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22/05/2024, 14:00
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Christopher Miller (Arihanta Institute / Claremont School of Theology / University of Zürich), Peter Pasedach, Suzanne Newcombe (Open University)22/05/2024, 14:45
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Prof. Harunaga Isaacson22/05/2024, 16:15
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James Mallinson (Oxford University)22/05/2024, 16:30
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22/05/2024, 19:00
https://www.cittaveganizakaya.de/
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https://maps.app.goo.gl/hdcnRHzYzvCrC3dt9
Grindelhof 17, 20146 Hamburg -
Dr Theodora Wildcroft (Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom)23/05/2024, 09:15
In the past 3 years, many ethnographers of ecologically-inflected wellness movements have seen an
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unprecedented rise in what Ward and Voas (2011) first termed ‘conspirituality’. Conspirituality is
both coherent with and a departure from the history of esotericism in combining fears of a
corrupted social present, and a firm belief in the inevitability of forthcoming ecological and... -
Ida Pajunen (University of Cambridge)23/05/2024, 09:15
Ida Pajunen
MA SOAS University of London - Traditions of Yoga & Meditation
MPhil University of Cambridge - Gender StudiesThis paper begins with the paradox of women in yoga: how did yoga come to be practiced by women, when prior to the twentieth century physical yoga was primarily a practice for high caste men? The answer suggested in this paper is nationalism.
This paper argues that...
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Shaman Hatley (University of Massachusetts Boston)23/05/2024, 09:15
The cakras of yoga have fascinated interpreters ever since the tantric body entered Anglophone discourse and scholarship in the late nineteenth century. While multiple authors in this period advanced biomedical interpretations of the tantric body, the consensus of modern scholarship is that the tantric body is a ‘visionary’ body or mental construct without empirical basis. This essay seeks an...
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Martha Henson, Ruth McNeil (King's College, London)23/05/2024, 09:45
What can or should yoga practitioners and teachers do with the research findings of yoga scholarship? What are the specific implications for contemporary yoga practice? Whilst increasing opportunities exist to be taught by academics and researchers in this area, enthusiastic learners are still often left on their own to ponder the significance of this information on their practice and...
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Tova Olsson (Umeå University)23/05/2024, 09:45
A few years back, Mark Singleton suggested that we consider the term “yoga” as it refers to modern postural practice as a homonym, instead of a synonym, of the “yoga” associated with the philosophical system of Patañjali, or the “yoga” that forms an integral component of the Śaiva Tantras (Singleton 2010, 15). Perhaps the same suggestion could be made when considering the many techniques that...
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Lubomír Ondračka (Charles University)23/05/2024, 09:45
Malik Muḥammad Jāyasī’s poem Padumāvat, composed in Old Awadhi in 1540, is the most famous Sufi composition of the premākhyān genre. Due to its popularity, it has been adapted into Persian and several South Asian languages. The Middle Bengali version, called Padmābatī, was produced by the excellent poet Ālāol in 1651. He not only retained most of the yogic elements from Jāyasī’s work,...
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Agi Wittich (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)23/05/2024, 10:15
This talk illuminates the complexity of generalizing and individualizing in Iyengar yoga alignment practices aimed at women. It examines the pedagogical strategies and rhetorical framing used to teach alignment in women-oriented Iyengar yoga classes. It first explores the dialectical tension between three pedagogical methods: (1) general postural instructions aimed at all bodies, (2)...
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Anya Foxen (California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo)23/05/2024, 10:15
This paper examines the centrality of Kuṇḍalinī among the early modern globalizers of yoga, especially Swami Vivekananda and Paramahansa Yogananda, as well as several more minor figures. While neither man referred to his system as “haṭha yoga”—of which Vivekananda is famously quoted as being dismissive at best—both put forth frameworks that are perfect examples of what James Mallinson has...
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Marleen Thaler (University of Vienna, Department of Religious Studies)23/05/2024, 10:15
Abstract:
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In 1967, the Indian Pandit Gopi Krishna (1903–1984) published his autobiographical account, Kundalini. The Evolutionary Energy in Man. The book revolves around a bodily experience, which he interpreted as the awakening of the Tantric energy notion of kuṇḍalinī. Research into kuṇḍalinī thenceforth developed into the major aim of his life. Along with a growing group of international... -
Jason Birch (University of Oxford)23/05/2024, 11:15
The Yogapañcāśikā might be one of the earliest attempts to integrate Haṭha and Rājayoga with Pātañjalayoga. The text is cited by name in a Sanskrit work called the Vivekamukura, which may have been composed in the late sixteenth century. Unlike other compilations on yoga from the early modern period, the Yogapañcāśikā is a short work of merely fifty verses that cites only the...
