Yoga: A Historical OverviewArticle
Prāṇāyāma Article
The Evolution of Sanskrit DramaLibrary Artifacts
Patanjali
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General Introduction[1]The late fourth or early fifth century Pātañjalayogaśāstra is the oldest preserved systematic Sanskrit exposition from a Brāhmaṇa milieu on spiritual liberation through meditation. It is divided into four chapters or quarters (pāda), each consisting of two frequently clearly…
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Recent interest in yogic practices has coincided with the spread of gymnastics and bodybuilding. These were developed as a system of therapeutic movements, which is probably from where the phrase 'mind, body and spirit' emerged. Here we briefly trace the evolution of yoga, from before Patanjali’s …
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Introduction
Although a popular translation for the word ‘yoga’ is ‘union’, recent scholarship shows that throughout history the meanings of yoga have been multiple and subtly shifting: from the yoga-kṣema of the Vedic pastoralists (which indicated habitation cycles of movement and rest) to the…
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'Matysendra, depicted on16th-century temple pillars at Hampi, Karnataka'. Photo by Dr James Mallinson and Dr Daniela Bevilacqua, Haṭha Yoga Project.
Control of the breath is one of the earliest recorded forms of yogic practice. It was described by the Buddha, who talked about trying it before his…
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We are going out on an ‘archaeological digging’. ‘Archaeological digging’ is an alternative to history used by Michel Foucault for a specific reason. When we read a text, which is full of multiple discourses, we actually read these discourses according to their spatio-temporal contexts. Here we…
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The word ‘translate’ comes from the Latin ‘translatio’ where ‘trans’ means across and ‘latus’ means carrying; the word thus means the carrying across of meaning from one language to the other. The various Indian language words for translation do not convey this meaning. Anuvad (speak after),…
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[This is the journal of a knowledge-monger, so to say a tongue-trader, who even though specializes in Linguistics, works in a curious amalgamation of physics and linguistic theories following the course of his mission. For the sake of his queer trade he reaches out to the bauls to play the field[1…
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