What is Haṭha Yoga? The evolving definition.

by JACQUELINE HARGREAVES

The Haṭha Yoga Project team members: (from left) Daniela Bevilacqua, James Mallinson (P.I.),
Jason Birch and Mark Singleton

As the Haṭha Yoga Project marks the end of its third year, this gallant team of scholars chose to gather at the newly formed SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies to present their evolving understandings of the term haṭhayoga. On the surface, this appears to be a fairly straight forward and simple topic to discuss, because haṭhayoga is a familiar phrase which is commonly used to categorize many of the popular forms of transnational yoga practised around the world. However, when scrutinised historically through the lens of philology and when the ethnographical data from contemporary ascetic practitioners is considered, its varied meanings and the subtle nuances of understanding quickly form a very complex debate.

Each of the panelist offered insights into the definition of the term given their particular area of study. The audio recording of this event is available here:

• | PODCAST RECORDING | •

Dr James Mallinson
[00:00-24:51] Early Haṭha Yoga and proto-Haṭha texts. 

Dr Jason Birch
[24:58 - 43:30] The formative years of Haṭha and Rāja Yoga and their influence on 15th - 18th century literature. 

Dr Daniela Bevilacqua
[43:31 - 58:05] The study of contemporary ascetics in India and their understanding of Haṭha Yoga. 

Dr Mark Singleton
[58:10 - 01:13:50] The transnational meanings of Haṭha Yoga which are developing in the globalised milieu of contemporary yoga.

Below are some notable quotes from each of the researchers.

| JAMES MALLINSON |

The Amṛtasiddhi is the oldest of the ten texts that we’re [...] editing, as part of the Haṭha Yoga Project. And it introduces various things which become very important in later textual treatments of haṭhayoga, including these three practices that I just mentioned: mahāmudrā, mahābandha and mahāvedha. 

It also goes into the principles of the yogic body: sun, moon, fire, bindu, that I’ve been mentioning; these three knots that the breath pierces as it rises up the central channel; a connection between the mind, breath and bindu (if you control one, you control the other two); the four states of practice; and then, four levels of aspirant. 

Now, we’ve just, Jason and I and others in the room, we’ve just had a workshop in Italy where we read this text very closely and we made great progress understanding it. It’s a complex text. One of the things we knew already, from a close reading of it, was that it was written by tantric Buddhists, which is a big revelation and an exciting development in our understanding of early Haṭhayoga’s history.

Here is some open access background reading material on this topic by Mallinson:

Haṭhayoga's Philosophy: A Fortuitous Union of Non-Dualities

| JASON BIRCH |

The early proponents of Haṭhayoga do not characterise the practice of Haṭhayoga as difficult or dangerous, but they do acknowledge that manipulating prāṇa forcefully was dangerous and could kill the practitioner. Therefore, they advise that the techniques of Haṭhayoga should be learnt from an expert and that they should be practised gradually, and never forcefully. 

Nonetheless, those who rejected Haṭhayoga emphasised the dangers of forcing the breath and advocated for easier and safer ways for achieving liberation. In particular, gnostic traditions tend to exaggerate the difficulty and exertion of physical yoga techniques because, from their point of view, there are more effective methods for gaining knowledge. 

Perhaps, in response to this criticism, haṭhayoga was defined (in the fourteenth century) as the union of the sun and moon, which was interpreted to mean the practice of prāṇāyāma. This definition became the preferred one of erudite Brahmins who wrote scholarly compendiums that incorporated teachings on Haṭhayoga. In defining Haṭhayoga as prāṇāyāma, within the system of aṣṭāngayoga, these compendiums downplay the forceful effects of physical yoga techniques and emphasise their compatibility with older systems of yoga.

