A Brief History (and Herstory)of Yoga

If you’re into yoga, you probably know it comes from India and is an ancient practice. If you’re anything like me you’re probably curious to know more about where yoga came from, how old it is, who were the people who first developed it, how has history shaped it, and how has yoga shaped history? These are questions I’ve been attempting to get answers to for many years. Starting my practice in high school, at first yoga was just a way for me to get into my body, feel better, and develop my focus and concentration. At some point I wanted to know more, and so I enrolled in a semester-long course at a university I attended during a year of study abroad in Ecuador. In this class, we learned to stretch and how to headstand, but the professor also took time to educate us on other matters, including some of yoga’s history. Then, 14 years ago I took my first yoga teacher training, a traditional hatha yoga school in which I was introduced to some of yoga’s foundational texts including the vedas and the yoga sutras. One thing that was noticeable was the absence of women from the history I was learning, a considerable contrast to the fact that the majority of yoga teachers and students were women. The texts I was given generally referred to the yogi, as a he... The reasons for this are something I have endeavored to understand and continue to research. What I’ve become most curious about is the effect of a patriarchal culture on the history of yoga, and the converse effect of the rise of the feminine and women on the practice of yoga. Read on for more about the history, and herstory, of yoga.

What is Yoga?

The word yoga comes from the root yuj, meaning to yoke or join. Simply put, yoga means union. In this busy, modern world where such an overload of information, stress, and obligation divides our attention, yoga is the path back to wholeness, a bringing together of all of our parts, body mind soul.

Origins in the Indus-Saraswati River Valley

Yoga is known as the science of Self-realization: a system of practices first shared by the ancient Rishis (seers) in the Indus-Saraswati river valley civilization in ancient India beginning around 3000BCE.  The rishis were people who renounced material goals in favor of spiritual liberation, and through deep meditation, received wisdom about the purpose of life and the protocols for attaining spiritual freedom.  This information became known as the Vedas, meaning knowledge. Their wisdom was passed down orally from teacher to student for generations in the years prior to 1500BC.

The Indus-Saraswati river valley civilization was an impressively advanced and organized society. Archaeologists have found evidence of planned cities with flushing toilets, supporting upwards of 5 million people. This ancient civilization, though comparable to the other well-known cultures considered the “cradles of civilization”, Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, was discovered much later, and owing to the fact that their written script has not yet been deciphered, remains the most mysterious of them all. There is, however, evidence of carved stone depictions of women in goddess and priestess form, indicating that at this time women were an honored and important part of spiritual life. (Mark, 2020). In the book, Yogini: The Power of Women in Yoga, Janica Gates writes, “There are numerous references to female scholars, priestesses, and philosophers who were practicing Yoga in its widest sense, acknowledging the connection between the human and Divine.” (Gates, 2006).

Decline of the Indus-Saraswati River Valley Civilization

Around 1900-1500BCE, this great civilization began to decline, possibly due to drought, invaders, and overpopulation (Mark, 2020). The next phase of life in India was marked by the rise of the caste system and patriarchy, and the decline in women’s status. The Brahmin class held the most power, with men striving for spiritual ascension and societal power, while women were generally expected to remain in a domestic householder role.

Writing it Down

Sometime between 1500BCE and 500BCE the oral knowledge of the Vedas was written down (Mark, 2020). The first Veda that mentioned the word yoga was the Rig Veda. The Vedas are subdivided into parts. The first three parts are composed of chants and rituals to be undertaken by Brahmin priests as a path of self-sacrifice and worship. The Upanishads are the fourth part of each Veda that discuss methods of meditation and philosophy on the path to Self-realization.  The most celebrated of the Upanishads is the Bhagavad Gita, a part of a greater epic called the Mahabarata, written around 500 BC. The Upanishads shift the practice from external ritual and physical sacrifice to an internal practice of dissolution of the ego through the paths of study (Jnana Yoga), work and service (Karma Yoga), worship (Bhakti Yoga) and meditation (Raja Yoga).

Living sometime between the 4th and 2nd century BC, the sage Patanjali composed 3 books: the Mahabashya, a treatise on Sanskrit grammer, Patanjalatantra, a medical book on Ayurveda, and the Yoga Sutras (sutras=threads or aphorisms) in which he consolidated the vast body of yoga as had been passed down orally and through the Vedas into a concise treatise on the methods and goals of Yoga. The methods were codified into the Ashtanga or eight-fold path, and have been called the path of Raja Yoga, Raja meaning king or supreme.  The Yoga Sutras is one of the most well-known texts for how the science of Yoga is understood in the west. The primary goals of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras concern the behaviors necessary to enter deep states of meditation, with very little emphasis on the physical practices we know today.

Rise of Yoga in the 20th century

In the early part of the last millennium, the idea that the physical body was a hindrance on the path to enlightenment began to be discarded as Yoga practitioners began to embrace the body as a means of Self-realization. They saw the body as portal to the inner world and developed techniques to purify and revitalize it, leading to the somatic, physical practices now known as Hatha Yoga.

