Etched in Stone: Sixteenth-century Visual and Material Evidence of Śaiva Ascetics and Yogis in Complex Non-seated Āsanas at Vijayanagara

Powell, Seth

doi:10.34000/joys.2018.v1.003

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Building upon a previous study (Powell 2018) which analysed a set of yogi sculptures restricted to the mediaeval capital of Hampi, this chapter aims to broaden our gaze of the visual record of yogis performing āsanas to a wider set of Vijayanagara-era temple sites in the Deccan. In addition to the temple complexes of Hampi, this chapter will also assess sculptural evidence of complex postural yoga documented at Śrīśailam, Śṛṅgerī, Lepākṣī, and Śravaṇabeḷagola.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Building upon the foundational work of these art historians, and based on periods of field work in the region over the past four years, I have documented extensive further yogic sculptures at these and related temple sites. 1 Previously I have argued (Powell 2018) that the carvings of yogis in complex āsanas can be broadly identified as Śaiva and Siddha yogis, and that some figures in particular are material depictions of Nāth (S. nātha) yogis-especially those ascetics who appear to be adorned with the siṅgī animal-horn necklace, are seated on animal vehicles (vāhana), or are wearing a pointed cap. What is striking about this identification is that despite the 2 well-known claim that the Nāth yogis were the progenitors of haṭhayoga, until recently we have had surprisingly little historical evidence to account for their practice of complex āsanas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Yogi Sculptures: Complex Āsanas Across the Deccan

Powell¹

2023

JoYS

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This chapter aims to broaden our understanding of the visual record of yogis carved upon the temple pillars and walls of several Vijayanagara-era temple sites in the Deccan—including major temple complexes at Hampi, Śrīśailam, Śṛṅgerī, Lepākṣī, and Śravaṇabeḷagola. The yogi sculptures are a key feature of a broader visual program of artistic temple production that spanned across these Vijayanagara temple sites during the 15th and 16th centuries. I argue that the pervasive sculptural presence of yogis performing complex āsanas in the Deccan during this period is a testament to the physical presence of lived yogis in and around these south-Indian temple sites. In several cases, the sculptures of particular āsanas predate and anticipate textual evidence thereof, providing unique insight into “on the ground” yoga traditions. Renditions of certain contortionist postures and those involving physical “props” may also be indicative of a shared performative community of physical culturalists (including yogis, dancers, and gymnasts) who were active at such temples, especially during annual festivals. The assessment of this material record of yoga practice is crucial for our understanding of the historical development and geographical location of physical yoga traditions in precolonial South India.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Yogi Sculptures: Complex Āsanas Across the Deccan

Powell¹

2023

JoYS

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“…Nowadays, in colloquial language, the term 'yoga' is virtually synonymous with the practice of āsana, or bodily postures. Yet despite the primacy of āsana in contemporary expressions of transnational, anglophone yoga (Singleton, 2010in Powel 2018, the early history of yoga in India is surprisingly sparse regarding āsana praxis. The landmark monograph Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice by Mark Singleton (Powel, 2018: 49) has convincingly demonstrated that dominant forms of postural yoga today are 'not the outcome of a direct and unbroken lineage of hațha yoga' but rather were birthed through 'adaptation to new discourses of the body that resulted from India's encounter with modernity'.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Yoga as Ethics of Self-Transformation in the Sivagama Text

Suamba¹

2021

JKB

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This paper attempts to reveal yoga as an ethics of self-transformation in the ?iv?gama text of Ida Pêdanda Madé Sidêmên (1858–1984). As yoga pervades Balinese textual tradition, adaptation and development of teachings in the Indonesian archipelago show the creativity of the indigenous people. The ?iv?gama was analyzed via textual studies with data categorized to foreground concepts of yoga. The s?rgah (canto) 15, in particular, introduces various forms of yoga and sam?dhi for purifying body and mind. Each section describes how to perform a specific yoga, the attributes of the associated deity, and the benefit that can be reaped by the practice. One finding is that the cosmic function from a yogic perspective in the ?iv?gama text differs from the views of Upani?adic texts. The summaries from this study hope to contribute to efforts to understand the teachings of yoga that are available in Sanskrit-Old Javanese literature.

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“…On large collections of āsanas at these locations, see Vijaya Sarde 2015, and Seth Powell 2018 The āsanas of the Yogāsana, most of which correspond to untraced Sanskrit descriptions quoted in a commentary on the Yogasūtra by Śrīkṛṣṇavallabhācārya (1939), were reproduced in several early twentieth-century publications, one of which was Swāmī Śivānanda's book Yoga Asanas. This will be discussed at length in a forthcoming publication.…”

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confidence: 99%

Haṭhayoga’s Floruit on the Eve of Colonialism

Birch¹

2020

Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions

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My doctoral thesis (Birch 2013), which was supervised by Alexis Sanderson at the University of Oxford, contained a survey of texts on Haṭha-and Rājayoga. One of the challenges of completing such a survey was that very few of the texts composed from the sixteenth to eighteenth century had been critically edited or studied academically. Inspired by several exemplary surveys of Śaiva literature in Sanderson's articles (e.g. 2001, 2007 and 2014), I visited a large number of libraries in India in an effort to consult manuscripts of unpublished yoga texts. By the end of my doctorate, it was apparent to me that yoga texts composed on the eve of colonialism provided new insights into the history of yoga and, more specifically, are crucial for understanding how Haṭhayoga changed after it had been codified by Svātmārāma in the Haṭhapradīpikā (circa mid-fifteenth century). In fact, after Svātmārāma had successfully transformed Haṭhayoga from an auxiliary practice into a complete soteriological system, there began what might be considered the floruit of Haṭhayoga, insofar as its literature flourished, its systems of practice accumulated more techniques and it became, particularly in scholarly compendiums on yoga, almost synonymous with the auxiliaries of āsana and prāṇāyāma. Building on my doctoral research, this article aims to provide a framework for examining the textual sources of Haṭhayoga that were composed from the sixteenth to eighteenth century. After a brief summary of the early literature of Haṭhayoga, I shall discuss some of the salient features of the late literature by dividing the texts into two etic categories; 'extended works' and 'compendiums.' The extended works expatiate on Haṭhayoga as it was formulated in the Haṭhapradīpikā, whereas the compendiums integrate teachings of Haṭhayoga within a discourse on yoga more broadly conceived. Both categories include scholarly and practical works which, when read together in this way, reveal significant changes to both practical and theoretical conceptions of Haṭhayoga. Such a reading also illuminates several developments of this time that foreshadowed, and in some cases inspired, the transnational yogas of the twentieth century. The article concludes with a brief discussion on the regional extent of the literature on Haṭhayoga during this period and how the codification of its praxis and theory appears to have diverged in different regions. birch

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Etched in Stone: Sixteenth-century Visual and Material Evidence of Śaiva Ascetics and Yogis in Complex Non-seated Āsanas at Vijayanagara

Cited by 9 publications

References 3 publications

Yogi Sculptures: Complex Āsanas Across the Deccan

Yogi Sculptures: Complex Āsanas Across the Deccan

Yoga as Ethics of Self-Transformation in the Sivagama Text

Haṭhayoga’s Floruit on the Eve of Colonialism

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