Friday Q&A: Modern Yoga and Hinduism (and the Encinitas Ruling)

Arjuna Listening to Krishna

“Yoga is an art, a science, and a philosophy. It touches the life of man at every level, physical, mental, and spiritual. It is a practical method for making one’s life purposeful, useful and noble.” —B.K.S. Iyengar from Light on Yoga

 Q: There's been a news story this past week about parents in a school district somewhere who tried to shut down the teaching of yoga because it was, supposedly, religious indoctrination. The story said that the school board disagreed, the explicit parts of the classes that mentioned (discussed? preached?) Hinduism were eliminated, and yoga continues to be taught there.

I've taken yoga for a long time and in none of my classes has there ever been anything said that I could identify as Hindu. What is the connection between Hinduism and yoga? and hatha yoga in particular? and Iyengar yoga in particular?

A: This question has been in the news lately due to the case in Encinitas, California, where parents sued the school system for including yoga in the schools (see the Washington Post article). The ruling was very clear, as San Diego Superior Court Judge John Meyer said:

"Yoga as it has developed in the last 20 years is rooted in American culture, not Indian culture. It is a distinctly American cultural phenomenon. A reasonable student would not objectively perceive that Encinitas school district yoga advances or promotes religion."

In my opinion, the answer to this question isn’t quite so clear and is a lot more like that icky relationship status on Facebook: It’s Complicated. In fact, it’s so complicated that Ram Rao and I will both be addressing this question (look for a separate post from him next week). Today I’m going to try to give a little background that will hopefully shed some light on this issue.

To start, it’s important to understand that while no one really knows for sure exactly how old yoga is or how it began, yoga clearly evolved as a part of Hinduism. The early yoga scriptures, the Upanisads, are definitely religious. Yoga is defined in the Svetavatara Upanisad as:

"When, by means of the true nature of atman, which is like a lamp, a person perceives the truth of Brahman in this world, he is freed from all bondage, because he has known the Divine, which is unborn, unchanging, and untainted by all things." —trans. by Edwin Bryant

The famous yoga scripture The Bhagavad Gita, written between the ninth and fourth centuries BCE, is an explicitly Hindu text, portraying the Hindu god Krishna as the source of yogic wisdom and recommending devotional yoga as a path to liberation. This work, which Mohandas K. Ghandi referred to as his “mother,” is an essential part of modern yoga, though people often—as is done with The Bible—pick and choose the quotes they use.

However, the other famous and essential yoga scripture, the Yoga Sutras (written in the second century BCE) while theistic (referring to Isvara or “The Lord”) is not explicitly Hindu text in the same way. As Edwin Bryant says:

"I might add here that Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is not an overtly sectarian text in the sense of prioritizing a specific deity or promoting a particular type of worship as is the case with many Hindu scripture, including The Bhagavad Gita. Therefore, as a template, it can be and has been appropriated by followers of different schools and traditions throughout Indian religious history and certainly continues to lend itself to such appropriations, most recently in nonreligious contexts in the West." —from The Yoga Sutras by Patanjali

In fact, as yoga evolved, several other religions adopted the yoga techniques and philosophy, including Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism.

Regarding hatha yoga, which came much later, we can look to the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (written in the 15 century CE), as it is the classic manual on hatha yoga. This document is considered a Hindu text but is similar to The Yoga Sutras in not being an “overtly sectarian.” Ram will discuss this text in detail in his upcoming post.

So far, however, the yoga described in these texts does not much resemble the yoga we are currently practicing in the West, especially the asana part. It was only in the 20th century that pivotal figures such as T.K.V. Krishnamacharya and B.K.S. Iyengar developed the modern asana practice as we now know it (see Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice by Mark Singleton). During this period, for many practitioners in the west, “yoga” became disassociated from its spiritual aspects and the asana practice was adopted as an exercise system. Thus, many of us have the experience that our questioner referred to of attending yoga classes that do not include any spiritual practices or any references to Hindu yoga scriptures of the past.

And even for those teachers who regularly teach the spiritual aspects of yoga, the general consensus is that yoga is not a religion per se, and that anyone of any religion or non-religion can practice it. Since the questioner asked specifically about B.K.S. Iyengar, I will confirm that this is his point of view. He recently said:

Yoga is an Indian heritage, not a Hindu property. Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, which forms the basis of the system, addresses all humanity not just Hindus. Just because yogis did not travel as widely as they do today does not imply that the practice belonged to one community or place. Patanjali calls yoga sarva bhauma, a universal culture. And yoga is an individual's evolutionary journey as a sadhaka (seeker) from the body to the self. Where is the room for doubt here?

The complicated part comes when you face the fact that the famous Indian teachers who profoundly influenced modern yoga as we know it were/are Hindus themselves. Regarding Iyengar, he, himself, is a Hindu Brahmin and much of his writing is, in fact, very theistic (see Light on Yoga and Light on the Yoga Sutras). And in some yoga traditions, even those taught in the west, Hindu practices, such as chanting and reading from the scriptures, are included in the classes. Regarding the Encinitas case, I was surprised to read this:

Yoga instructor Jennifer Nicole Brown, who demonstrated some of the yoga positions in court, said when parents complained about their children chanting, she removed it from the lesson.

It turns out that the type of yoga that was being taught in Encinitas was Ashtanga Yoga, the yoga system promoted by K. Pattabhi Jois, a student of Krishnamacharya, who was a Hindu. So what were these children chanting? I decided to check it out. The translation for the opening chant for the Ashtanga series is:

I bow to the lotus feet of the Supreme Guru which awaken insight into the happiness of pure Being, which are the refuge, the jungle physician, which eliminate the delusion caused by the poisonous herb of Samsara (conditioned existence).
I prostrate before the sage Patanjali who has thousands of radiant, white heads (as the divine serpent, Ananta) and who has, as far as his arms, assumed the form of a man holding a conch shell (divine sound), a wheel (discus of light or infinite time) and a sword (discrimination).

That sounds the teeniest bit Hindu to me, I have to say. And I can see why the parents complained about the chanting. So that’s what was removed from the school’s curriculum. Also—and this seems kind of silly—some of the names of poses were changed.

So I believe that while it is completely possible to practice yoga without being a Hindu or participating in Hindu religious activities, it is naive to say that modern yoga is totally “American” and has nothing at all to do with Hinduism. How you make your peace with this is up to you. I’ve known people who actively embrace the connection between yoga and Hinduism. Others may wish to be selective about the type of yoga they do, and choose their teachers and classes with care.

—Nina