YOGA TRADITIONS EXAM

Examiner: Dr. James Mallinson (SOAS, University of London)

Seth Powell

This exam aims to provide a comprehensive survey of the academic study of yoga — from
yoga’s shrouded origins as an ascetic discipline in ancient India, to the popular rise of modern
transnational yoga around the globe. It examines the history, theory, and praxis of yoga and
yogīs, with a particular focus on the systematization of Indic yoga traditions produced through
the codification of prescriptive Sanskrit yoga texts. Undergirding this exam is the theoretical
position which asserts that the idea of “yoga” is one that has undergone constant
transformation over the past 2,500 years, and yet it asks, as the theory and techniques of yoga
were continually innovating and adapting, what, if any, are the key elements that have
remained the same over time — that indeed, make a discipline “yogic?” Finally, how has the
study of yoga in the academy advanced since Eliade’s landmark study, Yoga: Immortality and
Freedom (1958)? What are the key debates, lacunae, and future directions in the field of yoga
studies? The exam is divided heuristically into the following eight sections: 1) general yoga
studies; 2) pre-Vedic and Vedic antecedents of yoga; 3) yoga in the Epics, Purāṇas, and
Dharmaśāstras; 4) Sāṅkhya and Pātañjalayoga; 5) tantric yoga, both Buddhist and Hindu; 6)
medieval and early modern yoga; 7) non-Hindu yoga, particularly Jaina and Islamic
formulations of yoga; and lastly, 8) modern yoga studies.

PART 1: GENERAL YOGA STUDIES

Bronkhorst, Johannes, Christopher Key Chapple, Laurie L. Patton, Geoffrey Samuel,

Stuart Ray Sarbacker, and Vesna Wallace. 2011. “Contextualizing the History of
Yoga in Geoffrey Samuel’s The Origins of Yoga and Tantra: A Review Symposium.”
International Journal of Hindu Studies 15 (3): 303–57.

Connolly, Peter. 2007. A Student’s Guide to the History and Philosophy of Yoga. London;
Oakville, CT: Equinox.

Eliade, Mircea. 2009 [1958]. Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. Translated by Willard Ropes
Trask. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Diamond, Debra, ed. 2013. Yoga: The Art of Transformation. Washington, D.C.: Arthur M.
Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Jacobsen, Knut A., ed. 2005. Theory and Practice of Yoga: Essays in Honour of Gerald James
Larson. Brill Academic Pub.

———. ed. 2011. Yoga Powers: Extraordinary Capacities Attained Through Meditation and
Concentration. Leiden; Boston: Brill.

Joshi, K. S. 1965. “On the Meaning of Yoga.” Philosophy East and West 15 (1): 53–64.
Larson, Gerald James. 2009. “Differentiating the Concepts of ‘Yoga’ and ‘Tantra’ in
Sanskrit Literary History.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 129 (3): 487–98.

Larson, Gerald James, and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya. 2011. Encyclopedia of Indian
Philosophies Vol. XII: Yoga India’s Philosophy of Meditation. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Mallinson, James and Mark Singleton, eds. 2017. The Roots of Yoga. London; New York:
Penguin.

Phillips, Stephen H. 2009. Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy. New
York: Columbia University Press.

Samuel, Geoffrey. 2008. The Origins of Yoga and Tantra: Indic Religions to the Thirteenth
Century. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sarbacker, Stuart Ray. 2006. Samādhi: The Numinous and Cessative in Indo-Tibetan Yoga.
State University of New York Press.

Whicher, Ian, and David Carpenter, eds. 2003. Yoga: The Indian Tradition. London; New
York: RoutledgeCurzon.

White, David Gordon. 2009. Sinister Yogis. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

White, David Gordon, ed. 2012. Yoga in Practice. Princeton Readings in Religions.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.

PART 2: PRE-VEDIC AND VEDIC ANTECEDENTS OF YOGA

Bronkhorst, Johannes. 1993. The Two Traditions Of Meditation In Ancient India. Motilal
Banarsidass.