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Angela Gollat (Lakehead University)23/05/2024, 11:15
Over the past decade, victims/survivors have streamed forward to report sexual violence within the modern transnational yoga context, creating a distinct survivor movement: #metooyoga. Despite a growing body of victim/survivor narratives and investigative documentation, discussion of sexual abuse perpetrated by revered figures is conspicuously absent within the wider yoga community and...
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Adriana Maldonado (Open University)23/05/2024, 11:15
This paper explores the Role of Absorption in Modern Postural Yoga (MPY). Yoga as a modern and secular practice is often linked with spirituality; the paper argues that the key to this association is mental absorption and a person’s ability to control their attention for a period to access, deep or light, Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs). Certain techniques, practices and modern rituals...
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Dr Zoe Slatoff (Loyola Marymount University)23/05/2024, 11:45
The Aparokṣānubhūti, attributed to Śaṅkarācārya, although probably written closer to the early sixteenth century, emerged as part of the growing response to the increased output of haṭhayoga texts. It incorporates a unique fifteen-part path of rājayoga—including a redefined, brahman-centric version of the aṅgas of Patañjali that similarly culminates in samādhi—into the Advaitic core...
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Sheena Sood (Assistant Professor of Sociology, Delaware Valley University)23/05/2024, 11:45
Yoga continues to be popularly employed in mainstream spaces such as corporations, educational institutions, and elitist networks. Recently, there has been a global uptick of yoga’s deployment by far-right political entities, such as police academies, detention facilities, vigilante groups, armed forces, and law enforcement programs. While existing literature advances critical understandings...
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Samuel Horsley (The University of Edinburgh)23/05/2024, 11:45
Most practitioners of modern postural yoga (MPY) are white, non-South Asians who do not identify MPY practice with Hinduism or with religion. And yet, as Lucia (2020) discusses, many seek “authenticity” by appealing to (exoticised) South Asian religious and cultural forms, and experience this authenticity as grounds for authority. This paper contributes to this discussion through a case study...
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Beatrix Hauser (Universität Bremen)23/05/2024, 12:15
At first glance the history and spread of yoga in German speaking countries is fairly well documented. In transnational comparison, local discourses on yoga were heavily influenced by German Romanticism, the new science of Depth psychology, and a well-established Indological scholarship. By the turn to the twentieth century, ‘yoga’ became a buzzword in exclusivist bourgeois circles: in the...
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Dr Dominik Haas23/05/2024, 12:15
Dominik A. Haas; Austrian Academy of Sciences
BA (2016), MA (2018), Dr. (2022) from the University of Vienna
POST-DOCTRACK Fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences (2023–); Lecturer, University of Vienna (2023–); DOC Fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences (2020–2022)
Dominik A. Haas is a researcher in South Asian Studies working with ancient Vedic and Sanskrit texts. He is the author of...
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Rose Mary Busto (SOAS, University of London)23/05/2024, 12:15
Abstract
The centrality of pain in ascetic experience has long been recognised. Tales of the sufferings of martyrs and anchorites abound in the literature. While we can also find many examples of painful practices in the Vedas and epics, there is less information available about its role in Modern Yoga. Indeed, the popular narrative of the use of Yoga for pain relief appears to argue...
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Valentina Salonna PdD Candidate (University of Lausanne, Switzerland)23/05/2024, 14:15
The institutionalization of yoga as a therapeutic practice in Western countries is the result of a secular cultural transformation. Patients’ expectations and changing demands cause modern medical doctors to start questioning the biomedical paradigm and searching for new methods to treat chronic diseases, stress, cancer, and ultimatly reflecting on the way they intend prevention. This research...
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Finnian Gerety (Brown University)23/05/2024, 14:15
As recent work on Pāśupata asceticism by Jonker has shown (2021), liberating “union” (yoga) with Śiva was to be achieved through the practitioner’s self-induced death, by the method known to later yogic traditions as “climbing up” (utkrānti), whereby the soul leaves the body and ascends. In this paper, I explore this idea from another direction, through a granular examination of Pāśupata...
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Ella Poutiainen (Åbo Akademi University)23/05/2024, 14:15
This talk introduces my upcoming empirical research on BIPOC and LGBTQ+ yoga practitioners' experiences of yoga in Finland. Contemporary yoga appears as liberal, empowering and subversive on the surface, but has been criticised for complicity in oppressive structures, such as whiteness, patriarchy, and heterosexism (Jain 2020; Lucia 2020; Balizet & Myers 2016). Within the scene of yoga and...
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Jaroslaw Zapart (Jagiellonian University)23/05/2024, 14:45
Jaroslaw Zapart, PhD, Assistant Professor at the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilizations, Jagiellonian University.