Here is some open access background reading material on this topic by Birch:

The Meaning of haṭha in early Haṭhayoga

| DANIELA BEVILACQUA |

The majority of the ascetics that I interviewed were understanding haṭhayoga not as a kind of method of yoga, but mostly as a kind of mental intention. So, Haṭhayoga is a dṛdh saṅkalp and it is a firm determination to accomplish something or reach a goal. […] 

[The] use of the breath as an interpretation of Haṭhayoga is another type of meaning that the sādhus give to the [term]. And, in fact, this has been explained to me by a sādhu, Garuḍ Dās jī Mahārāji. [He is] a Rāmānujī, and he understood haṭhayoga as [follows]:

Manhant Garuḍ Dās jī Mahārāji: 

“The aim of Haṭhayoga is to reach keval kumbhak and then to go into samādhi. Therefore, the haṭha yogi reaches a stage where he is not going to breathe again if he does not want to and, in so doing, he can push his body into death. The final stage of Haṭhayoga would be the death of the yogi who remains in samādhi.”

Here is some open access background reading material on this topic by Bevilacqua:

Let the Sādhus Talk. Ascetic understanding of Haṭha Yoga and yogāsanas.

| MARK SINGLETON |

An idea that has been growing in popularity, at least since the book called Selling Spirituality (2004) by Carrette and King, is that Yoga along with practices that are prevalent now such as Mindfulness, can be seen as political tools, which are used in conjunction with neoliberalism and commercialisation, in order to get people back to work. So, you relax people and send them back to work the next day. It’s sort of a critique of Haṭhayoga, and in some ways quite a powerful one and [it is] something of an academic trend to see practices (including Haṭhayoga), framed this way. There are some obvious problems with such a theory. [...]

So, I am musing at the moment, as I’m currently reading the new book by Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, where he is talking about the rise of artificial intelligence and the coming of the part-human, part-AI cyborg. This is an idea that I first came across in the context of yoga in the work of Joseph Alter:

“In many respects the cyborg is in effect the ultimate embodied form of yogic practice, a jivanmukta as everyman.” 

I’m wondering what will now become of Haṭhayoga and how we are going to think about and define Haṭhayoga in a world where humans are increasingly interacting with technology: with biohacking; with possibilities for the elongation of life (so a very typical goal of hathayoga would be immortality, which is apparently now a very near biomedical reality); with new trends to use [tools, such as] the MUSE headband for monitoring your own brainwaves into order to bring yourself into meditative states and NADI X yoga pants that will actually vibrate to tell you how you should move in a particular yoga posture.
   
So, a philosophical question to leave you with: 

What does yoga become in a post-human cyborg world?

Here is some further helpful (open access) background reading on this topic by Singleton:

Yoga in the Modern World: Contemporary Perspectives.

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The Ancient Yoga Strap:

A Brief History of the Yogapaṭṭa

by SETH POWELL

Download this article as a PDF

For me, prop is not only for the asana. It should contribute to the position of the body which in turn can let the mind be calm and state of “chitta vritti nirodha” be experienced. Body is my first prop. The body is a prop to the soul [sic]. — BKS Iyengar¹

As critical scholarship on the historical foundations of yoga traditions in ancient and medieval India continues to progress, we are constantly refining our understanding of both the continuities and disruptions between precolonial yoga of India and the transnational postural yoga practised by millions around the world today.

Many aspects of modern postural yoga are clearly just that: modern innovations. The concept of a large group yoga class, the majority demographic of female teachers and practitioners, and indeed, much of the vinyāsa “flow” style of sequenced postures set to the rhythm of breath has been shown to be a much more recent development than many yogins have previously assumed.

One aspect of modern yoga that finds surprising continuity with ancient forms of Indian yoga and asceticism, however, is the use of material “props” to support one’s yogic and meditative practice. In particular, the idea of using a cloth yoga strap or belt to fix one’s body in a posture turns out to be at least two thousand years old! 

In Sanskrit literature, this ancient prop was known as the yogapaṭṭa. Monier-Williams defines yogapaṭṭa in his Sanskrit-English dictionary as, “the cloth thrown over the back and knees of a devotee during meditation” (2005: 857).² Similarly, in his Indian Epigraphical Glossary, Dineschandra Sircar (1966: 386) defines the yogapaṭṭa as a “band used by the ascetics to keep their limbs in a position of rigidity” and the related term yogapaṭṭaka as “a garment worn during contemplation.”

