How Can One Know the His­tory of Yoga

Because yoga has been around for so long, a lot of the ancient his­tory of yoga was just trans­mit­ted orally and through sacred texts. The early writ­ings about yoga were even writ­ten on frag­ile palm leaves. Obvi­ously, these were all too eas­ily lost, destroyed, or dam­aged. Con­se­quently, it is dif­fi­cult to tell how old the prac­tice and his­tory of yoga really extends. Some believe it is over 5,000 years old, oth­ers think that num­ber may be closer to 10,000 years. There are four main peri­ods of inno­va­tion, prac­tice and development.

The Indus Val­ley Civ­i­liza­tion (c. 3000 BC) hints of the prac­tice of yoga, as does the Vedic civ­i­liza­tion (c. 1500 BC). It was dis­cussed much more elab­o­rately in var­i­ous Hindu texts, was incor­po­rated into many Bud­dhist and Jain philoso­phies, and now it is pop­u­lar within mod­ern life.

Depend­ing on the per­spec­tive of the his­to­rian, records can show that the his­tory of yoga may extend back eight thou­sand years – because of the Mohenjo-daro seals. Also, there are five thou­sand year old carv­ings from the Indus Val­ley Civ­i­liza­tion that show a fig­ure some peo­ple believe is of a young yogi sit­ting in a med­i­ta­tion pos­ture – in the tra­di­tional cross-legged posi­tion, with hands rest­ing on knees. This fig­ure was named Shiva Pashu­pati by the arche­ol­o­gist who dis­cov­ered the seal.

Yoga was clearly expounded in the Vedic shas­tras – which are the Hindu reli­gious texts. This is the point from which those who believe the his­tory of yoga is “only” four thou­sand years old get their point of ref­er­ence. A scholar of Vedic says, “Yoga can be traced back to the Rig Veda itself.” That is the old­est Hindu text. It talks about yok­ing our mind and insight to the Sun of Truth. The idea of unit­ing the soul, mind, and body into a cos­mic “one” was not found in writ­ing until the more impor­tant texts of Hin­duism, the Upan­ishads, and Vedanta.

Con­tri­bu­tion of the Upan­ishadic (ca. 800 – 100 BC)
In the Upan­ishadic we first see exam­ples of the now tra­di­tional con­cepts and ter­mi­nol­ogy. Some of the things that are writ­ten about are: unit­ing of the six limbs, breath­ing con­trol, sen­sory inhi­bi­tion, med­ica­tion, con­cen­tra­tion, exam­i­na­tion, and ecstasy.

Hatha Yoga – Its Impact on the His­tory of Yoga
In the West, away from the Hindu cul­ture, “yoga” gen­er­ally refers to Hatha Yoga. Hatha Yoga, how­ever, is just a par­tic­u­lar sys­tem that Swami Swata­ma­rama devel­oped in the 15th cen­tury in India.

One famous text that greatly influ­enced the his­tory of Hatha yoga is the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. It was writ­ten by Swami Swata­ma­rama, and it lists detailed infor­ma­tion about the pos­tures and mantras that today’s yogi find familiar.

In the West cur­rently, Hatha yoga is very pop­u­lar, but it is as a phys­i­cal exer­cise, with no spir­i­tual com­po­nent for most. Cur­rently about thirty mil­lion Amer­i­cans prac­tice Hatha yoga. In India, yoga is a very com­monly used word. Peo­ple per­form their sun salu­ta­tions wher­ever they like.

Through­out the his­tory of yoga, there have been some con­stants and many vari­a­tions. One of the con­stants has been the change in prac­tices and beliefs that a yogi under­goes and takes into his life.

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