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My research revolves around the North Indian bhakti traditions of early modernity and concentrates on the analysis of religious ideology. I also deal with selected aspects of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy, pertaining especially to the tathāgatagarbha (buddha nature)... -
Amelia Wood (SOAS, University of London)23/05/2024, 14:45
Name: Amelia Wood
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Bio: Amelia Wood is a PhD candidate at SOAS, University of London, researching abuses of power in modern transnational yoga contexts. She has presented work at several international conferences: the University of Chester Spiritual Abuse: Coercive Control in Religions conference (2021), the University of California, Riverside Religions and Sexual Abuse conference (2022) and... -
Meera Kachroo (University of Saskatchewan)23/05/2024, 14:45
This paper concerns the application of biomedical yoga intervention on sleep health in on-reserve Indigenous populations in Treaty 6 territory (rural Saskatchewan, Canada). Following a decade-long research relationships with rural Indigenous communities, and as part of a large-scale study of First Nations’ sleep health, our research team has designed and is implementing yoga interventions...
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Dr Louisa Pavey (Kingston University), Dr Nora Vyas (Kingston University), VIPIN WADHEN (Kingston University)23/05/2024, 15:15
Prolonged hours of sitting at work among desk-based workers have been associated with a host of physical and mental health conditions. These conditions can lead to work disability, absenteeism, and a significant economic and psychosocial burden. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess the effectiveness of yoga interventions on the well-being and productivity of desk-based...
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Matylda Ciołkosz (Jagiellonian University)23/05/2024, 15:15
Recent developments within modern postural yoga milieus – mainly bringing to light cases of sexual abuse – put into question the role of lineage in setting and transmitting standards of yoga practice. This opened new possibilities for yoga practitioners and instructors to consider moving their practice outside of the lineage format.
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Within Iyengar Yoga, discontinuing affiliation is an... -
Seth Powell (Yogic Studies)23/05/2024, 15:15
Topics: Haṭhayoga, Textual Studies, Yoga History, Mantra
Unlike its Tantric and Āgamic scriptural predecessors, where mantra plays an elevated role within the doctrinal systems of Mantramārga praxis, in most medieval Yogaśāstras that feature Haṭhayoga, teachings on mantra are largely absent or assume a lesser status. The Dattātreyayogaśāstra states that Mantrayoga can be “mastered by...
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Christopher Chapple (Loyola Marymount University)23/05/2024, 16:15
Haribhadra provides an early glimpse into the reception of Yoga, reinterpreting its philosophy in light of Jain karma theory. This paper will examine the Yogabindu’s analysis of karma, its five-fold Yoga, and its descriptions of religious practices such paying attention to dreams, recollection of past lives, fasting, and performance of devotional ceremonies. The Yogabindu gives a succinct...
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Gudrun Buhnemann (University of Wisconsin Madison)23/05/2024, 16:15
Patañjali was the name of a premodern Indian sage to whom important works on Sanskrit grammar, yoga philosophy and the medical system of Āyurveda are ascribed. In recent decades increasing attention has focused on Patañjali as the authority on and figurehead of yoga. Some authorities now also consider Patañjali a patron of music and dance, and in South Indian traditions he sometimes features...
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Christopher Miller (Arihanta Institute / Claremont School of Theology / University of Zürich)23/05/2024, 16:15
Gurani Anjali (1935-2001) arrived to the United States in the 1950s before the major influx of immigration from India that would follow in the 1960s. She eventually established Yoga Anand Ashram in Amityville on Long Island, New York, where she taught Sāṃkhya-Yoga philosophy within the context of the United States’ countercultural and post-countercultural periods. Central to Anjali's...
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Marissa Clarke (University of Edinburgh)23/05/2024, 16:45
In this paper, I will introduce my practice-led research Acoustemologies of Breath: Sounding and Listening in Contemporary Yoga, undertaken in collaboration with Professor Isabel Nogueira at UFRGS in Porto Alegre, Brazil. I take inspiration from Steven Feld’s (1992) concept of ‘acoustemology’ to theorise ‘sounding’ and ‘listening’ as a way of knowing in contemporary yoga practice. I foreground...
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Brett Parris (University of Oxford)23/05/2024, 16:45
Metaethics may be characterised as the philosophical and soteriological framework in which a tradition’s implicit normative ethical theory and practical ethical precepts are embedded. This paper compares two traditions that contributed to the evolution of modern transnational yoga as it is currently practiced: Patañjali’s Yoga, exemplified in his Yogasūtra, based on the dualist Sāṃkhya system...
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Keith Cantu (Harvard University, Center for the Study of World Religions)23/05/2024, 17:15
The Tamil yogin Sri Sabhapati Swami (ca. 1828–1936) is known for his elaborate visual depictions of the Royal Yoga for Śiva (Śivarājayoga), but much lesser known is the attention paid to musical poetry, mantra, and sound within his Sanskritic publications that span Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, and English language worlds. In addition to lyrical songs and poetic compositions, Sabhapati also included...