This article will provide a small window onto the longue durée of the yogapaṭṭa, or “yoga strap,” and introduce a brief selection of the textual, visual, and material sources available for constructing its history.³ It will demonstrate that although the use of a yoga strap in postural yoga is typically credited as an “invention” of BKS Iyengar in the 1960s, the notion of a cloth strap used to support one’s physical yogic practice turns out to be just about as old as the discipline of yoga itself.

Fig. 1: Great Stupa at Sanchi.
Madhya Pradesh (c. 50 BCE - 50 CE).
Image from Diamond (2013: 28).

The Visual and Material Record

Since before the Common Era, the yogapaṭṭa has been depicted visually by Indian artisans as an emblematic accoutrement of the ascetic—an icon depicting spiritual prowess and transcendence over the limitations of the human body. Some of the earliest sculptural depictions of the yogapaṭṭa can be found at the Great Stupa of Sanchi, an ancient Buddhist site in Madhya Pradesh (c. 50 BCE–50 CE). 

Here on the northern gate, we see we see two “headless” ascetic figures seated outside of their respective forest huts (Fig. 1). The one on the far right is employing the yogapaṭṭa to sustain a seated meditative position, in which the legs are crossed in front of the body with the knees-lifted. The yogapaṭṭa wraps around the bearded ascetic’s legs and lower back. The right arm of the ascetic is bent and raised, hand-lifted in the air, which may be a mudrā of some kind or the raised-arm practice (ūrdhvabāhu) for the generation of ascetical heat (tapas).

Fig. 2: King Bhagīratha as ascetic with yogapaṭṭa.
Tamil Nadu, Mamallapuram (c. 7th century).
Photograph Seth Powell.

Several centuries later, on the coast, south of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, at perhaps one of the most famous sculpted reliefs in all of India, we find a similarly styled yogapaṭṭa at Mamallapuram (c. 7th century)—again “headless” due to damage (Fig. 2).

Around that same time at Ellora in Maharashtra (c. 7th century), a cadre of Śaiva ascetic devotees bound with yogapaṭṭas are depicted flanking a large seated Śiva (Fig. 3).

These early yogapaṭṭa images portray human figures in modes of yogic asceticism, with typical features of the ancient Indian renunciate: long beard, matted hair (jaṭā), located in front of a forest hut, surrounded by animals, established in a seated posture (āsana), and fixed in that posture by a strap. In this sense, the yogapaṭṭa as a prop for meditation is expressed visually as one of many accoutrements of the early Indian ascetic, and by the early centuries CE, had become a popular visual trope in Indian art, transcending geographical traditions across the subcontinent.

Fig. 3: Śaiva ascetic devotees.
Ellora (c. 7th century).
Photograph Seth Powell.

Indeed, once one begins looking for the yogapaṭṭa in Indian sculptural traditions, the yoga strap can be found just about everywhere. Even the gods and goddesses are depicted with yogapaṭṭas, to indicate their “yogic” forms and legends—or what David White has referred to as “the ‘yogi-fication’ of Indic deities” (2009: 167).

A circa seventh-century sculpture (Fig. 4) from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh displays the goddess Pārvatī seated cross-legged, aided by a yogapaṭṭa. Such sculptures invoke the well-known story in the Purāṇas in which Pārvatī performs tapas in order to win Śiva’s hand in marriage.

Fig 4: Tapasvinī Pārvatī.
Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh (c. 7th century).
Image in Joshi (1996: Fig. 4).

At Hampi, in northern Karnataka, a giant monolithic carving of Yoga Narasiṃha (Fig. 5) with a yogapaṭṭa survives from the fifteenth-century Vijayanagara empire—though the strap has been refurbished in more recent years. In this popular yogic form of Viṣṇu’s avatāra as the man-lion, Yoga Narasiṃha is possibly evoking the famous episode from the Bhāgavatapurāṇa, whereupon saving the young devotee Prahlāda from his demon-father, Narasiṃha instructs the young Prahlāda in the path of Bhaktiyoga (see Diamond 2013: 146).

