Middle Ages (500–1500 CE)
Middle Ages saw the development of many satellite traditions of yoga. Hatha yoga emerged in this period.[172]
Bhakti movement
Main article: Bhakti Yoga
The Bhakti movement was a development in medieval Hinduism which advocated the concept of apersonal God (or "Supreme Personality of Godhead"). The movement was initiated by the Alvars of South India in the 6th to 9th centuries, and it started gaining influence throughout India by the 12th to 15th centuries.[173] Shaiva and Vaishnava bhakti traditions integrated aspects of Yoga Sutras, such as the practical meditative exercises, with devotion.[174] Bhagavata Puranaelucidates the practice of a form of yoga called viraha (separation) bhakti. Viraha bhakti emphasizes one pointed concentration on Krishna.[175]
Tantra
Tantra is a genre of yoga that arose in India no later than the 5th century CE.[176][note 23] George Samuel states, "Tantra" is a contested term, but may be considered as a school whose practices appeared in mostly complete form in Buddhist and Hindu texts by about 10th century CE.[60] Over its history, some ideas of Tantra school influenced theHindu, Bon, Buddhist, and Jaintraditions. Elements of Tantric yoga rituals were adopted by and influenced state functions in medieval Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in East and Southeast Asia.[178][179]
Vajrayana Buddhism
Main article: Vajrayana
Vajrayana is also known as Tantric Buddhism and Tantrayāna. Its texts were compiled starting with 7th century and Tibetan translations were completed in 8th century CE. These tantra yoga texts were the main source of Buddhist knowledge that was imported into Tibet.[180] They were later translated into Chinese and other Asian languages, helping spread ideas of Tantric Buddhism. The Buddhist text Hevajra Tantra and Caryāgiti introduced hierarchies of chakras.[181]
Hatha Yoga
Main articles: Hatha yoga andHatha Yoga Pradipika
The earliest references to hatha yoga are in Buddhist works dating from the eighth century.[182] The earliest definition of hatha yoga is found in the 11th century Buddhist text Vimalaprabha, which defines it in relation to the center channel, bindu etc.[183] The basic tenets of Hatha yoga were formulated by Shaiva ascetics Matsyendranath andGorakshanath c. 900 CE. Hatha yoga synthesizes elements of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras with posture and breathing exercises.[184] Hatha yoga, sometimes referred to as the "psychophysical yoga",[185] was further elaborated byYogi Swatmarama, compiler of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika in 15th century CE. This yoga differs substantially from the Raja yoga of Patanjali in that it focuses onshatkarma, the purification of the physical body as leading to the purification of the mind (ha), and prana, or vital energy (tha).[186][187] Compared to the seated asana, or sitting meditation posture, of Patanjali's Raja yoga,[188] it marks the development of asanas (plural) into the full body 'postures' now in popular usage[189] and, along with its many modern variations, is the style that many people associate with the wordyoga today.[190]
It is similar to a diving board – preparing the body for purification, so that it may be ready to receive higher techniques of meditation. The word "Hatha" comes from "Ha" which means Sun, and "Tha" which means Moon.[191]
Sikhism
Various yogic groups had become prominent in Punjab in the 15th and 16th century, when Sikhism was in its nascent stage. Compositions of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, describe many dialogues he had with Jogis, a Hindu community which practiced yoga.[192] Guru Nanak rejected the austerities, rites and rituals connected with Hatha Yoga.[193] He propounded the path of Sahaja yoga or Nama yoga (meditation on the name) instead.[194]The Guru Granth Sahib states:
Modern history
Reception in the West
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Yoga came to the attention of an educated western public in the mid-19th century along with other topics of Indian philosophy. In the context of this budding interest, N. C. Paul published his Treatise on Yoga Philosophy in 1851.