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Owen Ware (University of Toronto)23/05/2024, 17:15
Drawing upon the work of Surendranath Dasgupta (1887-1952), this paper explores a set of deep and unexpected parallels between the ethical theories of Patañjali and the post-Kantian philosopher J. G. Fichte. In Yoga as Philosophy and Religion (1924), Dasgupta claims that Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras put forward two essential requirements for reaching ultimate liberation: (1) an ethical ideal of...
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Cogen Bohanec (Arihanta Institute / Claremont School of Theology)23/05/2024, 17:15
Interfaith Dialogue In Jain Yoga Texts
By Cogen Bohanec, MA, PhD
Assistant Professor in Sanskrit & Jain Studies, Arihanta InstituteOften Jains take Anekānta-vāda (“non-exclusivity”) as having implications for interfaith goodwill and acceptance, as a sort of philosophy of social-ahiṃsā (social “non-violence”), which can be taken as consistent with religious pluralism and interfaith...
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23/05/2024, 20:00
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Lucy May Constantini (The Open University)24/05/2024, 09:15
Lucy May Constantini – PhD Candidate in Religious Studies at the Open University
lucymay.constantini@open.ac.ukYoga Darśana, Yoga Sādhana: Introspection, Inspiration, Institutionalisation
22-25 May 2024 University of HamburgBlended Ontologies: entanglements of yoga, martial arts and postmodern Indian dance
Abstract:
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Emerging out of New York in the second half of the... -
Karen O'Brien-Kop (King's College London)24/05/2024, 09:15
This paper seeks to contextualise Indian philosophy teacher Phiroz Mehta’s contribution to UK yoga culture between the 1930s and 1980s. It will consider how he blended Theosophy and yoga to form his own practice called 'Theorhythm' and how he pioneered health camps in Dorset during the 1930s that included Theorhythm sessions for mostly middle-class women. The paper will include interview...
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Susanta Bhattacharya (Pedagogical University of Krakow)24/05/2024, 09:15
Abstract: This paper aims to explore the concept of theistic yoga in the Īśvara Gītā (8th century CE) which is believed to a Śaiva text, especially a Pāśupata philosophical text. Many yogic texts do not accept the concept of God (Īśvara) or sometimes prescribe the worship of Īśvara for the attainment of liberation, but Īśvara is not conceived as the almighty Īśvara with Omni-attributes rather...
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Karl-Stéphan Bouthillette (Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Department of Philosophy)24/05/2024, 09:45
A form or another of dualism within the Sāṃkhya philosophical system has long been noticed and denounced. Early opponents of Sāṃkhya were quick to point out the inherent and problematic dualism they perceived in the system’s distinction between 1. puruṣa, the only metaphysical category representative of consciousness in the Sāṃkhyan list of twenty-five core realities (tattva-s), and 2....
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Nick Lawler (Lancaster University)24/05/2024, 09:45
Drawing on survey data, interviews and field notes, this paper describes the economic, social, and ethical considerations balanced by mainstream yoga teachers in choosing where to teach – the politics of yoga spaces. Using three archetypal yoga spaces: church hall, multi-use gym, and yoga studio, the case studies highlight demographic trends and multi-generational perspectives, from older...
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Prof. Mirian Santos Ribeiro de Oliveira (Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana)24/05/2024, 09:45
In the 1970s, a regular flow of Hatha Yoga practitioners between Brazil and India was established, connecting yoga academies and research institutes in the two countries. However, the actual movement of ideas and people within such South-South yogic network was possible only due to the engagement of a small group of physical educators based in Rio de Janeiro with Hatha Yoga, initiated in the...
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James Mallinson (Oxford University)24/05/2024, 10:15
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Nikolai Suvorov (Universität Hamburg)24/05/2024, 10:15
My name is Nikolai Suvorov, and I am a Ph.D. student at Universität Hamburg. In the recent past, I worked as a student assistant with Dr. Peter Pasedach. I worked on the creation of TEI (XML) transcript files of the two mahākāvyas surviving from 9th-century Kashmir, the Haravijaya and the Kapphiṇābhyudaya, and their commentaries, from digital images of the different witnesses represented in...
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Diane Charmey (University of Lucerne)24/05/2024, 10:15
My paper will look at the teachings of Yogi Haider, a contemporary yoga teacher in Pakistan. Drawing from his online publications on YouTube and Facebook in Urdu and English, I will first analyze some of the ways he incorporates his yoga teachings into the Pakistani Panjabi context (e.g., his use of public spaces, specific dates, cultural references, and different languages). Secondly, I will...
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Sandra Sattler (SOAS)24/05/2024, 11:15
Cāmuṇḍā embodies various roles, including that of a mother (mātṛ), a yoginī, and an independent goddess or manifestation of Mahādevī. She is characterised by her transgressive Śaiva attributes, which include cradling a skull cup, standing on a cremation ground atop a corpse—a possible reference to śavasādhana, the corpse ritual—and wielding items like the skull-topped staff (khaṭvāṅga) and...