Fig 5: Yoga Narasiṃha.
Hampi, Karnataka (c. 14th century).
Photograph Seth Powell.

In the north, medieval Mughal paintings also feature numerous depictions of yogins and ascetics—particularly Nāth Yogins—sporting the ubiquitous yogapaṭṭa (Fig. 6).

Fig 6: Close-up of encampment of Nāth yogīs. Bābur’s visit to Gorkhatri in 1519.
By Kesu Khurd. India, Mughal dynasty, 1590–93.
© British Library Board (Or. 3714 fol.320v).

The Textual Record

Reading the images alongside the textual record, we can be confident that the yoga strap was indeed used by lived ascetics and yogins, and not simply an artistic embellishment of idealized gods and sages. There are numerous references to the yogapaṭṭa in Sanskrit literature. One of it’s earliest occurrences may be found in the Kṣudrakavastu, a section of the enormous Mūlasarvāstivādavinaya (c. first few centuries CE), a treatise on Buddhist monastic code,⁴ where we find a description of a Buddhist monk who fashions a make-shift “yoga strap” out of his own monastic robes to fix himself in meditation (see Bass 2013: 68-69).

In the Pātañjalayoga tradition we begin to see more references to the yogapaṭṭa in an explicitly yogic context. When Patañjali states that one’s posture (āsana) become steady (sthira) and comfortable (sukham) in PYŚ 2.46, the commentary (bhāṣya) provides a list of about a dozen recommended postures. One such āsana is termed sopāśraya (lit. “with support”), which, although details are not provided in the bhāṣya, is interpreted by later commentators as an āsana in which the yogin employs a yogapaṭṭa—attesting to the use of meditative props in Pātañjalayoga.

For example, Vācaspatimiśra’s Tattvavaiśāradī (c. 10th century) states:

yogapaṭṭakayogāt sopāśrayam | 

[This posture is] with support (sopāśrayam) because it uses a yoga strap.⁵

Likewise, Vijñānabhikṣu’s Yogavarttika (c. 16th century), states:

sopāśrayaṃ yogapaṭṭayogenopaveśanam | 

Sopāśraya is the act of sitting by means of a yoga strap.

Examples like this can be found throughout Indian philosophical and religious literature—and across sectarian traditions—whether in prescriptive yogic treatises, or in iconographic descriptions of gods, goddesses, siddhas, or yoginīs.

One particularly rich description of the yogapaṭṭa is found in Dharmaśāstra traditions. Here a novice Brāhmaṇical ascetic (saṃnyāsa) is given a yogapaṭṭa upon initiation by his guru—providing some detailed insight into the ritualised nature of bestowing a yogapaṭṭa from teacher to student. The following is a summary of the initiatory yogapaṭṭa ritual found in the Yatidharmasamuccaya (11th century), or “Collection of Ascetic Laws,” described by P.V. Kane in his History of Dharmaśāstra Volume 2, Part 2 (1941: 962).⁶

The yogapaṭṭa (lit. the cloth of yoga, union with Spirit) is given in the following way: After the ascetic has undergone paryaṅkaśauca [a detailed bathing ritual described in the previous section], he should cleanse his waist, wear a string round his waist and his loin cloth and cover his waist with a piece of cloth. He should then sit with his guru’s permission on a high seat and should propound some Vedānta topic in the presence of the persons assembled. The ascetic guru should sprinkle on the head of his ascetic disciple water from a conch to the accompaniment of the Puruṣa hymn (Ṛg [Veda] X. 90), should honour him by offering clothes, sandalwood paste, flowers, incense, lamp and naivedya [food offerings]. He (the guru) should hold a piece of cloth over the head of the disciple, recite along with the other yatis the chapter called Viśvarūpa (11th chapter of the Bhagavadgītā) and from the 15th verse to the 33rd verse. He should then give the name already determined upon to the disciple and say to him ‘Hencefoward you may admit to saṃnyāsa one who is eligible for it, initiate him and give him the yogapaṭṭa.’ Then the disciple bows to the yatis older than himself. Then the guru gives to the disciple a waist-thread and a staff marked with five mudrās and should offer his own salutation to the disciple according to the tradition of his order. Other ascetics and house-holders also should bow to the disciple, who should only repeat the word ‘Nārāyaṇa,’ should leave the high seat and seat his guru thereon, should bow to the guru according to the rules of the order and to the other ascetics.

