History
The origins of yoga are a matter of debate.[55] Suggested origins are the Indus Valley Civilisation (2600-1900 BCE)[56] and pre-Vedic north-eastern India,[57] the Vedic civilisation (1500-500 BCE), and the sramana-movement (starting ca. 500 BCE).[58] According to Gavin Flood, continuities may exist between those various traditions:[59]
[T]his dichotomization is too simplistic, for continuities can undoubtedly be found between renunciation and vedic Brahmanism, while elements from non-Brahmanical, Sramana traditions also played an important part in the formation of the renunciate ideal.[59][note 5]
Pre-philosophical speculations of yoga begin to emerge in the texts of c. 500–200 BCE. Between 200 BCE–500 CE philosophical schools of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism were taking form and a coherent philosophical system of yoga began to emerge.[61] The Middle Ages saw the development of many satellite traditions of yoga. Yoga came to the attention of an educated western public in the mid 19th century along with other topics of Indian philosophy.
Origins (before 500 BCE)[edit]
Pre-Vedic India[edit]
Yoga may have pre-Vedic elements.[56][57]
Indus Valley Civilisation (before 1900 BCE)[edit]
Some argue that yoga originates in the Indus Valley Civilization.[62] Marshall argued in the 1920s that Several seals discovered at Indus Valley Civilization sites depict figures in positions resembling a common yoga or meditation pose.[63] This interpretation is rejected by more recent interpretations.[64]
Vedic civilisation (1700-500 BCE)[edit]
According to Crangle, Indian researchers have generally favoured a linear theory, which attempts "to interpret the origin and early development of Indian contemplative practices as a sequential growth from an Aryan genesis",[65][note 6] just like traditional Hinduism regards the Vedas to be the source of all spiritual knowledge.[66][note 7]
Ascetic practices, concentration and bodily postures used by Vedas priests to conduct Vedic ritual of fire sacrifice may have been precursors to yoga.[69][70]
North-eastern India (before 500 BCE)[edit]
According to Zimmer, Yoga is part of the pre-Vedic heritage, which also includes Jainism, Samkhya and Buddhism:[57]
[Jainism] does not derive from Brahman-Aryan sources, but reflects the cosmology and anthropology of a much older pre-Aryan upper class of northeastern India - being rooted in the same subsoil of archaic metaphysical speculation as Yoga, Sankhya, and Buddhism, the other non-Vedic Indian systems."[71][note 8]
Sramana movement (from 500 BCE)[edit]
According to Geoffrey Samuel
Our best evidence to date suggests that [yogic practice] developed in the same ascetic circles as the early sramana movements (Buddhists, Jainas and Ajivikas), probably in around the sixth and fifth centuries BCE.[8]
Vedic period (1700-500 BCE)[edit]
Textual references[edit]
According to White, the first use of the word "yoga" is in the Rig Veda, where it denotes a yoke, but also a war chariot.[74] Yoga is discussed quite frequently in the Upanishads, many of which predate Patanjali's Sutras.[75] The actual term "yoga" first occurs in the Katha Upanishad[76] and later in the Shvetasvatara Upanishad.[77] White states:
The earliest extant systematic account of yoga and a bridge from the earlier Vedic uses of the term is found in the Hindu Kathaka Upanisad(Ku), a scripture dating from about the third century BCE[...] [I]t describes the hierarchy of mind-body constituents—the senses, mind, intellect, etc.—that comprise the foundational categories of Sāmkhya philosophy, whose metaphysical system grounds the yoga of the YS, Bhg, and other texts and schools (Ku3.10–11; 6.7–8).[78]
According to David Frawley[unreliable source?], verses such as Rig Veda 5.81.1 which reads,
Seers of the vast illumined seer yogically [yunjante] control their minds and their intelligence[79]
show that "at least the seed of the entire Yoga teaching is contained in this most ancient Aryan text".[80]
An early reference to meditation is made in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the earliest Upanishad (c. 900 BCE).[note 9] In the Mahabharata yoga comes to mean "a divine chariot, that carried him upward in a burst of light to and through the sun, and on to the heaven of gods and heroes."[78]
Vedic ascetic practices[edit]
Ascetic practices (tapas), concentration and bodily postures used by Vedic priests to conduct yajna (Vedic ritual of fire sacrifice), might have been precursors to yoga.[note 10] Vratya, a group of ascetics mentioned in the Atharvaveda, emphasized on bodily postures which probably evolved into yogic asanas.[69] Early Vedic Samhitas also contain references to other group ascetics such as, Munis, the Keśin, and Vratyas.[83] Techniques for controlling breath and vital energies are mentioned in the Brahmanas (ritualistic texts of the Vedic corpus, c. 1000–800 BCE) and the Atharvaveda.[69][84] Nasadiya Sukta of the Rig Veda suggests the presence of an early contemplative tradition.[note 11]
The Vedic Samhitas contain references to ascetics, and ascetic practices known as (tapas) are referenced in the Brāhmaṇas (900 BCE and 500 BCE), early commentaries on the Vedas.[87] The Rigveda, the earliest of the Hindu texts mentions the practice.[88] Robert Schneider and Jeremy Fields write,
Yoga asanas were first prescribed by the ancient Vedic texts thousands of years ago and are said to directly enliven the body's inner intelligence.[89][unreliable source?]
