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100 years of Yoga
By Katie Dillard
Y
oga is now a worldwide phe-
nomenon. In India, yoga is one
of the country’s most significant
cultural exports. But how did yoga
spread, and do the poses that people
perform in studios and gyms the world
over accurately represent the Indian
tradition?
From beer yoga to nude yoga and dog
yoga - some novel variations on the
practice found overseas baffle Indian
yoga researchers.
How many people know exactly what
yoga is?
Integration of personality is the prime
aim of yoga. The five aspects of
“personality” which “should work
harmoniously” are physical, mental,
emotional, social and spiritual. The
physical aspects of yoga - which
improve flexibility of the spine, joints
and muscles - are important, but the
function of “asanas” (postures) are
ultimately to benefit the mind. As and
when you are capable to [stabilize] your
mind then you can achieve complete
eradication of the suffering, and then
you go for the attaining of eternal
peace.
Such an elevated pursuit may not
be front and center in the thoughts of
those who practice yoga primarily for
exercise. Still, they might be surprised
to learn that many of the most
well-known asanas and sequences
they are used to performing - including
“Downward Dog” and Surya Namaskar,
or “Sun Salutation” - are not found in
ancient texts.
Sun salutations are “now seen as inte-
gral to yoga practice” but are not found
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in any old texts and only started being
taught around the 1930s, says Dr Jim
Mallinson, a yoga history researcher
and senior lecturer at the University of
London’s School of Oriental and African
Studies (SOAS).
Popular yoga styles like Ashtanga,
Iyengar and Vinyasa Flow are also
modern incarnations. “We find
elements of them in older texts and
historical sources but also many parts
of them are modern innovations in
terms of yoga,” he says.
Researchers believe Downward Dog
actually corresponds with the Elephant
Pose - references to which are first
found in 18th Century texts. The pos-
ture was also traditionally used as an
exercise by Indian wrestlers.
However similar postures can be
found in popular physical exercise
books that emerged at the beginning
of the 20th Century.
Dr Mark Singleton, a senior researcher
in the modern history of yoga at SOAS,
says Swedish and Danish gymnastic
drills were particularly influential on
Indian yoga practices. A widespread
“preoccupation with natural fitness” at
the turn of the 19th Century coincided
with developments in photography,
which allowed pictures of poses an