———. 1998. The Two Sources of Indian Asceticism. Motilal Banarsidass.

———. 2007. Greater Magadha Studies in the Culture of Early India. Leiden; Boston: Brill.

Dhyansky, Yan Y. 1987. “The Indus Valley Origin of a Yoga Practice.” Artibus Asiae 48 (1/2):
89–108.

Johnston, E. H. 1930. “Some Sāṃkhya and Yoga Conceptions of the Śvetāśvatara

Upaṇisad.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 62 (04): 855–78.

Kaelber, Walter O. 1989. Tapta Mārga: Asceticism and Initiation in Vedic India. Albany, N.Y.:
State University of New York Press.

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McEvilley, Thomas. 1981. “An Archaeology of Yoga.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics no.
1 (April): 44–77.

Oguibenine, Boris. 1984. “Sur le terme yóga, le verbe yuj- et quelques-uns de leurs
dérivés dans les hymnes védiques.” Indo-Iranian Journal 27 (2): 85–101.

Werner, Karel. 1994. “The Longhaired Sage of Ṛg Veda 10.136; A Shaman, a Mystic or a
Yogi?” In The Yogi and the Mystic Studies in Indian and Comparative Mysticism, edited
by Karel Werner, 33–52. Richmond: Curzon Press.

Zysk, Kenneth G. 1998. Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist
Monastery. Motilal Banarsidass.

PART 3: YOGA IN THE EPICS, PURĀṆAS, AND DHARMAŚĀSTRAS

Biardeau, Madeleine. 1993. “Purāṇic Cosmogony.” In Asian Mythologies, edited by Yves

Bonnefoy, translated by Wendy Doniger, 43–49. Chicago: University Of Chicago
Press.

Brockington, John. 2003. “Yoga in the Mahābhārata.” In Yoga: The Indian Tradition,
edited by Ian Whicher and David Carpenter, 13–24. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

Hopkins, E. Washburn. 1901. “Yoga-Technique in the Great Epic.” Journal of the American
Oriental Society 22 (January): 333–79.

Jezic, Mislav. 1979. “The First Yoga Layer in the Bhagavadgītā.” In Ludwik Sternbach
Felicitation Volume Part One, 545–57. Lucknow: Akhila Bharatiya Sanskrit Parishad.

Kāṇe, Pāṇḍuraṅga Vāmana. 1962. “Chapter XXXII: Yoga and Dharmaśāstra.” In History
of Dharmaśāstra: (Ancient and Mediæval Religious and Civil Law in India), Vol. 5, Part
2. Government Oriental Series, Class B, No. 6. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental
Research Institute, 1385–1467.

Malinar, Angelika. 2012. “Yoga Practices in the Bhagavadgītā.” In Yoga in Practice, edited
by David Gordon White, 58–72. Princeton University Press.

Schreiner, Peter. 1999. “What Comes First (in Mahābhārata): Sāṃkhya or Yoga?”
Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques: Zeitschrift Der Schweizerischen Asiengesellschaft/
Revue de La Société Suisse-Asie 53 (3): 755–77.

White, David Gordon. 2009. “Yogic Rays: The Self-Externalization of the Yogi in Ritual,
Narrative and Philosophy.” Paragrana 18 (1): 64–77.

Yardi, M. R. 1987. “Sānkhya and Yoga in the Mokṣadharma and the Bhagavadgītā.”
Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 68 (1/4): 309–19.

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PART 4: SĀṄKHYA AND PĀTAÑJALAYOGA

Bhattacharya, Ram Shankar. 1985. An Introduction to the Yogasūtra. Delhi: Bharatiya

Vidya Prakasana.

Bronkhorst, Johannes. 1981. “Yoga and Seśvara Sāṃkhya.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 9
(3): 309–20.

———. 1985. “Patañjali and the Yoga Sūtras.” Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik. 10: 191–
212.

Bryant, Edwin Francis. 2009. The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and
Commentary with Insights from the Traditional Commentators. New York: North Point
Press.