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Scott Lamps (Independent scholar, SOAS University of London)24/05/2024, 11:15
This paper investigates the transition of prāṇa from a central deity to a mere element of the material world, one that must be restrained and even stopped in favor of the mind and the eternal ātman. Given the Vedic and early Upaniṣadic importance of prāṇa and the breath, how can we understand the restraint of prāṇa — prāṇāyāma — in classical and later yogic teachings?
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In the early Upaniṣads,... -
Peter Pasedach24/05/2024, 11:15
The Śivasaṃhitā is a prominent text in the Haṭhayoga Corpus. Many editions and
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translations of it exist, but a new critical edition of it is a desideratum, as
the two previous editions which call themselves critical did not pay much
attention to the readings of their many witnesses, or did not even provide a
critical apparatus (!). Furthermore, there is obviously more manuscript
material... -
Ji Ho Yi (Universität Leipzig)24/05/2024, 11:45
Kucha was an oasis kingdom that ruled the region centered around present Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China, before the 10th century. The local population was mostly Buddhists before they converted to become Muslims around 9th and 10th centuries, and they carved numerous Buddhist cave monasteries and nunneries.
Those cave monasteries consisted of...
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Jürgen Hanneder (Philipps-Universität Marburg)24/05/2024, 11:45
The techniques and theories connected to Yogic breathing are confusingly manifold. In this lecture we shall follow the history of one hardly known idea connected with Yogic or rather meditational breathing, namely breathing through the pores of one's skin. The idea is not widespread in
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literature, but has a curious reception history, since it crops up over a long span of time. It is... -
Maximilian Hoth24/05/2024, 11:45
Maximilian Hoth is a student in the M.A. program Yoga Studies at the University of Hamburg. He studied Indology and Japanese Studies in Hamburg and completed his B.A. degree in 2023. His study focus is on medieval and early modern haṭhayoga and tantric texts in Sanskrit and Hindi. In previous years he gained experience as a student tutor for Sanskrit at the University of Hamburg and as a...
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24/05/2024, 12:15
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Christina Riebesell (Universität Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut)24/05/2024, 12:15
Christina Riebesell is lecturer at the Asia-Africa-Institute, Culture and History of India and Tibet at Hamburg University.
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Christina’s research focusses on the History of Yoga, especially text-image-relationship of Illustrated Yoga Manuscripts bringing together her art historical competence as well as her knowledge of the History of Yoga Practice.
Prior to coming to Hamburg, Christina was... -
Victoria Addinall (SOAS)24/05/2024, 12:15
Outline:
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This paper will explore the significance of breath control as an early pre-cursor to contemporary commercialised yoga in the context of fin de siècle Britain. It will examine how socio-cultural features of Edwardian London had a role to play in furthering a construction of ‘better breathing’ as a route to health; and how one historical actor – physical culturist and famed food... -
Peter Pasedach24/05/2024, 14:15
Śivasvāmin's Kapphiṇābhyudaya is a fascinating work of epic court poetry
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(mahākāvya) from 9th-century Kashmir, a product of a highly-developed
intellectual culture. This poem builds upon a Buddhist theme, the campaign of
the southern king Kapphiṇa against his northern rival Prasenajit. The latter,
a Buddhist, calls the Buddha for help when his army is about to be defeated in
the decisive... -
Dr Magdalena Kraler (Independent scholar)24/05/2024, 14:15
A central practice to both premodern and modern yoga, prāṇāyāma (lit. “breath control”) is widely practised in yoga classes today. Yet, until now, it remained under-researched. Kraler’s PhD thesis “Yoga Breath: The Reinvention of Prāṇa and Prāṇāyāma in Early Modern Yoga” (2022) radically changes this. By carefully examining the history of modern prāṇāyāma between 1850 and 1945, it unearths...
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Samani Pratibha Pragya (FIU)24/05/2024, 14:15
Who is well Versed in Yoga: Insights from Yogaśatakam of Haribhadra
This paper delves into Yogaśatakam, an 8th-century medieval Jaina yoga text composed in Prakrit by Śvetāmbara Ācārya Haribhadra in verse style. As a yogic text, Yogaśatakam employs various Jain yoga techniques. The focus of this study is to examine the concept of the "efficient person in yoga" (adhikārī) within the...
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Rosina Pastore (Gent University)24/05/2024, 14:45
Our understanding of the relationship between the different forms of Yoga and Vedānta philosophies stands to this day on works composed in Sanskrit (i.e. Fort 1998 for Advaita). The connection between Haṭhayoga in particular and Vedānta as well has been explored by scholars through Sanskrit textual sources (i.e. Bouy 1994). This paper proposes to enlarge our insight into the early modern...