In the late 19th century India Yoga masters first began to travel and spread the teachings of Yoga as a spiritual practice to Europe and North America. Swami Vivekananda delivered lectures on Yoga at the 1893 Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Shortly thereafter Paramahansa Yogananda toured America lecturing on Yoga as a path to Self-Realization.  In India during the 20s and 30s Sivananda and Krishnamacharya promoted the physical practices of Hatha Yoga.  Sivananda was producing hundreds of books on yoga and establishing ashrams and yoga centers internationally by the middle of the century, blending the four school of yoga into a practice meant for “everybody”. Krishnamacharya, known as the father of modern, postural yoga, advanced the physical practice of yoga, primarily to upper class Indian young men under the patronage of the wealthy maharaja of Mysore. 

Krishnamacharya passed on his teachings to several people who were instrumental in sharing the teachings with the West, most notably BKS Iyengar, Sri Pattabhi Jois, Indra Devi, and his son TKV Desikachar. Iyengar became known for his therapeutic, slow style with alignment as a central focus. Pattabhi Jois founded the Ashtanga school of yoga (not to be equated with the Ashtanga eight-fold path of Patanjali) in which practitioners are given a specific series of postures to practice and perfect as they advance in a very challenging physical practice. Indra Devi, one of the first western women to advance the practice, opened a popular yoga studio in Hollywood in 1947.

HERstory

An aspect of yoga's history you may have noticed is that it has been predominated by men up until only the past several decades. There are many reasons for and consequences of this. For one, in India, as in many of the world's societies, leadership has been largely in the hands of men for several thousand years, the system we know as patriarchy. Women in India may have practiced yoga, as well as Ayurveda, but more quietly, and less visibly, than men, for most of yoga's existence in the past few millenium.  The majority of yoga's teachers and students in India were men. The arrival of Indra Devi to Krishnamacharya’s yoga ashram was at first met with total refusal by Krishnamacharya to teach her. Only because she was a wealthy foreign guest of the maharaj, who ordered Krishnamacharya to admit her as a student, was she allowed to enter as his student (Goldberg 2015). 

Effect of Patriarchy on Yoga

Because it was men who had the most say, historically, in the practice of yoga, a logical conclusion and practical recognition is that yoga has been predominantly designed by and for men's bodies and minds. This has had some important consequences in yoga's practice,  intentions, and effects.  Because most men operate from a primarily masculine perspective, the yoga that we have primarily been taught is naturally masculine in nature. The gradual increase in the practice of yoga by women, both in India and the West, has given rise to a huge evolution in the ways we are taught yoga now compared to the past. A feminine approach to yoga tends to be less prescriptive and more inquisitive, less rigid and more flowing, with less emphasis on perfectionism and more emphasis on intuition.  In this yoga immersion, you will learn the difference between masculine and feminine energy, and how to approach yoga from a feminine perspective that encourages individual adaption, inner listening, curiosity, and gentleness.

Yoga Today

In the past few decades yoga has become increasingly popular all over the world, with many styles and studios teaching various aspects of the Yoga path. Yoga has reached schools, prisons, churches, social media, and festivals. On one hand, some of the original intentions and teachings have been diluted. On the other, we can celebrate the way yoga has evolved to meet the needs of the current climate and the people it serves. Some yoga schools and teachers emphasize physical alignment, some meditation, some attention to the breath. Physical yoga practices vary widely with some teachers emphasizing it as a workout, and others focusing on the restorative capabilities of yoga practice, and others as a method of healing from physical and mental injury and trauma.

The Effect of Women on Modern Yoga

With the rise of yoga in the west and the rise of women practicing and teaching it, we have seen the approach to yoga evolving substantially. The severe, top-down, prescribed, repetitive, approach to teaching that was standard in the methods of Krishnamacharya and his disciples has given way to a bottom-up approach in which students are recommended to “listen to their bodies”, a phrase I doubt anyone ever heard uttered by the reknowned male yoga masters from India. The kind of yoga I personally love and share is Prana Vinyasa, a method developed by Shiva Rea over the past 25 years. Prana Vinyasa is an intuitive, creative practice that emphasizes connecting our attention with sensation, music, breath, and rhythmic movement to enter a state of deep embodiment and presence. This kind of yoga is feminine form: intuitively adapting to the needs of the students, the times of the day and year, the moon cycle, climate, and current affairs. We’re also seeing a resurgence of tantra, another spiritual path originating in India, which honors all that exists as a pathway to liberation, and is closely tied to worship of the goddess and the aim to balance feminine and masculine energies, influence yoga as it’s practiced today.

References:

Gates, Janice. 2006. Yogini: The Power of Women in Yoga. Mandala Publishing.

Goldberg, Michelle.  2015. The Goddess Pose. Published by Alfred A Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House. 

Mark, Joshua J. 2020. Indus Valley Civilization. World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/Indus_Valley_Civilization/

Mark, Joshua J. 2020. Vedas. World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/The_Vedas/

Rao, Anjali. Understanding Women’s Role in Yoga History. Breathe Together. https://breathetogetheryoga.com/yoga/understanding-womens-role-in-yoga-history/