The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali : A Biography / David Gordon White.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

White, David Gordon, author.

Series:

Lives of great religious books.

Lives of Great Religious Books ; 19

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hinduism--Historiography.

Hinduism.

Yoga--Historiography.

Yoga.

Patañjali. Yogasūtra.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (295 pages)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Consisting of fewer than two hundred verses written in an obscure if not impenetrable language and style, Patanjali's Yoga Sutra is today extolled by the yoga establishment as a perennial classic and guide to yoga practice. As David Gordon White demonstrates in this groundbreaking study, both of these assumptions are incorrect. Virtually forgotten in India for hundreds of years and maligned when it was first discovered in the West, the Yoga Sutra has been elevated to its present iconic status-and translated into more than forty languages-only in the course of the past forty years.White retraces the strange and circuitous journey of this confounding work from its ancient origins down through its heyday in the seventh through eleventh centuries, its gradual fall into obscurity, and its modern resurgence since the nineteenth century. First introduced to the West by the British Orientalist Henry Thomas Colebrooke, the Yoga Sutra was revived largely in Europe and America, and predominantly in English. White brings to life the improbable cast of characters whose interpretations-and misappropriations-of the Yoga Sutra led to its revered place in popular culture today. Tracing the remarkable trajectory of this enigmatic work, White's exhaustively researched book also demonstrates why the yoga of India's past bears little resemblance to the yoga practiced today.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Dramatis Personae

Preface

Chapter 1. Reading the Yoga Sutra in the Twenty-First Century: Modern Challenges, Ancient Strategies

Chapter 2. Patanjali, the Yoga Sutra, and Indian Philosophy

Chapter 3. Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the Western "Discovery" of the Yoga Sutra

Chapter 4. Yoga Sutra Agonistes: Hegel and the German Romantics

Chapter 5. Rajendralal Mitra: India's Forgotten Pioneer of Yoga Sutra Scholarship

Chapter 6. The Yoga of the Magnetosphere: The Yoga Sutra and the Theosophical Society

Chapter 7. Swami Vivekananda and the Mainstreaming of the Yoga Sutra

Chapter 8. The Yoga Sutra in the Muslim World

Chapter 9. The Yoga Sutra Becomes a Classic

Chapter 10. Ishvara

Chapter 11. Journeys East, Journeys West: The Yoga Sutra in the Early Twentieth Century

Chapter 12. The Strange Case of T. M. Krishnamacharya

Chapter 13. Yoga Sutra 2.0

Notes

Suggestions for Further Reading

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-259) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9781785399909

178539990X

9781400850051

1400850053

OCLC:

966803516