Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice

Yoga Body is an important tool for every yoga scholar, well written and well documented. It is the author's PhD dissertation at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, where he worked as Research Assistant to Elizabeth De Michelis. Mark Singleton teaches at St. John's College, Santa Fe (NM), and was one of the main contributors to the recent Encyclopedia of Hinduism (Routledge, 2007). Singleton is a fervent yoga practitioner and has yoga teaching diplomas in the Iyengar and Satyananda traditions. He concentrates on the transition from the classical conception of yoga as a philosophical system to the version we know today as postural yoga. Without denying that some Asanas were mentioned in classical texts (around 450 AD, Vyasa's comments on Patanjali's Yoga Sutra named 12 poses, and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, around 1350, included 84), Singleton examines in detail why Asanas did not initially receive the same attention that they have in modern times.This book goes further in the analysis of modern yoga than three previously published outstanding scholarly books: Joseph S. Alter, Yoga in Modern India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), Silvia Ceccomori, Cent ans de yoga en France (Paris: Edidit, 2001), and Elizabeth De Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga (London: Continuum, 2004).After presenting a brief summary of the development of yoga since its origins to the first contact with Europeans, Singleton explains that postural yoga is a recent development with many sources, particularly from the physical education taught in the British Army. He traces many of the European roots of British gymnastics, including the German "physical revivalism" of J. F. C. Gutsmuth (1793), the "British Manly Exercises" of Donald Walker (1834), "Muscular Christianity" (1857), the Swedish gymnastics of P. H. Ling (1766-1839), and "bodybuilding" of Eugene Sandow (1867-1925). He then examines how physical education began to flourish in India as `drill mastering' with Manick Rao and K. Ramamurthy (early 20th century), Captain P. K. Gupta (Mysore in the 1920s), and H. C. Buck (the American who was YMCA director in India in the 1930s). Further developments were done by K.V. Iyer (1897-1980), and the Rajah of Aundh (aka Pratinidhi Pant, the creator of the modern sequence Suryanamaskar -`Sun salutation' in the 1930s) and many others. Singleton pays particular attention to Shri Yogendra and T. Krishnamacharya (1888-1989), including his students B.K.S. Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, Indra Devi, and T. K. V. Desikachar. The author gives particular attention to the role played by the expansion of print technology and the availability of photography in the rapid dissemination of postural yoga.Because of its iconoclastic approach, this book has generated a large variety of opinions. Singleton studied in detail the European and American reception of yoga, examined rare documents from Indian, European and American archives, reviewed numerous yoga manuals written before 1940, and interviewed many of the major figures in yoga today. One of his major conclusions is that "to a large extent, popular postural yoga came into being in the first half of the twentieth century as a hybridized product of colonial India's dialogical encounter with the worldwide physical culture movement."Many yoga aficionados have found his analyses unexpected and irreverent. Many readers will be surprised and upset by Singleton's findings as he puts into question many of the commonly held beliefs about the origins of modern yoga. While Pattabhi Jois, for example, had many discussions with the author, B. K. S. Iyengar refused to be interviewed on these topics but allowed the author to make use of his library in Pune. For a happy ending, Singleton concludes his survey by emphasizing that many of the yoga masters were innovators and always tried to adapt their "teaching to the cultural temper of the times while remaining within the bounds of orthodoxy."

Nice Book! After reading Mark Singleton's book, Yoga Body, I agree that what is presented as an un-interrupted lineage of asana practice, is in reality, far more of a hybrid practice the current form of which is less than a hundred years old, or so. And also, that the supposed source texts for current Asana practice are either non-existent or have but scant references to poses currently in extant. That being said however.... I have no doubt that some forms of Asana ARE going back thousands of years.After all, what about the physical practice of the mendicant/warrior/mercenary yogis referenced, who were outlawed by the British, and whose traditions then morphed into exhibitionist beggarism, which spawned the revulsion that led to the nineteenth century swing against hatha and towards raja yoga, by the educated Hindu? What of the legends of the Indian founder of the Chinese Shaolin Temple who taught physical poses and exercises to Chinese monks as prefaces for meditation a thousand years ago? What of the Sun Salutation series incorporated into current Asana practice that is tied to a different tradition than Raja Yoga, (that of Ancient Sun Worship) but is nevertheless known to be stretch back far further than the Mysore Palace years. Or the similar histories of other physical practices that have also experienced rises, falls and mutations, but nonetheless always had a narrative thread running through them that was never quite severed? Such as japanese jiu-jitsu through to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu... Ancient greek wrestling, boxing, and pankration, now all reborn today in their current sport formats.I refuse to believe there isn't a strong, native Indian element stretching back for a very long time, within Asana practice, and I would be interested in a deeper delving, well-researched book that neither oversimplifies the connection to tradition to give some sense of mystical authentication, nor swings too far in the other direction, pointing out only the inconsistencies in the previous argument while not speaking from a place of true authority and knowledge. (Difficult to do, doubtless, without the texts to back it up, but perhaps, somewhat possible...) jack

A great overview over yoga history and its deeper understanding. Since college i am not used to such writing style so as a non native speaker it was time to time hard to wrap my head around things but it helped to get an overall better understanding of what and why is yoga the way it is today. It should be recommended for every teacher, especially new ones, to read about it because it helps to ground the understanding of your own experience with yoga and helps to disillusion those who are looking at yoga being a very mystical. This book among understanding builds respect towards where and how it grew from and it is very important to pay respect the ones who came before and made yoga what it is today.

Anyone deeply attached to the idea that the postures practiced in modern yoga have their roots in ancient India is going to resist this book's thesis. However, the author presents a scholarly, rich and densely written argument that makes complete sense. He doesn't reject that yogic philosophy has ancient roots, but he says many, not all, of the postures and breathing styles that people practice in studios and gyms represent an amalgamation of east and west. He argues that many of the postures come out of the physical culture movement of the late 1800s, which thrived in Europe and North America and was also embraced by Indian nationalists.The history of modern yoga is just beginning to be written, and I'm sure there's more research to be done, but this is a cornerstone text.