor element until about the 15th or even 16th century, when we start seeing texts which give lists of large numbers of such postures,” continues Dr Mallinson. “From the 16th/17th century onwards they are listed, described and analysed, and more and more emphasis is put on that. Then we start seeing dynamic postures, so we really have seen a process of development.” The more ascetic practices such as holding difficult postures for extended periods are absent in the textual treatments, in which

that the practices that bring spiritual benefits when you’re healthy, will also improve your health when you’re unhealthy,” says Dr Mallinson.

Historical context

Gaur Lena Cave (containing 14th Century images of yogis), Panhale Kaji, Maharashtra, India.

posture practice is for cultivating rather than mortifying the body. However, these types of practices haven’t completely disappeared, and in fact are still current amongst the living yoga traditions, a major area of interest to Dr Mallinson. “We’ve spent time in India talking to living yogis, amongst whom a lot of these ancient practices are still current,” he outlines. The influence of globalised yoga is nevertheless leading to changes in traditional practice in India, underlining the importance of documenting these practices now. “There’s a definite level of cultural exchange going on. Some of these wandering holy men are now incorporating sequential posture sequences into their yoga practice, which is not something they would have done around 2030 years ago,” acknowledges Dr Mallinson. A process of change was underway well before globalised yoga started to make its mark on traditional practice however. The more esoteric teachings and practices

originated amongst fairly extreme ascetics, who were often unconcerned by material comforts, yet the act of describing them in texts by nature broadened the audience. “Once these practices are taught in texts, the audience becomes students, priests and scholars. The practices are re-fashioned in

These practices predate the texts that describe them, raising the question of why these texts were written at that specific point in time. Dr Mallinson has gained new insights into this by looking into the wider context of the early period, around the 11th/12th century. “That basically coincides with the rise of monasteries in central and southern India, which seems to be where almost all of the texts were composed. So we believe that they were written within a monastic environment,” he says. These monasteries were not just religious retreats, but also functioned a bit like universities. “There would be students travelling between them, and they didn’t have to strictly adhere to the doctrines of whoever founded the university or monastery,” continues Dr Mallinson. “So even though the texts themselves were

There’s a definite level of cultural exchange going on. Some of these wandering holy men are now incorporating sequential posture sequences into their yoga practice, which is not something they would have done around 20-30 years ago such a way that they’re better suited to a less extreme lifestyle,” explains Dr Mallinson. The benefits of yoga are another area of interest in the project; over the last 1,000 years there has been a shift in the texts towards describing more of the physical benefits of yoga practice. “One explanation we find in some texts is

produced by different religious traditions following different gods, they will also say that anyone can do the practices that are taught in them.” This is a major factor in explaining why these practices have proved very adaptable over the years. As these monasteries grew

Yogis (16th Century), Hampi, Karnataka, India.

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in power, they would write their own texts, a much more organised way of passing on yoga practice to the next generation than was previously the case. “What we see in the texts is a kind of domestication of the practices of these hitherto extreme and wild wandering yogis,” explains Dr Mallinson. While the practices of these wandering yogis included some elements that we would recognise today as yoga, they also practiced some more extreme techniques. “They might sit surrounded by fire in the hot sun for example, or stand up for years on end. There’s no texts on that kind of practice, it’s always been passed down orally,” says Dr Mallinson. “It’s only the aspects of their practice that are more adaptable to a less extreme lifestyle that then get passed on in the texts.” The larger sects of holy men are doing well today, with many of their members practising traditional forms of yoga, but Dr Mallinson says that traditional practice is in some cases being influenced by recent developments in globalised yoga. “Their yoga techniques are changing under the influence of the ubiquitous modern globalised yoga, which in some ways is really quite different from traditional practice,” he says. In many cases the yogis themselves recognise this, and so differentiate their yoga from modern forms of practice. “Yoga is a sanskrit word, but in modern Hindi, the final ‘a’ of sanskrit words is dropped. So they’ll say that what they do is yog, and meanwhile what people in metropolitan centres are doing is yoga, which is different,” explains Dr Mallinson. “Nevertheless, they also recognise that they are seen to be the originators of these modern practices.”

HYP The Haṭha Yoga Project

Project Objectives

The Haṭha Yoga Project (HYP) is a five-year (2015-2020) research project funded by the European Research Council and based at SOAS, University of London which aims to chart the history of physical yoga practice by means of philology, i.e. the study of texts on yoga, and ethnography, i.e. fieldwork among practitioners of yoga. The project team consists of four researchers based at SOAS and two at the École française d’Extrême Orient, Pondicherry.

Lokeśvara (11th Century), Kadri, Karnataka, India.

This underlines the importance of documenting the traditional practices now. As global trends exert an ever greater influence on traditional practice, it grows harder and harder to identify what’s old and what’s new. “As a historian I’m interested in the historical record. In order to document what’s going on now, we need to identify what’s old and what’s new,” stresses Dr Mallinson. The project will make an important contribution in these terms, producing critical editions of ten texts on hatha yoga. “These ten texts have never been published before in any form, and are currently only available in libraries in India in manuscripts,” says Dr Mallinson. “We’ve gathered as many manuscripts of each text as we can, which we will then compare in order to produce our editions – versions of each text at a particular point in its development, together with an introduction and an annotated translation. We’re also going to produce four monographs.”

The project’s primary outputs will be critical editions and annotated translations of ten Sanskrit texts on haṭha yoga, four monographs, and a range of journal articles, book chapters and encyclopedia entries. In September 2016 a workshop for twenty scholars working on critical editions of Sanskrit texts on yoga was held at SOAS and All Souls, Oxford. A public conference will be held at SOAS in 2020.

Project Funding

Funded by the European Research Council.

Project Partners

• Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur, India • Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, Pondicherry • Sahapedia (https://www.sahapedia.org)

Contact Details

Project Coordinator, Dr James Mallinson SOAS University of London Thornhaugh Street Russell Square London WC1H 0XG T: +44 20 7898 4368 E: jm63@soas.ac.uk W: http://hyp.soas.ac.uk Dr James Mallinson

Yogic adepts and the goddess Tripurasundarī (14th Century), Panhale Kaji, Maharashtra, India.

Dr James Mallinson is Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit and Classical Indian Studies at the SOAS University of London. He is the Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded Hatha Yoga Project and the Chairperson of SOAS’s Centre for Yoga Studies. He is the co-author, with Dr. Mark Singleton, of Roots of Yoga (Penguin Classics 2017) and numerous books and articles on the texts and history of Haṭha Yoga.