The Yogic Studies Podcast

In this episode we welcome back Jim Mallinson for an update on his pioneering research into the earliest Sanskrit texts of Haṭha Yoga. We review some of the major findings from the 5-year ERC Haṭha Yoga Project and learn about his latest project, the Light on Hatha Yoga Project (2021–2024) which will produce a critical edition of the Haṭhapradīpikā. We discuss the latest methods in digital Sanskrit philology and the challenges of working with large amounts of manuscript data. We then dive into the Amṛtasiddhi, the "Attainment of Immortality," to learn about this fascinating and important tantric source text for the Haṭha Yoga Traditions, giving a rich preview for Jim's upcoming online course, YS 206 | The Amṛtasiddhi: Haṭha Yoga's Source Text.

 
Speaker Bio

Dr. James Mallinson is Reader in Indology and Yoga Studies at SOAS University of London. His research focuses on the history and current traditional practice of yoga and his primary methods are philology, ethnography and art history. Dr. Mallinson led the Haṭha Yoga Project (2015–2021), a six-person research project on the history of physical yoga funded by the European Research Council. The project’s core outputs will be ten critical editions of Sanskrit texts on physical yoga and four monographs on its history and current practice. Together with Professor Jürgen Hanneder (University of Marburg), Dr. Mallinson is now leading the Light on Hatha Yoga Project (2021–2024) which will produce a critical edition of the Haṭhapradīpikā.

Among Dr. Mallinson’s publications are The Khecarīvidyā of Ādinātha, a Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of an Early Text on Haṭhayoga (Routledge, 2007), a revision of his doctoral thesis, which was supervised by Professor Alexis Sanderson at the University of Oxford, where Dr. Mallinson also read Sanskrit as an undergraduate, Roots of Yoga (Penguin Classics, 2017, co-authored with Mark Singleton) and The Amṛtasiddhi and Amṛtasiddhimūla: The Earliest Texts of the Haṭhayoga Tradition (École française d’Extreme-orient, Pondicherry, 2021). Dr. Mallinson has spent more than ten years living in India with traditional ascetics and practitioners of yoga, and at the 2013 Kumbh Mela was awarded the title of Mahant by the Rāmānandī Saṃpradāya.

Links

• YS 206 | The Amṛtasiddhi: Haṭha Yoga's Source Text
• https://soas.academia.edu/JamesMallinson
• The Amṛtasiddhi: Haṭhayoga’s Tantric Buddhist Source Text
• Haṭhayoga's Early History: From Vajrayāna Sexual Restraint to Universal Somatic Soteriology

In this episode we speak with Adrián Muñoz about his academic path and research at El Colegio de México where he is currently heading an exciting new project on the history of yoga in Latin America. Adrián tells Seth about his early years and training in grad school in Mexico, discovering the Nāth yogis, travels and field work in India, as well as his love for poetry and the vernacular. We also discuss the Euro-American and Anglophone primacy of academia and the need for (as well as challenges of) non-English research and publications. We then discuss the history of yoga in Latin America, with particular attention to Mexico as we preview Adrián's upcoming course, YS 118 | Yoga in Latin America. 

Speaker Bio

Dr. Adrián Muñoz is an Associate Professor at the Center for Asian and African Studies, El Colegio de México, where he earned his PhD in South Asian Studies in 2007. He has specialized in South Asian religious traditions, with an emphasis in early modern expressions, but is also interested in the intricate relationships between religion, mythography, and literature across time and languages.  Adrián’s research has usually focused on the history and literature of yoga, often dealing with issues of hagiography, variability, and identity. In recent years, he has been developing a research project on the reception and practice of yoga in Mexico, and coordinates a wider research group devoted to tracing the history of yoga in Latin America.  He has authored various articles and book chapters these issues. His books include Historia minima del yoga (2019, co-authored with Gabriel Martino), Radiografía del hathayoga (2016), and Yogi Heroes and Poets: Histories and Legends of the Naths (2011, coedited with David N. Lorenzen). He also writes poetry.

