Day Fifteen of Yoga Summer Studies Summer School @soas.centreofyogastudies. Lets file this morning at the Victoria and Albert Museum under ‘save the best til last’. 🔍 of a 19th century scroll from Kashmir of chakras and scenes from mythological stories. This scroll is almost 4 meters long and is utterly exquisite. Viewing it with a group of just 5 other students in a private viewing area was 🤯. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. #yogahistory #chakra #yoga #yogastudies #artofyoga #goddess #kundalini #scroll #kashmir @vamuseum
Day Fifteen of the Yoga Studies Summer School @soas.centreofyogastudies begins here, at the magnificent @vamuseum. These museum trips each Friday have been such a highlight for me. Private viewings of carefully curated manuscripts, paintings, carvings and artifacts connected to the development of yoga. It’s such a rare opportunity that most of our professors have been joining the group for the opportunity to get up close with these objects usually stored in the vaults. And it’s important to view these things with a broader lens.... How did they get to be in England? What stories about them are not being told? Who wrote the descriptions of each piece displayed? Who decides what stays in the archives? What treasures should be returned? Are religious objects still sacred when viewed in a secular setting? #yogastudies #artofyoga #yogahistory #arthistory #museums
I am waaaaaay behind here......Day Eleven Yoga Studies Summer School. A fascinating day with Dr Daniela Bevilacqua who is the ethnographer on the Hatha Yoga Project, undertaking on the ground research with the sadhus in India about their hatha yoga practices. 💥 Once upon a time (ahem, like last week) I thought sadhus were sadhus. But now I know that these renunciates might be from any number of different sanpradaya or lineages: Nath, Dasnami, Udasin, Rāmānandī. The Dasnamis mortify the body with extreme penance such as holding one arm above their head) as a method to get close to god. The Rāmānandī take a different approach to practice, and undertake an 18 year sadhana practice in the form of meditation from Feb to June, (the hot months ) encircled by a smoking pile of cow dung. (Oh, by the way, for the last three years they have a pot of fire balanced on their head too). 🔥 📸 The Guardian #sadhu #ritual #practice #yoga #tapas meditation
Day Ten of Yoga Studies Summer School. I’m afraid, yet again, Instagram is simply unable to capture the awesomeness of the day. We were ushered into a private viewing room of the British Library with the entire research team of the Hatha Yoga Project and most of the lecturers from @soas.centreofyogastudies to view a collection of paintings and manuscripts from 16th to 18th century depicting yogis and their lifestyle and practice. No pens, no contact with the books, and no cameras allowed. It was a very quiet, sacred space. I’ve seen these images many times before online, but to get up close with a magnifying glass and to smell them ... 🧐😌😢. There are 84 asana and a collection of mudra contained in this 18th century book the Jogapradipika. The colors are so vibrant, they are neon, and the tiny details you can’t notice online are really remarkable too. The book is quite small, slightly larger than a paperback, and probably 3 inches thick. Each image is painted on thick card, with the pages separated by tissue paper. Sanskrit text on each preceding page explained each asana. It is lovingly bound and embossed and in really pristine condition. It’s a treasure, was created to last for centuries, and to teach and inspire us all. As someone who creates written materials for yoga trainings, I feel like I definitely need to up my game: hand paint all the pictures, add gold leaf, and emboss the covers 😉. So extremely fortunate to view and discuss these sacred artifacts with such incredible scholars here in the U.K. @theluminescent.yoga @yogicstudies #yoga #artofyoga #yogahistory #arthistory
Day Nine of Yoga Studies Summer School at @soasuni with Dr Matthew Clark. Today’s talk was so excellent! My hand kept cramping up because I took an entire journal worth of notes. I really can’t condense it on Instagram and do it justice. Took me back to my first trip to India in 99, and my fascination with these mysterious aspects of yoga and good times spent hanging out with the sadhus in Varanasi. Masterful, trippy, intelligent story telling which somehow masterfully weaved together all of this and more...👇🏽 . . self experimentation is yoga / origins of world mythology / Indus civilisation / eruption of Santorini / migration of bronze age people / vedic civilisation / tantra / soma / ayahuasca / psychedelics / origins of sanskrit language / the axial age / punks / graveyards / skulls / tantric ritual / possession and trance states / renunciation / sacred architecture / transgressive practice / karma / altered states of consciousness / mandala / yantra / samkhya philosophy / sadhu / sex / magical powers / spirits / saivism / symbolic thinking / initiation ceremonies / buddhism / yogini and dakini / #yogastudies #yogaschool #yogahistory #tantra #yoga #buddhism #consciousness #sadhu (stock image used with permission)
Seven floors of overwhelming amounts of information here at the SOAS Library. This entire library contains everything you need and more on Asia and Africa. I’m spending the afternoon trying to pre-research my research topic... I’ve floated from martial arts to yogini temples, from tantric trance states to the politics of modern yoga culture, from the Cham civilization in Vietnam to .... you get the picture. I might just keep researching things to research, and not actually do the research 😆. #pleasure #procrastination
Day Six and Seven at Yoga Studies Summer School with Jason Birch and Jacqueline Hargreaves have been amazing!! . Repost: Reconstructing the Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati. A still from an upcoming film on this late-18th Century Sanskrit yoga text made by Jacqueline Hargreaves and Jason Birch of @theluminescent.yoga. This pose is called Svargāsanaṃ, or Climbing Up to Heaven pose. Our lucky summer school students are getting a preview of the film today along with a practical workshop on the many āsana in the Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati. But the film will get a full public release soon. To find out more about this text and reconstruction go to www.hathabhyasapaddhati.org. . . . #yoga #yogastudies #yogalife #yogicstudies #yogahistory #yogatraining #yogateachertraining #yogateacher #soas #soasuniversity #yogateaching #indianhistory #yogaphilosophy #historyofyoga #historyofasana #yogastudent #asana #sanskrit #yogainspiration #yogi #hathabhyasapaddhati