Burley, Mikel. 2007. Classical Samkhya and Yoga an Indian Metaphysics of Experience.
London: Routledge.

Chakravarti, Pulinbihari. 1975 [1951]. Origin and Development of the Sāṃkhya System of
Thought. 2d ed. New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corp: distributed by
Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers.

Chapple, Christopher Key. 1994. “Reading Patañjali Without Vyāsa: A Critique of Four
Yoga Sūtra Passages.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion LXII (1): 85–106.

Edgerton, Franklin. 1924. “The Meaning of Sānkhya and Yoga.” The American Journal of
Philology 45 (1): 1–46.

Harimoto, Kengo. 2014. God, Reason, and Yoga: A Critical Edition and Translation of the
Commentary Ascribed to Śaṅkara on Pātañjalayogaśāstra 1.23-28. Hamburg: Dept. of
Indian and Tibetan Studies, Universität Hamburg.

Maas, Philipp André. 2013. “A Concise Historiography of Classical Yoga Philosophy.” In

Periodization and Historiography of Indian Philosophy, edited by Eli Franco. De Nobili
Series, Vol. 37, 53–90.

Ramakrishna Rao, K. B. 1966. Theism of Pre-Classical Sāṁkhya. Mysore: Prasaranga,

University of Mysore.

Wezler, Albrecht. 1984. “On the Quadruple Division of the Yogaśāstra, the
Caturvyūhatva of the Cikitsāśāstra and the ‘Four Noble Truths’ of the Buddha
(Studies in the Pātañjalayogaśāstravivaraṇa II).” Indologica Taurinensia 12: 289-337.

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Whicher, Ian. 2000. The Integrity of the Yoga Darśana: A Reconsideration of Classical Yoga.
New Delhi: D.K. Printworld.

White, David Gordon. 2014. The “Yoga Sutra of Patanjali”: A Biography. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.

Woods, James Haughton. 1914. Yoga-System of Patañjali: Or, The Ancient Hindu Doctrine of
Concentration of Mind, Embracing the Mnemonic Rules, Called Yoga-Bhāshya, of
Patan ̄jali and the Comment, Called Yoga-Bhāshya, Attributed to Veda-Vyāsa and
Explantion, Called Tattva-Vāicāradī, of Vāchaspati-Micra. Harvard Oriental Series 17.
New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

PART 5: TANTRIC YOGA

Baker, Ian A. 2012. “Embodying Enlightenment: Physical Culture in Dzogchen as

Revealed in Tibet’s Lukhang Murals.” Asian Medicine 7 (1): 225–64.

Brunner, Hélène. 1994. “The Place of Yoga in the Śaivāgamas.” In Pandit N. R. Bhatt
Felicitation Volume, edited by Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat, S. P. Narang and C. P. Bhatta.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 425-461.

Bühnemann, Gudrun. 2011. “The Śāradātilakatantra on Yoga: A New Edition and

Translation of Chapter 25.” Bulletin of SOAS 74: 205–35.

Hara, Minoru. 1999. “Pāśupata and Yoga: Pāśupata-Sūtra 2.12 and Yoga-Sūtra 3.37.”
Asiatische Studien 53 (3): 593–608.

Kiss, Csaba. 2009. “Matsyendranātha’s Compendium (Matsyendrasaṃhitā): A Critical

and Annotated Translation of Matsyendrasaṃhitā 1-13 and 55 with Analysis.”
DPhil, University of Oxford.

Oberhammer, Gerhard. 1991. “The Use of Mantra in Yogic Meditation: The Testimony
of the Pāśupata.” In Understanding Mantras, edited by Harvey P. Alper, 204–23.
Motilal Banarsidass Publ.

Rastogi, Navjivan. 1992. “The Yogic Disciplines in the Monistic Śaiva Tantric Traditions
of Kashmir: Threefold, Fourfold, and Six-Limbed.” In Ritual and Speculation in
Early Tantrism: Studies in Honour of André Padoux, edited by André Padoux and Teun
Goudriaan, 247–80. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Sanderson, Alexis. 1999. “Yoga in Śaivism: The Yoga Section of the Mṛgendratantra. An
Annotated Translation of the Text With Commentary of Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇakaṇṭha.”