Links

• YS 118 | Yoga in Latin America
• https://colmex.academia.edu/AdriánMuñoz  

In this episode we speak with Edwin Bryant about his upcoming course,  YS 205 | Bhakti Yoga: The Bhāgavatapurāṇa and his latest book Bhakti Yoga: Tales and Teachings from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2017). Dr. Bryant regales Seth with stories of hitchhiking through India in his youth while studying Sanskrit and Hindi, and meeting his guru in the holy city of Vrindavan. He also talks about his translation of the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, his dissertation exploring the Indo-Aryan migration theory, and his upcoming work In Defense of a God with Form.

Speaker Bio

Edwin Bryant received his Ph.D in Indic languages and Cultures from Columbia University. He taught Hinduism at Harvard University for three years, and is presently the professor of Hinduism at Rutgers University where he teaches courses on Hindu philosophy and religion. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, published eight books, and authored a number of articles on the earliest origins of Vedic culture, yoga philosophy, and the Kṛṣṇa tradition. These include Bryant’s translation of and commentary on The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009), and more recently its sequel entitled Bhakti Yoga: Tales and Teachings from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2017).

Links

• YS 205 | Bhakti Yoga: The Bhāgavatapurāṇa
• https://rutgers.academia.edu/EdwinBryant
• https://www.edwinbryant.com 

In this episode we sit down with Sikh scholar and historian Jvala Singh to discuss the history of yoga within Sikhi, the topic of his upcoming Yogic Studies course YS 116 | Sikhism and Yoga. Jvala tells Seth how he met his teacher, his work translating tales of the ten Gurus from the 19th century Sūraj Prakāś, the joys of podcasting, and the publication of Jvala's recent book 54 Punjabi Proverbs (2019, Tattva). They also discuss the legacy of Yogi Bhajan within the Sikh community.

Speaker Bio

Jvala Singh is a lecturer for UC Berkeley at the Institute for South Asia Studies. He is currently completing his PhD at the University of British Columbia, where he is examining pre-colonial Sikh historical narratives. His research explores literature in Punjabi and Brajbhāṣā from the 18th and 19th centuries, building off his previous M.A. research completed at the University of Toronto, where he focused on Sikh Brajbhāṣā versions of Sanskrit epics, such as the Rāmāyaṇa. 

In furthering the accessibility of pre-colonial Sikh Brajbhāṣā texts, Singh runs the Suraj Podcast, where each episode is a chapter summary in English of the voluminous Sūraj Prakāś (1843 CE)—a historical narrative covering the lives of the ten Sikh Gurus written by Santokh Singh (1787-1844).

Links

• YS 116 | Sikhism and Yoga
• manglacharan.com
• 54 Punjabi Proverbs (2019, Tattva)

In this episode we talk with Patton Burchett about his latest book A Genealogy of Devotion: Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga, and Sufism in North India (2019, Columbia University Press) and his upcoming course, YS 115 | A History of Yoga and Devotion. Patton tells Seth about the teachers who inspired his studies, and how academics confuse the social and interactive nature of Indian devotional practices with a more solitary Judeo-Christian concept of devotion. They also dive into the competing influences of Persian and Sanskritic culture in North India that shaped the growing Bhakti movements of the time, the communalist politics of modern religious identities in North India, and the relations between bhaktas like Kabīr and yogīs like Gorkhnāth.

Speaker Bio

Patton Burchett is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He earned his PhD in South Asian Religions from Columbia University in 2012 and then spent three years as an Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow in Religious Studies at New York University (NYU).  Patton's research focuses on early modern devotional (bhakti) traditions and tantric and yogic religiosity in North India and on the interrelations of magic, science, and religion in the rise of Indian and Western modernities.  He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on bhakti literature and Mughal-era Indian religious history (among other topics), and his first book, A Genealogy of Devotion: Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga, and Sufism in North India (Columbia University Press) was published in 2019.  

Links

• https://wm.academia.edu/PattonBurchett 
• YS 115 | A History of Yoga and Devotion

In this episode we sit down with Kate to celebrate the launch of Buddhist Studies Online. We learn about her story, her background in academia and Buddhism, travels in Asia, how she first met Seth as grad students at Harvard, building course websites for Harvard professors. We discuss her research on pilgrimage and the importance of place and perception within Tibetan Buddhism. Kate gives us a sneak peak at her upcoming online course, BSO 101 | Intro to Buddhism: History, Philosophy, and Practice. We discuss historical Buddha, the 4 Noble truths, common misperceptions about Buddhism, and much more.