This highly elaborate initiatory rite for Vaiṣṇava saṃnyāsas thus requires serious prerequisite training—including memorised knowledge of Vedānta, Vedic hymns, and sections of the Bhagavadgītā—and grants the initiated ascetic both with a yogapaṭṭa and the power to bestow it, through the ritual, to other future ascetics. Its inclusion in orthodox Brāhmaṇical texts like the Dharmaśāstras suggest that the yogapaṭṭa was harnessed widely in premodern India.

By the early modern period, there was even a yogic āsana named after the strap, namely yogapaṭṭāsana, or the “Posture With a Yoga Strap.” The seventeenth-century Yogacintāmaṇi, quoting the Āgneyapurāṇa, describes it as follows:⁷

pādau dvau dviguṇīkṛtya tiryag ūrdhvaṃ yathākramam |
nyaset pāṇī yathā paṭṭasthitaśliṣṭāṅgalinakhau ||
yogapaṭṭāsanaṃ hy etat sarveṣām api pūjitam iti || 

Having folded over both legs, horizontally and upwards in that order, the yogin should fix the hands so that the nails and fingers are situated on the belt and joined together. This is Yogapaṭṭāsana, which is worshipped by all. 

(Edition and trans: Birch and Singleton, forthcoming, the Haṭha Yoga Project).

An illustrated manuscript of the nineteenth-century Śrītattvanidhi, which features numerous dynamic āsanas including the use of hanging ropes, includes an āsana named the “Posture With a Yoga Strap” (yogapaṭṭāsana) (ŚTN 121, Fig. 7).

Fig. 7: Illustrated yogapaṭṭāsana in the Śrītattvanidhi (c. 19th century). 
Image in Sjoman (1996).

In the early twentieth century, Swāmī Hariharānanda Āraṇya (1869-1947), head of the Kapila Maṭha in Madhupur, Bihar, in commenting on the sopāśraya of PYŚ 2.46, writes:

Sopāśraya is squatting tying the back and the two legs with a piece of cloth called ‘Yoga-paṭṭaka’ (a strong piece of cloth by which the back and the two legs are tied while squatting) (1983: 228).

Despite this quite ancient record of continued usage, contemporary ascetic orders in India today do not appear to include the yogapaṭṭa in their bag of props. However, in Nepal and Tibet, the tradition seems to have been maintained to this day by the yogins of the Vajrayāna orders, who are often seen wearing a cloth sash over their shoulders, which can be fashioned into a strap for meditation.

The Modern Yoga Strap: An Ancient Technology Reinvented?

Having traced a two-thousand year history of the yogapaṭṭa, it may come as a surprise to learn that the yoga strap does not appear to have featured in the earliest expressions of modern postural yoga. BKS Iyengar, who is often credited for having “invented” the yoga strap, tells the story of this apparent yogic innovation in his own words:

In the 1960s, when I was in France, I saw people were using belts to carry or tie their luggage. They were holding their bags together with them. My bag was also tied with it and I returned home. Then I thought, this luggage belt is good for yoga also. If the bags are tied so firmly, I can use it for my legs too. I immediately tried it. With that grip, it held my legs and I could hit them out in a confined space. That is action with resistance. 

Next year, when I went back to France to buy those belts, I learnt that those particular belts were ‘out of fashion’ and taken off the market. Thankfully, since I had that one belt, after I returned home, I got belts with those buckles manufactured here in Pune. 

Later, I began using the belt to give my muscles a sense of direction. 

Everything can contribute to yoga is my ardent conviction. It is not the size of the object or the complexity of its arrangement or the content which is important, but the intention and attitude which convert a simple gadget into a prop (Iyengar, 2012).