According to Feuerstein, breath control and curbing the mind was practiced since the Vedic times.,[90] and yoga was fundamental to Vedic ritual, especially to chanting the sacred hymns[91]
Preclassical era (500-200 BCE)[edit]
Diffused pre-philosophical speculations of yoga begin to emerge in the texts of c. 500–200 BCE such as the Buddhist Nikayas, the middle Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and Mokshadharma of the Mahabharata. The terms samkhya and yoga in these texts refer to spiritual methodologies rather than the philosophical systems which developed centuries later.[92]
Early Buddhist texts[edit]
Werner notes that "only with Buddhism itself as expounded in the Pali Canon" do we have the oldest preserved comprehensive yoga practice:
"But it is only with Buddhism itself as expounded in the Pali Canon that we can speak about a systematic and comprehensive or even integral school of Yoga practice, which is thus the first and oldest to have been preserved for us in its entirety."[9]
Another yoga system that predated the Buddhist school is Jain yoga. But since Jain sources postdate Buddhist ones, it is difficult to distinguish between the nature of the early Jain school and elements derived from other schools.[9]
Most of the other contemporary yoga systems alluded in the Upanishads and some Pali canons are lost to time.[93][94][note 12]
The early Buddhist texts describe meditative practices and states, some of which the Buddha borrowed from the śramana tradition.[96][97] One key innovative teaching of the Buddha was that meditative absorption must be combined with liberating cognition.[98] Meditative states alone are not an end, for according to the Buddha, even the highest meditative state is not liberating. Instead of attaining a complete cessation of thought, some sort of mental activity must take place: a liberating cognition, based on the practice of mindful awareness.[99] The Buddha also departed from earlier yogic thought in discarding the early Brahminic notion of liberation at death.[100] While the Upanishads thought liberation to be a realization at death of a nondual meditative state where the ontological duality between subject and object was abolished, Buddha's theory of liberation depended upon this duality because liberation to him was an insight into the subject's experience.[100]
The Pali canon contains three passages in which the Buddha describes pressing the tongue against the palate for the purposes of controlling hunger or the mind, depending on the passage.[101] However there is no mention of the tongue being inserted into the nasopharynx as in true khecarī mudrā. The Buddha used a posture where pressure is put on the perineum with the heel, similar to even modern postures used to stimulate Kundalini.[102]
Upanishads[edit]
Alexander Wynne, author of The Origin of Buddhist Meditation, observes that formless meditation and elemental meditation might have originated in the Upanishadic tradition.[103] The earliest reference to meditation is in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, one of the oldest Upanishads.[83] Chandogya Upanishad describes the five kinds of vital energies (prana). Concepts used later in many yoga traditions such as internal sound and veins (nadis) are also described in the Upanishad.[69] Taittiriya Upanishad defines yoga as the mastery of body and senses.[104]
The term "yoga" first appears in the Hindu scripture Katha Upanishad (a primary Upanishad c. 400 BCE) where it is defined as the steady control of the senses, which along with cessation of mental activity, leads to the supreme state.[83][note 13] Katha Upanishad integrates the monism of early Upanishads with concepts of samkhya and yoga. It defines various levels of existence according to their proximity to the innermost being Ātman. Yoga is therefore seen as a process of interiorization or ascent of consciousness.[106][107] It is the earliest literary work that highlights the fundamentals of yoga. Shvetashvatara Upanishad (c. 400-200 BCE) elaborates on the relationship between thought and breath, control of mind, and the benefits of yoga.[107] Like the Katha Upanishad the transcendent Self is seen as the goal of yoga. This text also recommends meditation on Om as a path to liberation.[108] Maitrayaniya Upanishad (c. 300 BCE) formalizes the sixfold form of yoga.[107] Physiological theories of later yoga make an appearance in this text.[109][110]
While breath channels (nāḍis) of yogic practices had already been discussed in the classical Upanishads,