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Valters Negribs (Groupe de recherches en études indiennes, Paris)24/05/2024, 14:45
Valters Negribs
Postdoctoral researcher at Groupe de recherches en études indiennes (EPHE/Sorbonne Nouvelle) with a fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust
DPhil Oriental Studies (Oxford)
MA Traditions of Yoga and Meditation (SOAS)Rethinking Patañjali and āsana: The relationship between āsana (posture), sukha (bliss), and meditation in early Buddhism and Patañjali’s yoga
This paper...
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Daniela Bevilacqua (CRIA (ISCTE-IUL))24/05/2024, 14:45
What is an āsana for a sādhu? And what are the contexts and uses in which āsanas are performed? This presentation aims to unveil the different meanings of āsanas among contemporary sādhus, starting with āsana as the physical place to sit to practice any sādhanā. It will then present three typologies of āsanas – spiritual, physical, tapasic – and the contexts in which they are performed....
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Ulrike Lang (TU Dresden, Institute of Slavic Studies)24/05/2024, 15:15
In the mid-1960s, the People’s Republic of Poland experienced a craze for hatha yoga. Popular magazines circulated self-help yoga instructions, well-known actresses endorsed its health benefits, and yoga classes could be found in central Warsaw. My paper provides an explanation for the (seemingly) paradoxical popularity of body-oriented yoga practices in a socialist country by tracing the...
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Karen O'Brien-Kop (King's College London)24/05/2024, 15:15
One of the distinctive features of early Buddhist meditation was the wide range of awareness or attention practices of smṛti (sati). There is also an important role for smṛti in the Pātañjalayogaśāstra, where it appears in a variety of semantic contexts, not only in the mundane cognitive function of memory, but as an applied meditation technique of correct and clear recollection of objects of...
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Martha Henson (SOAS University (2017-2020))24/05/2024, 16:15
The Patañjalayogaśāstra states that "the purpose of yoga is to stop the turnings of the mind". Similar aims for meditation are found in other historical texts such as the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā and the Buddhist Pāli Canon, whilst in contemporary contemplative practices the idea that one should quiet the "monkey mind" is widespread. Given what we know about the human mind today, it is...
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Ms Ruth Westoby (SOAS University of London)24/05/2024, 16:15
Menstruation for some is a sacred thread connecting women with their natural rhythms whilst for other, such as Kashmirian tantric brahmins, menstruation is ‘that which could not be suppressed in [the women of the cult], the monthly discharge of their inner depravity’ (Sanderson 1985:202). But it could be halted. Fourteenth century haṭha yoginīs draw up menstrual and sexual fluid inside their...
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Rose Parkes (The Open University)24/05/2024, 16:15
Rose Parkes
The Open University, UKRose Parkes is a part-time PhD student with the Open University, UK under the supervision of Dr Suzanne Newcombe (Religious Studies) and Dr Deborah Drake (Criminology). Her doctorate entitled ‘Neoliberal Yoga, Lived Religion and Prison Abolition’ seeks to evaluate the political and religious/spiritual beliefs of Prison Yoga Teachers and the extent to...
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Firdose Moonda (University of Cape Town)24/05/2024, 16:45
The collision of health inequalities exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic and social inequities raised through the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of George Floyd put a spotlight on the treatment of black bodies in world of white privilege. In contemporary yoga settings, this led to discussions around inclusion on the basis of race, gender and body shape and size...
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Travis Chilcott (Iowa State University)24/05/2024, 16:45
One of the most enduring debates within the study of religion over the last century and half has been how to make sense of the plurality of mystical experiences found in the human record (James, 1902; Zaehner, 1957; Stace, 1960; Katz, 1978; Forman, 1990; Taves, 2009). This question, however, is not new nor confined to modern academic discourse and theological speculation. There is a rich...
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Patricia Sauthoff (Hong Kong Baptist University)24/05/2024, 16:45
Patricia Sauthoff
Hong Kong Baptist University
Assistant Professor
PhD South Asian Language and Cultures, SOAS University of LondonPatricia is an Assistant Professor in the department of History at Hong Kong Baptist University. She was previously Assistant Lecturer in History, Classics and Religion at the University of Alberta and a Postdoctoral Fellow on the European Research...
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Iwona Kozlowiec24/05/2024, 17:15
Yoga and yogis were present in Polish media from the beginning of the 20th century. After 1945, the popular image of yoga transformed to reflect the change of general perception of yoga in Poland. There was a shift from understanding yoga as something esoteric, exotic or sensational towards yoga being viewed through the lens of science and medicine, as well as a new lifestyle to counteract...
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Prof. Stuart Ray Sarbacker (Oregon State University)24/05/2024, 17:15
Psychoactives and Psychedelics in Yoga: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Culture
Stuart Ray Sarbacker, Oregon State UniversityIn this paper, I examine the intimate relationship between the mind-body disciplines of Hindu systems of yoga and the use of psychoactive substances in the Indic religious context, with an eye to the ways in which modern cosmopolitan forms of yoga have been...