In this way, it seems, Iyengar refashioned an ancient yogic technology, unbeknownst to himself, to fit the modern and evolving needs of his own yoga practice and teaching. The buckle was new, and so too the array of possibilities for employing the strap in modern yoga practice. While premodern sources traditionally depict the yogapaṭṭa for supporting seated postures, Iyengar refashioned the yoga strap as a prop to be used to support an endless variety of āsanas for creating “action with resistance” (see Fig 8). And while a yogapaṭṭa may have originally been granted to a disciple by a guru in a highly elaborate rite of initiation, today one can purchase a cloth yoga strap on Amazon or any retail store.

Fig. 8: From BKS Iyengar’s “Body is My First Prop” (2012).

References

Āraṇya, Swami Hariharānanda. 1983. Yoga Philosophy of Patañjali: Containing His Yoga Aphorisms with Vyāsa’s Commentary in Sanskrit and a Translation with Annotations Including Many Suggestions for the Practice of Yoga. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Bass, Jeffrey. 2013. Meditation in an Indian Buddhist Monastic Code. PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles.

Diamond, Debra, ed. 2013. Yoga: The Art of Transformation. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute.

Joshi, N.P. 1996. Tapasvinī Pārvatī: Iconographic Study of Pārvatī in Penance. New Delhi: New Age International Limited.

Kane, P.V. 1941. History of Dharmaśāstra : (Ancient and Mediæval Religious and Civil Law in India), Volume 2, Part 2. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.

Iyengar, BKS. 2012. “Body is My First Prop.” Pune: Ramāmaṇi Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute.

Monier-Williams, Monier. 2005. Sanskrit-English Dictionary: Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European Languages. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Sircar, Dineschandra. 1966. Indian Epigraphical Glossary. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Sjoman, Norman. 1996. The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace. Mysore: Abhinav Publications.

White, David Gordon. 2009. Sinister Yogis. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Woods, James Haughton. 1977 [1914]. “Yoga-System of Patañjali: Or, The Ancient Hindu Doctrine of Concentration of Mind, Embracing the Mnemonic Rules, Called Yoga- Bhāshya, of Patañjali and the Comment, Called Yoga-Bhāshya, Attributed to Veda- Vyāsa and Explantion, Called Tattva-Vāicāradī, of Vāchaspati-Micra”. Harvard Oriental Series 17. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Notes

1. From BKS Iyengar’s “Body is My First Prop” (2012), published posthumously by the Ramāmaṇi Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute. I wish to thank Daniel Simpson for kindly directing my attention to this article and providing a PDF scan.

2. Monier-Williams’s dictionary entry references the word “yogapaṭṭa” or “–paṭṭaka” in the Padmapurāṇa (c. 5th/6th century CE), Harṣacarita (ca. 625), and Hemādri's (1260-1309) Caturvargacintāmaṇi.

3. This brief article is part of a larger study on the yogapaṭṭa that I aim to publish in the near future. 

4. Today the Kṣudrakavastu, the largest section of the Mūlasarvāstivādavinaya only survives in its later Tibetan translation. See Bass’ 2013 dissertation.

5. There is some disagreement amongst interpreters over how to take Vācaspatimiśra’s yogapaṭṭaka in this sentence. James Woods translates as follows: “Because there is a use of the yogic table (yoga-paṭṭaka), this is [the posture] with the rest.” Woods remarks in a corresponding footnote that the nineteenth-century editor, Swāmi “Bālarāma says that this yogic table is a special kind of support for the arms of a yogin who is about to practice concentration. It is made of wood and is well known among udāsin by the name of ‘changan’” (Woods 1977 [1914], 191, n.3). Though I think the early evidence points to yogapaṭṭaka referring to a cloth strap, the possibility of a wooden “yogic table” only further adds to the discourse on premodern yogic props.

