Light on Yoga, 1966: The Book That Standardised the Poses
Before 1966, if you wanted to know how a yoga posture should look, you asked a teacher. After 1966, you could check. Light on Yoga, by B. K. S. Iyengar, contai ...
The Yoga Vasistha: The Longest Argument That Nothing Is Happening
A prince comes home from a pilgrimage at sixteen and stops functioning. He will not eat properly. He will not take up his duties. He tells the court that he ha ...
The Hatha Yoga Pradipika: How a Fifteenth-Century Compilation Became the Standard
Svatmarama says in his opening verses that he is not inventing anything. He states that he has gathered what was scattered, and he names his predecessors, list ...
The Amritasiddhi: The Oldest Hatha Text Is Not What Anyone Expected
For most of the twentieth century, the story of hatha yoga’s origin was reasonably settled. It emerged from the Nath tradition, associated with Gorakhnath, som ...
The Samkhya Karika: The System Yoga Is Built On
Open almost any yoga philosophy book and you will meet the gunas, the three qualities. Sattva, rajas, tamas. Clarity, activity, inertia. They turn up in discus ...
The Yoga Sutras: How a Text of 195 Lines Was Assembled
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is around 195 short lines, depending on the recension. Read aloud without commentary, the whole thing takes under an hour. It cont ...