Speaker Bio

Kate Hartmann is a scholar of Buddhism and professor of Buddhist studies. She received her PhD in Buddhist Studies from Harvard University in 2021. Her research explores the theory and practice of Tibetan pilgrimage to holy mountains, and focuses on the goal of transforming perception. She also holds an MA in the History of Religions from the University of Chicago, and a BA in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. She is currently Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Wyoming, and is the new Director of Buddhist Studies Online. 

As part of her training, Kate has spent extended periods of time living in Asia. She has spent summers backpacking across India, living with Tibetan Buddhist nuns in Ladakh, in Dharamsala working in the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, studying at the Dunhuang caves in China, traveling to Lhasa, and conducting research around Boudha in Nepal. She speaks modern colloquial Tibetan and conducts research in Classical Tibetan and Sanskrit. 

Links

• https://www.buddhiststudiesonline.com 
• BSO 101 | Intro to Buddhism: History, Philosophy, and Practice

In this episode we speak with return guest Dr. Philipp Maas about the ancient school of Sāṅkhya—which he describes as India's philosophy par excellence for its wide and enduring influence on Indian culture. Giving us a taste of his upcoming course: YS 204 | The Sāṅkhyakārikā: Stanzas on All-Embracing Insight,  Maas discusses Sāṅkhya‘s relationship with the Yoga of Patañjali, and dives into the Kārikā—the oldest surviving text of the tradition. We discuss what little we know about the work's author Īśvarakṛṣṇa, its roots in the lost treatise, the ancient Śaṣṭitantra, and much more.

Speaker Bio

Philipp Maas is currently a research associate at the Institute for Indology and Central Asian Studies, University of Leipzig in Germany, where he works on a digital critical edition of the Nyāyabhāṣya, a Sanskrit work on spiritual liberation through proper reasoning. Previously he had served as an assistant professor and postdoc researcher at the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the University of Bonn Germany.

He received his M.A. (1997) and Dr. phil. (2004) degrees from the University of Bonn, where he had completed studies in Indology, Comparative Religious Studies, Tibetology and Philosophy. His first book (originally his PhD thesis) is the first critical edition of the first chapter (Samādhipāda) of the Pātañjala Yogaśāstra, i.e. the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali together with the commentary called Yoga Bhāṣya. He has published extensively on classical Yoga and Sāṅkhya philosophy and meditation, Āyurveda, the relationship of Pātañjalayoga to Buddhism as well as on the textual tradition of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra. He is a member of the “Historical Sourcebooks on Classical Indian Thought” project, convened by Prof. Sheldon Pollock, to which he contributes with a monograph on the development of Yoga-related ideas in pre-modern South Asian intellectual history.  

Links

• YS 204 | The Sāṅkhyakārikā: Stanzas on All-Embracing Insight
• https://uni-leipzig.academia.edu/PhilippMaas

In today's episode we talk with Dr. Suzanne Newcombe and Dr. Karen O'Brien-Kop about their recent collaboration co-editing The Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies (2021), and the labor of love that went into creating this interdisciplinary collaboration. We also discuss the history of yoga studies, the difference between academic "field" and "discipline," how academic work can overlap with the daily spiritual practice of the scholar, and what makes Modern Yoga Studies a unique field.

Speaker Bios

Suzanne Newcombe is a senior lecturer in Religious Studies at the Open University, UK, and honorary director of Inform, based in Theology and Religious Studies at King’s College, London. She has published on topics relating to the popularisation of yoga and ayurveda including the monograph Yoga in Britain: Stretching Spirituality and Educating Yogis (2019). She researched the transformation of yoga and ayurveda in modern India as part of the ERC-funded AYURYOG project from 2015-2020.  

Karen O’Brien-Kop is a lecturer in Asian Religions and Ethics at the University of Roehampton, UK, and was formerly a senior teaching fellow at SOAS University of London. She received her PhD from SOAS, titled Seed and Cloud of Liberation in Buddhist and Pātañjala Yoga: An Intertextual Study and continues to research classical Sanskrit texts on yoga and meditation. She has published articles in Religions of South Asia and the Journal of Indian Philosophy and is currently working on a monograph on classical yoga and Buddhism.  