6. I wish to thank James Mallinson for this reference.

7. Earlier Śaiva Tantras such as the Mataṅgapārameśvara and the Kiraṇa describe this as Paryaṅkāsana, wherein the yogin applies a yoga strap while seated upon a cushion (paryaṅka). I am grateful to Jason Birch for this reference, and for kindly sharing his forthcoming translation of the Yogacintāmaṇi.

8. I am grateful to James Mallinson for confirming this.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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A portrait of a devotee seated in meditation (using a Yogapaṭṭa).
19th century (early). Drawing on paper. Rajasthani-style (14.3 x 9.9 cm).
Museum No.: 1914,0217,0.15
© The Trustees of the British Museum

Jason Birch writes:

Apart from the ṣaṭkarma, there is evidence for one other significant development of a distinctly Yogic therapy, which was called such (i.e., cikitsā). This therapy is described in a chapter appended to the Haṭhapradīpikā’s four chapters in two manuscripts. The colophons of both manuscripts mistakenly entitle it as a section on herbs. It was undoubtedly added to the Haṭhapradīpikā at a more recent time, most probably at the beginning of the eighteenth century, judging by the date of one of these two manuscripts. Seeing that very few catalogue entries report of a Haṭhapradīpikā with five chapters, it is probable that the chapter on therapy had only a brief association with this Haṭha text. The chapter has been taken from a Śaiva text called the Dharmaputrikā, which teaches a system of Yoga with six auxiliaries (ṣaḍaṅga) for the Śaiva laity. The Dharmaputrikā is sometimes included in bundles of manuscripts of the Śivadharma corpus, and it must have been composed earlier than the mid-eleventh century on the basis of two dated manuscripts. The fact that its chapter on therapy was attached to at least two manuscripts of the Haṭhapradīpikā suggests that it had some currency amongst yogins from the sixteenth to eighteenth century, possibly because of their interest in the practical application of its therapy for curing illness. 

The aim of this therapy is to cure imbalances of the humours in relation to one another caused by a yogin’s negligence (pramāda). Negligence while practising Yoga may make the breath stray from its normal path in the body, causing a blockage (granthi) and then various diseases, which are obstacles to Yoga. The method of treatment proposed is very simple: 

In whatever place pain arises because of disease, one should meditate with the mind on the breath in that place. Having meditated on it with a one-pointed mind, [the yogin] should breathe in and out completely, carefully [and] according to his capacity. Having performed many exhalations and inhalations again and again, he should draw out the breath that has accumulated [there], as one [would draw out accumulated] fluid from the ear with water.

Haṭhapradīpikā: 5.9-11 (Dharmaputrikā: 10)

This method is distinctly Yogic insofar as it relies on the yogin’s ability to meditate and manipulate the breath. Other verses in the chapter provide further advice on diet, the practice of kumbhaka, prāṇāyāma in a supine position and the various diseases that can be cured by this therapy. A significant comment on this therapy’s relation to Ayurveda is made towards the end of the chapter, when the yogin is advised to perform this Yogic therapy (yogacikitsā) in addition to taking the treatments prescribed in Ayurvedic texts (vaidyaśāstra). Therefore, it appears that the author of the Dharmaputrikā understood its Yogic therapy as distinct from but complementary to Ayurveda.

The art of healing diseases through meditation has another antecedent in Tantra. For example, the treatment of diseases (rogacikitsā) using concentration (dhāraṇā) on the elements and meditation can be found in the Matysendrasaṃhitā, which was composed at the time when early Haṭha and Rājayoga systems were being formulated. There are even traces of this conception in the Pātañjalayogaśāstra: 1.32, in which the hindrances (antarāya, vikṣepa), including disease (vyādhi), are said to be prevented by focusing the mind on one object (ekatattvābhyāsa). 

Extract from the publication:

Birch, J. 2018. "Premodern Yoga Traditions and Ayurveda: Preliminary Remarks on Shared Terminology, Theory and Praxis." History of Science in South Asia. Vol. 6 (April): 1-83. 