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Prof. Sonal Khullar (University of Pennsylvania)24/05/2024, 18:00
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25/05/2024, 09:00
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Adrián Muñoz (El Colegio de México), Dr Borayin Larios (French Institute of Pondicherry and École française d'Extrême-Orient)25/05/2024, 09:00
This paper presents an exploratory theoretical framework for examining the various manifestations of yoga in Latin America. It offers a comprehensive introduction to a range of specific cases spanning multiple countries in the region, dating from approximately the 1900s onwards. Linked to Proyecto YoLA®, a collaborative initiative, this paper acknowledges the contributions of experts from...
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Janne Kontala (Åbo Akademi), Mr Måns Broo (Åbo Akademi University)25/05/2024, 09:00
There are many studies of yoga practice and philosophy, but less of the yogins themselves. Our study, part of a larger, four-year project on yoga in Finland, investigates the worldviews of yoga practitioners in Sweden using Q-methodology. The study constitutes the pilot phase of a larger study to be conducted in Finland. The theoretical assumption behind Q-methodology is that there is only a...
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25/05/2024, 09:30
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Matteo Di Placido (Department of Cultures, Politics and Society)25/05/2024, 09:30
Positioning yoga at the intersections of the fitness and wellness industry, therapeutic culture and the landscape of contemporary spiritualities, this contribution presents an ethnographic and micro-sociological study of the ways in which modern postural yoga is taught, transmitted and interiorized in Euro-American yoga studios today. While most of the available literature to date concerns...
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Adriana Maldonado (Open University)25/05/2024, 09:30
ADRIANA MALDONADO GALARZA
PhD Candidate at the Open UniversityAbstract
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As is the case in many countries, yoga initially arrived in Bolivia in the shape of books. One text stands out as possibly initiating Bolivia’s yoga tradition: ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ by Paramahansa Yogananda. Planting interest and curiosity for yoga among a mainly Christian audience searching for new forms of... -
Dr Borayin Larios (French Institute of Pondicherry and École française d'Extrême-Orient)25/05/2024, 10:00
Nestled in the rural countryside of Amealco, Mexico, the spiritual retreat center known as "Jamadi" takes its name from the native Otomí word, signifying "gratitude to the Spirit." Within this haven, the region's first Hanuman temple stands out for its unique presence, catering to yoga practitioners and SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious) audiences. In an intriguing juxtaposition of cultures...
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25/05/2024, 10:00
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Jens U. Augspurger (SOAS University of London)25/05/2024, 10:00
This paper explores the production of imaginaries and the processes of meaning-making vis à vis the politics of identity and power at the boundaries of Yogaland. Yogaland, as a spatial-temporal domain that is primarily founded on acts of imagination, is understood here as epitomising the institutionalisation of the expanding transnational modern yoga project. However, having been applied both...
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25/05/2024, 10:45
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Macarena González Carmona25/05/2024, 10:45
Subject area: Modern yoga
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This paper discusses the hitherto understudied Suddha Dharma Mandalam (SDM), allegedly the first Yoga school in Chile. The SDM was established in India in 1915 and subsequently in Chile in 1927, where it then took a hybrid form of its own. Based on documental research and interviews, the paper sets out to probe into, and contextualize, the first audience of this... -
Dr Veena Howard (California State University Fresno)25/05/2024, 10:45
In this paper, I will explore Gandhi’s engagement with various yogas and yogic texts as a case study for the role of various yogas—a cornucopia of practices—not simply karma yoga in his sociopolitical activism. His personal observances include various facets of yoga (emotional, physical, psychological, and moral) for personal empowerment and social uplift. Gandhi affirmed the value of...
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25/05/2024, 11:15
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Adrián Muñoz (El Colegio de México)25/05/2024, 11:15
The flow of religious and spiritual ideas has proved to be constant and eclectic, as well as a dynamic means that links different regions of the globe. It has been especially intense from the second half of the nineteenth century onward. This paper will explore the noteworthy touring of the notorious theosophist C. Jinarajadasa in Latin America, with special attention to his visit to Mexico in...
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Marina Alexandrova (University of Texas at Austin)25/05/2024, 11:15
Name: Marina Alexandrova, PhD
Position: Associate Professor of Instruction
Affiliation: Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, University of Texas at AustinBio: Dr. Alexandrova is Associate Professor of Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. She teaches a variety of courses on Russian cultural history, literature, and language. Her current research interests include the...
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25/05/2024, 12:00
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Gabriel Martino (CONICET - Universidad de Buenos Aires)25/05/2024, 12:00
Subject area: MODERN YOGA
In his book titled I Remember, Luis Sérgio Álvares DeRose -Brazilian yoga teacher and bestseller- narrates the story of an ancient Dravidian boy who has to abandon his land in northern India due to the invasion of an aggressive nomad tribe and who goes through an initiatic path of knowledge and transformation. But the story opens with the following quote by Jean...