Links

Listeners can receive 20% off the book with the promo code: FLR40 (Should apply to both hardcover and e-book versions).

https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-Yoga-and-Meditation-Studies/Newcombe-OBrien-Kop/p/book/9781138484863

• Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies (2021)
• https://open.academia.edu/SuzanneNewcombe 
• https://roehampton-online.academia.edu/KarenOBrienKop
• YS 109 | Classical Yoga and Buddhism 

In this episode Dr. Theodora Wildcroft discusses her new book, Post-Lineage Yoga: From Guru to #MeToo (2020). We explore the historical shifts that have been reshaping yoga in the west: from the ways schools of yoga have been forced to pivot after the deaths or public denouncements of their charismatic founder-gurus, to the need of modern practitioners to seek out eclectic sources in their education beyond a single voice of authority, and how both recent historical research and social movements have undermined old systems of power in the yoga world, leaving us to wonder if we are indeed in a "post-lineage" era of yoga?

Speaker Bio

Theodora Wildcroft is a teacher, trainer, writer and scholar, and the author of the new book Post-Lineage Yoga: From Guru to #MeToo (Equinox 2020). Her research considers the democratization of yoga post-lineage, and the many different ways yoga communities are responding to concerns about safety in practice. She is at the forefront of the movement for trauma sensitivity, diversity and inclusion.

In 2019, she completed her PhD with the Open University in Religious Studies, with the thesis title: Patterns of authority and practice relationships in ‘post-lineage yoga.’ An accomplished writer with two decades of experience in group facilitation, she not only delivers compelling lectures and inspiring writing, but holds careful and thoughtful spaces for groups and individuals to deepen their knowledge, share experiences and acquire new skills. 

Links 

• http://postlineage.yoga
• https://www.wildyoga.co.uk

In this episode, we talk with scholar-practitioner Jacqueline Hargreaves about her work with the Hatha Yoga Project, her unlikely background as an engineer that first brought her to India, and her life as a nomadic yoga researcher with her partner Jason Birch. Jacqueline shares some wonderful stories about her work including a rare audience with Mysore's Royal Family and the discovery of a lost manuscript thousands of miles from India in a very unlikely place. We also discuss her upcoming online course, YS 114 | Rāja Yoga: History, Theory, and Practice which will be co-taught with Jason Birch.

Speaker Bio

Jacqueline Hargreaves is an Engineer, senior Yoga Teacher, and independent researcher who examines the contemporary meeting place between historical Yoga practices and their application in the modern world. She is a founding member of the Journal of Yoga Studies, a peer-reviewed academic journal, and the co-founder of The Luminescent, an independent open-access educational platform for publishing cutting-edge, original research from primary sources. She has travelled throughout India for fieldwork into the origins of Haṭhayoga and studied meditation extensively, including mindfulness-based meditation and intensive Zen practice in a remote part of Japan.

Hargreaves collaborates with scholars, artists, and scientists to communicate research on both premodern and modern facets of Yoga. Most recently, she curated the exhibition Embodied Liberation I and II at the Brunei Gallery in London for the Hatha Yoga Project (SOAS University of London). In collaboration with the AyurYog Project (University of Vienna), Jacqueline curated the Untangling Traditions series and designed a web-based visual and interactive timeline for premodern yoga and Āyurveda. 

Hargreaves is currently producing a documentary film, which aims to bring to life the unique content of the postural practice preserved in an eighteenth-century Sanskrit yoga text, Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati, through a visual reconstruction of its extraordinary section on āsana.

Links

• The Luminescent (www.theluminescent.org)
• Journal of Yoga Studies (www.journalofyogastudies.org) 
• Embodied Liberation - The Textual, Ethnographic and Historical Research of the Hatha Yoga Project (www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/embodied-liberation/) 
• AyurYog Timeline (ayuryog.org/timeline) 
• Hatha Yoga Project (hyp.soas.ac.uk)
• Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati: A Precursor of Modern Yoga (hathabhyasapaddhati.org)