Overview
Yoga (Sanskrit: योग, literally 'yoke' or 'union') is a group of physical, mental and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India. The practices are aimed at controlling the body and mind in order to attain liberation (moksha), and they are observed within the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist traditions. In contemporary times, modern forms of yoga are practised worldwide, often primarily as exercise combined with elements such as relaxation.
Yoga may have pre-Vedic origins, but it is first attested in the early first millennium BCE. It developed as various traditions in the eastern Ganges basin and drew from a common body of practices, including Vedic elements. Yoga-like practices are mentioned in the Rigveda and in some early Upanishads. Systematic yoga concepts emerged during the fifth and sixth centuries BCE in the ascetic and Śramaṇa movements of ancient India, including Jainism and Buddhism.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the classical text on Hindu yoga, is grounded in samkhya philosophy but also reflects Buddhist influence; it dates to the early centuries of the Common Era. Hatha yoga texts began to appear between the ninth and eleventh centuries, with their roots in Tantra. Traditional yoga, in these textual currents, focuses on meditation and release from worldly attachments.
Much of the yoga practised in the Western world is a modern syncretised form, consisting largely of asanas drawn from hatha yoga and from Western physical culture. This differs in emphasis from traditional yoga. It was introduced by gurus from India following the reception of Swami Vivekananda's adaptation of yoga, presented without asanas, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Vivekananda introduced the Yoga Sutras to the West, and the text gained wider prominence with the later twentieth-century popularity of hatha yoga. In 1925, Yogananda established a Kriya Yoga centre in Los Angeles, becoming one of the first yoga teachers based in the United States.
References
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