Available as an open-access PDF:
https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/hssa/index.php/hssa/article/view/25/89 

Also available on Academia.edu:
https://www.academia.edu/36472499/Premodern_Yoga_Traditions_and_Ayurveda_Preliminary_Remarks_on_Shared_Terminology_Theory_and_Praxis

You can read more about the Dharmaputrikā (including translations of its āsana practice) in a post by Dr Christéle Barois (of the AyurYog project): 

http://ayuryog.org/blog/eight-yoga-postures-dharmaputrikā

Stay tuned for a forthcoming article by Dr Christéle Barois, in which she will be providing a detailed study of the Dharmaputrikā's chapters on medicine as an integrated part of yogic practice, including the yogacikitsā one.

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The Lotus Within | Olivia Fraser Exhibition

Breathe, Olivia Fraser (2016).
Stone pigment and Arabic gum on handmade Sanganer paper.
91.5 x 91.5 cm (36 x 36 in).

THE LOTUS WITHIN | OLIVIA FRASER EXHIBITION
6 - 26 June 2018

Grosvenor Gallery

35 Bury Street London SW1Y 6AY

Artist Olivia Fraser writes:

I have drawn on tradition in a variety of ways all of which are linked to the symbol of the lotus as the archetypal icon of yoga used as a tool for visualization with its association with perfection, renunciation and spiritual growth. In different paintings I pull the lotus apart, deconstructing it, iterating it, expanding and contracting it, unravelling it, isolating it into icons both large and small, exploring its association with colour and with the senses and its connection to the ground and the cosmos and to Indian philosophy and poetry. I am concerned with inner landscapes rather than external ones, so the majority of my works are painted or enclosed within a square format reflecting the idea of a mandala with its associations of energized space and meditation.

Sthalapadma, Olivia Fraser (2017).
Stone pigments and Arabic gum on handmade Sanganer paper.
Consists of nine individual panels.
58.4 x 58.4 cm (23 x 23 in) each.
175.3 x 175.3 cm (69 x 69 in) overall.

Frazer describes the above work as follows:

I have been reading the Gheranda Samhita a recently translated early C18th Sanskrit text on yoga and the sevenfold pathway to perfection. There is a wonderful bit in the section on Dhyana where the yogi is told to visualize an ocean of nectar in the middle of which there is “an island of jewels” on which, amongst groves of kadamba trees, there are seven scented  flowers “perfuming every quarter.” Having learnt a very visual form of yoga with colourful visualizations using imagery culled from the garden - flowers, trees, animals, etc. used as tools for meditation, I was intrigued and excited to learn about scent also being a focus for meditation. Along with the expected various forms of jasmine the sthalpadma  flower was one of the seven mentioned perfumed flowers. Translated as “land lotus,” some sources say that it changes colour during the course of the day. Traditional Indian scents are oil based and, when applied to the skin, the perfumes amplify and intensify reflecting the body’s temperature over the course of a day. I am interested in exploring visually the idea of an ever-increasing scent, the essence of a lotus, reflected in an ever increasing saturation of the colour pink.

Pause II, Olivia Fraser (2016).
Stone pigment and Arabic gum on handmade Sanganer paper.
71.1 x 91.4 cm (28 x 36 in).

I was rather intrigued by this extract from an early C18th Sanskrit text called the Gheranda Samhita: 

“Through breath - control the yogi gets the ability to move in the ether; through breath control diseases are destroyed; through breath control the goddess (Shakti) is awakened; through breath - control the mind enters the supramental state. Bliss arises in the mind and the practitioner of breath - control becomes happy.” 

In this painting [above] I focus on exploring the idea of stillness, breath and time using the icon of the paired down, closed lotus.

The show at the Grosvenor Gallery is the first time this specific yogic imagery has been seen in London. Robert Macfarlane comments on the exhibition as follows:

Pinwheels and starbursts, constellations and soul - maps, slow unfurlings and rich pulsations: Fraser’s work somehow possesses at once a calm grace and a hallucinatory intensity. She practices what Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, has called “elaboration by simplification... they are no longer details magnified but details transformed”. The result is a hugely powerful body of work that – to quote again from The Gheranda Samhita – “puts the self in space and space in the self.”

The complete exhibition catalogue is available online for preview.

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