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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Actually, some Hindus DO take offense at the cultural appropriation going on in US yoga -- sanskrit chants and whatnot.  My SIL is Indian, and she told me she was quite surprised to walk into a yoga class in the US and hear Hindu prayers.

And to make matters more complicated ... yoga is not really purely Hindu anyway. [u]The emphasis on physical postures (asana) is a new thing. There's been a lot of research on this lately, and there's evidence that the physical postures are actually derived in part from British gymnastic practices taken to India in the 19th century.  When yoga came to the US, it got mixed up with all sorts of traditional US things, like the religious revivalism of the late 19th century[/u].[/quote]

:lol: Good one!...not.  yet another attempt to warp history to fit the "greatness of the white man". :roll:

You do realize that Patanjali's Yoga Sutra was written before the "dawn of christ".  Let's not forget that it is also in the written in Vedas, Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita.  But you'll probably find some "reliable (christian) source" that says they were all copied from the bible as well.[/quote]

As I understand it, the Yoga Sutra does not emphasize physical asana the same way Western yoga does.  You won't find Sun Salutations in Pantjali!  There have been a couple of works of scholarship on this complicated history lately, including Yoga Body by Mark Singleton.  Of course yoga has some elements of ancient Hindu tradition; but it also mixes in modern Indian and British influence, and in the US, has a particularly American spin to it.  The upshot is, yoga as it is practiced in the US (and probably in India) is not a direct and pure lineage from ancient Hindu practice.  It is a modern, syncretic form which, if anything, we owe most directly to *modern* colonial and post-colonial India.  All the better for the world!  Here's a lengthy Yoga Journal article on the topic:  http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/466[/quote]

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