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[quote=Anonymous][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]

Thanks, PP. That gave me a good laugh as well. I was going to say the same thing. The asanas are not a 'new thing' at all.  Practice yoga if you want, but tradional forms of yoga are based in Hinduism. Now, if you're talking about power yoga at Gold's or something, yeah, it might not be the same thing. [/quote]

As I understand it, "asana" in the Yoga Sutra was not really the same as asana as practiced today.  It just meant seated meditation; there was certainly no description of sun salutations or "vinyasas."  Asanas as practiced in the US today emerge from 19th/20th century cross-cultural innovations in Mysore and then in the US.  The word "yoga" is ancient, or course -- but it meant something pretty different to Panatjali than it does to us.

You should read that Yoga Journal article I posted earlier -- it is really enlightening.  There's no doubt that modern yoga takes some inspiration and form from ancient Hindu practice; but you don't need to be threatened by understanding that yoga as we practice it now is a modern, cross-cultural innovation, which derives its richness from many sources.  Here is another article by historian Mark Singleton:  http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2610.  As far as I know, his position isn't really radical.

As far as the earlier accusation that I was being ethnocentric by pointing all of this out ... the insistence that yoga springs from ancient Hinduism and is not worthwhile unless it has that pure connection to the East is also a kind of ethnocentrism -- it's a pretty classic example of Orientalism, exoticising and essentiallizing the East rather than accepting it on its own merits.  [/quote]

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