Yoga and the Traditional Physical Practices of South Asia

 

On the 10th April 2023, the Journal of Yoga Studies published a special issue (Vol. 4) entitled, Yoga and the Traditional Physical Practices of South Asia edited by Daniela Bevilacqua and Mark Singleton. It contains a collection of fourteen peer-reviewed academic essays by leading scholars on topics of Indian yoga, dance, exercise, and martial arts, as well as discussions about exchange with Chinese and Tibetan physical practices. In the spirit of open-access publishing, the Journal of Yoga Studies offers the entire volume for free and available to read by all.

FULL VOLUME

This volume is the outcome of a workshop held at SOAS University of London in November 2019, under the auspices of the five-year, ERC-funded Haṭha Yoga Project (HYP).

Bevilacqua and Singleton write:

The workshop was organised because of several questions that had been on our minds for some time: considering the centuries-long presence of multiple embodied traditions in India, what was the relationship between the physical practices of yoga and other physical disciplines that bear certain similarities to yoga, at least in appearance? Had there been interchange or even influence across and between different physical disciplines and the practices of yoga? Could such a perspective on the history of yoga help to understand better any of its developments?

Table of Contents includes:

INTRODUCTION

Daniela Bevilacqua and Mark Singleton

I. PRELUDE

1. Premodern Yogāsanas and Modern Postural Practice: Distinct Regional Collections of Āsanas on the Eve of Colonialism.

Jason Birch and Jacqueline Hargreaves

II. YOGIS, ACROBATS OR DANCERS?

2. Yogi Sculptures: Complex Āsanas Across the Deccan.

Seth Powell

3. Royal Amusements, Sports, Acrobats and Yogic Practices According to the Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā.

Saran Suebsantiwongse 

4. Dance as Yoga: Ritual Offering and Imitatio Dei in the Physical Practices of Classical Indian Theatre.

Elisa Ganser

III. MARTIAL ARTS, POLE AND EXERCISE

5. Zurkhāneh, Akhāṛā, Pahlavān, and Jyeṣṭhī-mallas: Cross Cultural Interaction and Social Legitimisation at the Turn of the 17th Century.

Philippe Rochard and Oliver Bast

6. Poles apart? From Wrestling and Mallkhāmb to Pole Yoga.

Patrick S. D. McCartney

7. Uncovering Vyāyāma in Yoga.

Jerome Armstrong

8. Prostration or Potentiation? Hindu Ritual, Physical Culture, and the “Sun Salutation” (Sūryanamaskār).

Stuart Ray Sarbacker

9. Managing Wind and Fire: Some Remarks from a Case Study on Kaḷarippayaṟṟụ.

Laura Silvestri

10. Firm Feet and Inner Wind: Introducing Posture in the South Indian Martial Art, Kaḷarippayaṟṟ ̆.

Lucy May Constantini

IV. EXCHANGES WITH CHINA AND TIBET

11. Is There Such a Thing as Chinese Yoga? Indian Postural Therapies in Mediaeval China.

Dominic Steavu

12. Knowledge Transfer of Bodily Practices Between China and India in the Mediaeval World.

Dolly Yang

13. Tracking the Illusory Magical Wheel: Physical Yoga in Tibetan Tantra and Dzogchen.

Ian Baker

AFTERWORD

14. The Embodiment of Meaning and the Meaning of Embodiment: Theoretical and Methodological Concerns in the Study of Postural Practice.

Joseph Alter