The first Hindu teacher to actively advocate and disseminate aspects of yoga to a western audience, Swami Vivekananda, toured Europe and the United States in the 1890s.[196] The reception which Swami Vivekananda received built on the active interest of intellectuals, in particular the New England Transcendentalists, among them R. W. Emerson (1803-1882), who drew on German Romanticism and the interest of philosophers and scholars like G. F. W. Hegel (1770-1831), the brothers August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845) and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829), Max Mueller(1823-1900), Arthur Schopenhauer(1788-1860) and others who had (to varying degrees) interests in things Indian.[197]
Theosophists also had a large influence on the American public's view of Yoga.[198] Esoteric views current at the end of the 19th century provided a further basis for the reception of Vedanta and of Yoga with its theory and practice of correspondence between the spiritual and the physical.[199] The reception of Yoga and of Vedanta thus entwined with each other and with the (mostly Neoplatonism-based) currents of religious and philosophical reform and transformation throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. M. Eliade, himself rooted in the Romanian currents of these traditions,[citation needed] brought a new element into the reception of Yoga with the strong emphasis on Tantric Yoga in his seminal book: Yoga: Immortality and Freedom.[note 24] With the introduction of the Tantra traditions and philosophy of Yoga, the conception of the "transcendent" to be attained by Yogic practice shifted from experiencing the "transcendent" ("Atman-Brahman" in Advaitic theory) in the mind to the body itself.[200]
The modern scientific study of yoga began with the works of N. C. Paul and Major D. Basu in the late 19th century, and then continued in the 20th century with Sri Yogendra (1897-1989) andSwami Kuvalayananda.[201] Western medical researchers came to Swami Kuvalayananda’s Kaivalyadhama Health and Yoga Research Center, starting in 1928, to study Yoga as a science.[202]
The West,[clarification needed] in the early 21st century typically associates the term "yoga" with Hatha yoga and itsasanas (postures) or as a form of exercise.[203] During the 1910s and 1920s in the USA, yoga suffered a period of bad publicity due largely to the backlash against immigration, a rise in puritanical values, and a number of scandals. In the 1930s and 1940s yoga began to gain more public acceptance as a result of celebrity endorsement.[citation needed] In the 1950s the United States saw another period of paranoia against yoga,[198] but by the 1960s, western interest in Hindu spirituality reached its peak, giving rise to a great number of Neo-Hindu schools specifically advocated to a western public. During this period, most of the influential Indian teachers of yoga came from two lineages, those of Sivananda Saraswati (1887–1963) and of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888–1989).[204]Teachers of Hatha yoga who were active in the west in this period included B.K.S. Iyengar (1918-2014), K. Pattabhi Jois(1915-2009), Swami Vishnu-devananda(1927-1993), and Swami Satchidananda(1914-2002).[205][206][207] Yogi Bhajanbrought Kundalini Yoga to the United States in 1969.[208] Comprehensive, classical teachings of Ashtanga Yoga,Samkhya, the subtle body theory, Fitness Asanas, and tantric elements were included in the yoga teachers training by Baba Hari Dass (1923-), in the United States and Canada.[209]
A second "yoga boom" followed in the 1980s, as Dean Ornish, a follower ofSwami Satchidananda, connected yoga to heart health, legitimizing yoga as a purely physical system of health exercises outside of counter-culture oresotericism circles, and unconnected to any religious denomination.[196]Numerous asanas seemed modern in origin, and strongly overlapped with 19th and early-20th century Western exercise traditions.[210]
A group of people practicing yoga in 2012.
Since 2001, the popularity of yoga in the USA has risen constantly. The number of people who practiced some form of yoga has grown from 4 million (in 2001) to 20 million (in 2011).
As of 2013 some schools in the United States oppose the practice of yoga inside educational facilities, saying it promotes Hinduism in violation of theEstablishment Clause.[212]
The American College of Sports Medicine supports the integration of yoga into the exercise regimens of healthy individuals as long as properly-trained professionals deliver instruction. The College cites yoga's promotion of "profound mental, physical and spiritual awareness" and its benefits as a form of stretching, and as an enhancer of breath control and of core strength.[213]
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