Schaeffer, Kurtis. 2002. “The Attainment of Immortality: From Nāthas in India to

Buddhists in Tibet.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 30 (6): 515–33.

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Serbaeva, Olga. 2015. “Yoga from the Yoginīs’ Point of View.” The Journal of Hindu Studies
8 (2): 245–62.

Vasudeva, Somadeva. 2004. The Yoga of Mālinīvijayottaratantra: Chapters 1-4, 7-11, 11-17.
Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry : École Française d’Extrême-Orient.

White, David Gordon. 2003. “Yoga in Early Hindu Tantra.” In Yoga: The Indian Tradition,
edited by Ian Whicher and David Carpenter, 143–61. London ; New York:
RoutledgeCurzon.

PART 6: MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN YOGA

Alter, Joseph S. 2012. “Sacrifice, the Body, and Yoga: Theoretical Entailments of
Embodiment in Hathayoga.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 35 (2): 408–33.

Birch, Jason. 2011. “Meaning of Haṭha in Early Haṭhayoga.” Journal of the American
Oriental Society 131.4: 527–54.

———. 2013. “The Amanaska. King of All Yogas. A Critical Edition and Annotated
Translation with a Monographic Introduction.” Thesis successfully submitted for
degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Oxford.

———. 2014. “Rājayoga: The Reincarnations of the King of All Yogas.” International
Journal of Hindu Studies 17 (3): 401–44.

———. Forthcoming, 2017. “The Proliferation of Āsana in Late Mediaeval Yoga

Traditions.” In Yoga in Transformation: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on a
Global Phenomenon. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Unipress.

———. Forthcoming, 2017. “Did Āyurveda Influence Medieval Yoga Traditions?

Preliminary Remarks on their Shared Terminology, Theory and Praxis.”

Bouy, Christian. 1994. Les Nātha-yogin et les Upaniṣads: étude d’histoire de la littérature
hindoue. Paris: Collège de France, Institut de civilisation indienne: Diffusion De
Boccard.

Burley, Mikel. 2000. Haṭha-Yoga: Its Context, Theory, and Practice. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass Publishers.

Bühnemann, Gudrun. 2007. Eighty-Four Āsanas in Yoga: A Survey of Traditions, With

Illustrations. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld.

Clark, Matthew. 2006. The Daśanāmī-Saṃnyāsīs: The Integration of Ascetic Lineages into an
Order. Leiden; Boston: Brill.

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Goldberg, Ellen. 2002. “Ardhanārīśvara and Haṭhayoga.” In The Lord Who Is Half
Woman: Ardhanārīśvara in Indian and Feminist Perspective, 57–90. Albany: State
University of New York Press.

———. 2009. “Medieval Hathayoga Sadhana: An Indigenous South Asian Bio-

Therapeutic Model for Health, Healing and Longevity.” Acta Orientalia 70: 93.

Mallinson, James. 2005. “Rāmānandī Tyāgīs and Haṭhayoga.” Journal of Vaishnava

Studies 14 (1): 107–21.

———. 2006. The Khecarīvidyā of Ādinātha: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of
an Early Text of Haṭhayoga. London: Routledge.

———. 2011. “Haṭha Yoga.” Brill Encyclopedia of Hinduism 3: 770–81.

———. 2012. “The Original Gorakṣaśataka.” In Yoga in Practice, edited by David Gordon
White, 257–72. Princeton University Press.

———. 2013. “The Yogīs’ Latest Trick.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: 1–16.

———. 2014. “Haṭhayoga’s Philosophy: A Fortuitous Union of Non-Dualities.” Journal of

Indian Philosophy 42 (1): 225–47.

———. 2016. “Śāktism and Hathayoga.” In Goddess Traditions in Tantric Hinduism :

History, Practice and Doctrine, edited by Bjarne Wernicke. Routledge Studies in
Tantric Traditions. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.

