A rather un-yogic development is unfolding in India. A government body has been given the task of filming hundreds of yoga asanas, in an attempt to prove to anyone considering patenting a new style of yoga, that the Indians got there first.
Yoga isn't the only part of the sub-Continent's heritage to be subject to a move that essentially says, 'hands off - this belongs to India, and Indian heritage alone'.
Recently, Eur
opean companies have been forced to reverse patents on the use of extracts of turmeric, cumin and ginger for use in Ayurvedic health products.
But the move to protect the rich cannon of asanas will divide the yoga world.
Some traditionalists will always insist that yoga is only valid in its ancient form, as described by seminal texts such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.
Others, with a more fluid, modern take, will argue that the yoga postures have been hugely influenced by Western physical cultures such as gymnastics, and even wrestling.
This argument is powerfully set out by Mark Singleton, in his recent book, Yoga Body (see cover image above. To read more about the book, click here).
Dr Vinod Kumar Gupta, who runs the Traditional Knowledge Digial Library - the government organisation responsible for the filming and compiling the images - aruges that 'Yoga originated in India. People cannot claim to invent a new yoga when they have not'.
It is understandable that elements within India are super-keen to safeguard such an important part of their heritage.
But surely, in the course of this process, there is a strong risk of stamping ownership and rigidity on a powerful system of health and wellbeing (ie yoga itself) that has mostly evolved organically and naturally.
Nothing is immune to modern influence - and indviduals' plentiful attempts to create so-called 'new' yoga styles is, in part, a reflection of the way yoga has succesfully changed to embrace modern expectations and lifestyles.
Like it or not, there will always be attempts to mould some form of yoga into a brand.
Is that an intriniscally bad thing? Or a reflection of this ancient science of wellbeing adapting, by necessity, to survive the commercial reality of modern times?
The debate will roll and roll. Leave your views here, by posting a comment, or vote on our home page poll.
Lucia Cockcroft, editor
_0.jpg "Dancer Pose: Nataraja")
I have been involved in yoga
I have been involved in yoga for 45 years, including 5 years studying yoga in India where I took sannyas deeksha with my guru Paramahansa Swami Satyandanda Saraswati. When I returned to UK in 1976 I met Alan Babbington and heard about the origins of the British Wheel of Yoga.
In the 1960's ILEA (Inner London Education Authority) got concerned when they discovered that yoga teachers were presenting their classes as part of the traditions of 'religious training'. ILEA ordered all their yoga teachers to exclude chanting, meditation and religious references from their yoga classes. Those yoga teachers who towed the line were permitted to continue teaching within the adult education infrastructure of ILEA. Some of those same teachers formed a polical core and founded the British Wheel of Yoga. Paradoxically, the infrastructure of ILEA made it easier to grow yoga classes, but prevented actual yoga being taught.
Other yoga teachers chose to be more faithfull to the ancient yoga teachings and teach comprehensive yoga outside the infrastructure of ILEA, not constrained by the ignorance of ILEA. Whilst competition is healthy (many schools of yoga appeared and expanded during the 70's), the defintion of the term 'yoga' became blurred by the myriad of schools all claiming to teach yoga. I was surprised how little of the eight limbs (ashtanga) of Patanjali Yoga was being taught by a school claiming to be the authority on ashtanga yoga. I was surprised by the absence of pranayama and meditation from Iyengar yoga classes. I was delighted by the comprehensive content of Satyandanda Yoga classes. It is paradoxical that a lot of political tension was generated by the differences between schools of yoga.
I would not dismiss Mark Singleton as a modern scholar who barely dips his toes into the ocean of yoga, especially as he has received Satyananda training, but modern yoga, practised by so many people across the world, is a very different yoga from the yoga presented by Swami Vivekananda at the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893. It is misleading to give modern body-obsessed yoga the name 'yoga'.
Although Eugene Sandow (1867-1925) had an enthusiastic following in India, did he actually call his teachings 'yoga'? Perhaps Genevieve Stebbins Stebbins (1857-1915) was more astute by calling her system ‘harmonic gymnastics' and not calling it 'yoga'. Genevieve's description of harmonic gymnastics certainly does sound like yoga. Stebbins presented her techniques as part of the traditions of 'religious training' and was therefore more honest than the founders of the British Wheel of Yoga. Despite this origin, for 40 years the British Wheel of Yoga has helped to make yoga classes more available to people of Britain. Today BWY yoga teachers are no longer constrained by ILEA prejudice. Today BWY yoga teachers do teach a rounded system for the development of body, brain and soul. Many BWY teachers follow a particular school of yoga, as well as benefiting from training and support from the BWY.
What is yoga? Yoga is the science of body, mind and spirit. Science evolves. Science does not stand still. Conservatives say only yoga as described in texts such as hatha yoga pradipika is true to tradition. Perhaps it is good to be conservative if you want to conserve the meaning of the word 'yoga'.
Does India have the right to patent yoga? It has a lot more right than the ILEA had to distort British understanding of yoga, but India does not have the right to claim yoga (an offshoot of Tantra) any more than India has the right to claim the Himalayas as its own. Who ever heard of a science being patented?
Swami Pragyamaurti mentioned ancient evidence of Yoga and Tantra in Columbia thousands of miles from India. The Himalayas are also in other countries as is this evolving science called 'yoga'.
Swami Vyasadev