Yoga and the Traditional Physical Practices of South Asia

Yoga and the Traditional Physical Practices of South AsiaThis special issue of the Journal of Yoga Studies is an edited volume by Daniela Bevilacqua and Mark Singleton with peer reviewed articlesfrom sixteen authors. The volume is the outcome of a workshop held at SOAS University of London in November 2019, under the auspices of the five year, ERC funded Hat_ha Yoga Project (HYP). The workshop aim was to answer several questions: considering the centuries long presence of multiple embodied traditions in

This special issue of the Journal of Yoga Studies is an edited volume by Daniela Bevilacqua and Mark Singleton with peer-reviewed articlesÊfrom sixteen authors. The volume is the outcome of a workshop held at SOAS University of London in November 2019, under the auspices of the five-year, ERC-funded Hat_ha Yoga Project (HYP). The workshop aim was to answer several questions: considering the centuries-long presence of multiple embodied traditions in India, what was the relationship between the physical practices of yoga and other physical disciplines that bear certain similarities to yoga, at least in appearance? Had there been interchange or even influence across and between different physical disciplines and the practices of yoga? Could such a perspective on the history of yoga help to understand better any of its developments?

This volume demonstrates, at the very least, the ease with which certain body practices can be transferred from one context into anotherÑor, indeed, one region to anotherÑand assimilated as if they had always been there. In this respect, cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary historical studies of yoga, such as that under-taken in this volume, can bring to light more historical fluidity and mutability, both in practice and theory, than one might otherwise expect as scholars of a particular discipline (like yoga) and a particular geographical area (like South Asia).

Contributors

Joseph S. Alter, Jerome Armstrong, Ian Baker, Oliver Bast, Daniela Bevilacqua, Jason Birch, Lucy May Constantini, Elisa Ganser, Jacqueline Hargreaves, Patrick S. D. McCartney, Seth Powell, Philippe Rochard, Stuart Ray Sarbacker, Laura Silvestri, Mark Singleton, Dominic Steavu, Saran Suebsantiwongse, Dolly Yang