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25/05/2024, 12:30
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Philip Deslippe (UC Santa Barbara)25/05/2024, 12:30
As scholarship on the history of modern yoga has grown and developed in recent decades, attention has been paid to both the development of yoga in the Anglophone world, often as a presumed default, and the development of yoga in individual nations, particularly throughout Europe. This paper suggests that the development of modern yoga can be understood from the vantage point of Latin America...
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25/05/2024, 14:00
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Sven Sellmer (Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań)
The German philosopher Hermann Schmitz (1927–2021) is one of the most prolific and original phenomenological thinkers of his generation. He is perhaps best known for his work on the "felt body" (Leib), where he discovers and systematically describes several structural and dynamic traits of this phenomenological entity. These are, according to him, basically all-human (though, on a higher...
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Philipp Maas (University of Leipzig)
In pre-modern South Asia, the authorship of the oldest surviving commentary on Patañjali’s Yoga Sutra, the so-called Yogabhāṣya (c. 400 CE), was variously ascribed to Patañjali himself, Vindhyavāsin, or Vyāsa. While there is a broad scholarly consensus that the authorship ascription to Vyāsa is ahistorical, scholars like J. Bronkhorst, G. Larson, and myself depicted the hypothesis of...
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Ms Punya Pragya Samani (FIU)
This paper examines "Manobala Pañcaviṁśikā," a modern yoga text composed by Ācārya Mahāprajña (1920-2010). Comprising twenty-five verses in Sanskrit, the text explores practices aimed at empowering the mind. Ācārya Tulasī (1914-1997), the ninth head of the Jain Śvetāmbara Terāpantha sect, introduced a new order within Jain monkhood, known as "samaṇa-śreṇī," in 1980. Notably, when the first...
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Corinna Lhoir (Universität Hamburg)
Corinna May Lhoir, Universität Hamburg
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Bio:
Corinna Lhoir, M.A., is a PhD student of classical Indology and a contract lecturer for Origins of Yoga at Universität Hamburg as well as an entrepreneur with her own online learning platform with focus on studies of yoga and Sanskrit (yogastudien.de). She holds a B.A. in Languages and Cultures of India and Tibet with focus on classical Indology... -
Laura von Ostrowski
Already early yoga pioneers like Sri T. Krishnamacharya and Yogananda but also Western psychologists like C.G. Jung and popular authors like John Woodroffe were interested in Kuṇḍalinī practices in the early 20th century. Kuṇḍalinī, a secret »serpent power«, as Woodroffe famously called it, is said to sit coiled at the bottom of the spine and, according to Tantra and Haṭhayoga, must be...
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Dr Hagar Shalev (postdoctoral research fellow in the NEEM ERC project (The New Ecology of Expressive Modes in Early-Modern South India))
The physical body assumes a paramount role in contemporary transnational globalized yoga, particularly within the realm of modern posture-based yoga. It is inextricably linked to the pursuit of health and well-being. However, much of what constitutes yoga today, both in India and worldwide, draws its roots from Sanskrit yoga texts, particularly from Haṭhayoga texts. This presentation delves...
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sowmya ayyar (banaras hindu university)
This is a case study of Visual Artist Suresh K. Nair's Covid Contemplations. During Covid, Nair brought his work into small spaces using business cards as his canvas. His work can be seen as a display of yoga philosophy, practicing balance of elements in order to make up the universe; visualizing different limbs of Ashtanga yoga.
Through each card, Nair portrays asana, pranayama, and...
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Agata Świerzowska (Jagielloniam Univeristy in Kraków), Mr Grzegorz Bryda (Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland)
The ancient practice of yoga has expanded beyond its traditional realms, becoming a significant focus of interdisciplinary research worldwide. To understand this vast research landscape, we analysed data from academic journals and conference proceedings using dictionary-based content analysis and text mining analysis. These methodologies empowered us to examine research topics, revealing...
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Andrew Nicholson (Stony Brook University)
Is yoga practice appropriate for everyone, or is it only for monks and renouncers? What benefits of yoga might there be for those who are not seeking liberation in their current life from the cycle of death and rebirth? To begin to explore such questions, in this presentation I will examine techniques of self-mastery, such as meditation and the “conquering of the senses” (indriya-jaya),...
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43. “We wish you a very successful erotic exploration of life”: Revisiting tantric paths in the WestMonika Hirmer (SOAS, University of London, FAU Erlangen)
The rise of tantra’s popularity in the West, which roughly begun with the movement initiated by Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) in the 1970s, is showing no sign of stopping anytime soon. Thus far, scholars have mostly analysed tantric practices in the West for their emphasis on sensationalised sexuality (Urban 2008), under the lens of consumerism (Padoux 2017) and as cultural appropriation...
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