———. Forthcoming. “Yoga and Sex: What is the Purpose of Vajrolīmudrā.” In Yoga in
Transformation: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on a Global Phenomenon.
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Unipress.

———. Forthcoming. “The Amṛtasiddhi: Haṭhayoga’s Tantric Buddhist Source Text.” In

Festchrift in Honour of Professor Alexis G. Sanderson.

Pinch, William R. 2006. Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires. Cambridge University Press.

PART 7: NON-HINDU YOGA

Jaina Yoga

Chapple, Christopher Key. 2003. Reconciling Yogas Haribhadra’s Collection of Views on

Yoga. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Chapple, Christopher Key, ed. 2016. Yoga in Jainism. Routledge Advances in Jaina
Studies. Abingdon: Routledge.

Cort, John. 2015. “Jain Perceptions of Nāth and Haṭha Yogīs in Pre-Colonial North
India.” International Journal of Jaina Studies 2 (4): 1–22.

Quarnström, Olle. 2002. The Yogaśāstra of Hemacandra: A Twelfth Century Handbook of

Śvetāmbara Jainism. Cambridge, Mass.: Dept. of Sanskrit and Indian Studies,
Harvard University.

Islamic Yoga

Digby, Simon. 1970. “Encounters with Jogīs in Indian Sūfī hagiography.” Unpublished
paper, delivered at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Ernst, Carl W. 1996. “Sufism and Yoga according to Muhammad Ghawth.” Sufi 29
(Spring): 9–13.

———. 2003. “The Islamization of Yoga in the ‘Amrtakunda’ Translations.” Journal of

the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, 13 (2): 199–226.

———. 2005. “Situating Sufism and Yoga.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third
Series, 15 (1): 15–43.

Hatley, Shaman. 2007. “Mapping the Esoteric Body in the Islamic Yoga of Bengal.”
History of Religions 46 (4): 351–68.

Sakaki, Kazuyo. 2005. “Yogico-Tantric Traditions in the Hawd-Al-Hayat.” Journal of the

Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, no. 17: 135–56.

PART 8: MODERN YOGA STUDIES

Albanese, Catherine L. 2007. “The Metaphysics of American Yoga.” In A Republic of

Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion, 346–72. New
Haven: Yale University Press.

Alter, Joseph S. 1992. “The ‘Sannyasi’ and the Indian Wrestler: The Anatomy of a
Relationship.” American Ethnologist 19 (2): 317–36.

———. 2004. Yoga in Modern India: The Body Between Science and Philosophy. Princeton
University Press.

———. 2005. “Modern Medical Yoga: Struggling with a History of Magic, Alchemy and
Sex.” Asian Medicine 1 (1): 119–46.

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Bernard, Theos. 1950 [1944]. Hatha Yoga: The Report of a Personal Experience. London,
New York: Rider.

De Michelis, Elizabeth. 2004. A History of Modern Yoga: Patañjali and Western Esotericism.
London; New York: Continuum.

Deslippe, Philip. 2012. “From Maharaj To Mahan Tantric: The Construction of Yogi
Bhajan’s Kundalini Yoga.” Sikh Formations 8 (3): 369–87.

Hauser, Beatrix, ed. 2013. Yoga Traveling: Bodily Practice in Transcultural Perspective.
Heidelberg: Springer International Publishing.

Jain, Andrea. 2015. Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture. Oxford; New York:
Oxford University Press.

Singleton, Mark. 2010. Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Singleton, Mark, and Jean Byrne, eds. 2008. Yoga in the Modern World: Contemporary
Perspectives. London; New York: Routledge.

Singleton, Mark, and Ellen Goldberg, eds. 2014. Gurus of Modern Yoga. New York: Oxford
University Press.

Sjoman, Norman. E. 1999 [1996]. The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace. 2nd ed. Abhinav
Publications.

Strauss, Sarah. 2005. Positioning Yoga. Oxford; New York: Berg Publishers.

109 Total

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