The history of yoga

Hypotheses on origins

The cities of the Indus Valley civilisation, which dates back to the middle of the third millennium BCE, have yielded a rich crop of seals engraved with human figures, animals and cosmic elements, whose symbolic and linguistic functions are still uncertain. One of them features a divine figure, in which the great archaeologist Sir John Marshall thought he saw a "proto-Shiva", ancestor of the yogis' preferred god. Whence the unverified hypothesis of the existence of a "pre-Aryan" form of yoga, before Aryan tribes migrated to the Indus in the early second millennium BCE.

The word yoga appears in the Veda, stemming from the verbal root(yuj-) that has given us "yoke" and "join" in English, in a war context that practiced harnessing and celebrated its heroic deeds. But it also has a metaphorical sense: the poet "harnesses his thoughts" or the sounds of words, in order to produce beautiful song. A few centuries later, in the Katha Upanishad, the yogi is "he whose senses are well harnessed", the wise charioteer who controls his mind so as to win the prize of freedom.

The birth of wisdom

In the 6th and 5^th centuries BCE, the Indo-Gangetic Valley was the scene of remarkable spiritual effervescence. The first Buddhist preachers, the Jains, heirs of Vedic traditions, speculated about the operation of the mind, seeking to understand what afflicted it and how to achieve serenity; about action and attachment to its fruits; about the reality or otherwise of a deep consciousness unaffected by existence; about the opportunity to renounce the world. In this new context, the word yoga appears to be connected with the search for deliverance, development of meditative states and techniques seeking to "heat" the body in order to purify and transform it.

The words "yoga" and "yogi" occur 900 times in the immense Mahabharata. In Book VI, which contains the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, avatar of the supreme god Vishnu, provides his cousin, the warrior Arjuna, with instruction on the ethics of action (karma yoga), the path to self-knowledge (jnana yoga) and the path to mystical union (bhakti yoga). The epic also calls yoga the ultimate experience of warriors, who, dying as heroes and in full awareness, are transformed into light. It describes the rules governing ethics, diet, breath control, various concentration techniques and degrees of meditation, assigning great importance to acquisition of powers (siddhi) through asceticism.

In the first centuries AD, Indian metaphysicians engaged in major work on elaboration of doctrine, which culminated in the definition of distinct paths to salvation. The Patanjali Yoga Shastra, which is composed of Patanjali's Aphorisms (Yoga-sutras, 4^th century?) and Vyasa's commentary, marks yoga's full recognition by the Brahmanic philosophical culture. In it, the purpose of yoga is "the stopping of fluctuations of consciousness" and autonomy of the spiritual principle (purusha). Following radical analysis of their operation and resistances, adepts adopt new ways of behaving (non-violence, truthfulness, zeal, etc.), practice various seated poses (asana) and breath control (pranayama), and cultivate ever deeper states of interiorisation, concentration and meditation until they reachsamadhi.

Hatha yoga

Tantrism – which derives its name from its textual corpus, the Tantras – provided a new way of considering the body while revisiting very old Vedic speculations. The tantric body is a microcosm analogous to the macrocosm, formed from the same elements, constructed on the same plan and inhabited by the gods in the same way. It is a laboratory for evolution, an inner space where the yogi visualises his spiritual path and achieves freedom. Hatha yoga emerged at the crossroads of numerous influences. The poses, breathing techniques and recitation of mantras awaken, accumulate and release vital energy through various channels (nadi) and subtle centres (chakra). They build up the animating force, which is thought of as a divine reserve in the human individual, and its ascension transmutes the body's carnal nature into immortal essence.

Hatha yoga found increasing favour from the late 16^th century onwards, appealing to men of the world, influencing Muslim Sufis and the courts of the Sultans of Deccan and Mogul Emperors, who were sometimes taken for yogis' gurus. Competition between brotherhoods (Nath, Dashanami, Ramanandi, etc.) led to a search for innovation and experimentation with new exercises, which is reflected in the exponential verbosity of their texts. Popularity that might well account for its later globalisation.

Published in january 2023