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EARLY YOGA
The first written descriptions of yogic practice appear in the Upanishads, along with other sources around the same time. However, there are also older influences, from ideas in the Vedas to ascetic austerities. Much is unclear about what happened when, but foundational themes can be identified.
ANCIENT ROOTS
The origins of yoga are hard to pin down. Most of the available evidence comes from texts, which put into writing an oral tradition that started much earlier. Apart from these first compositions, which say very little about yogic techniques, we only really have myths and a handful of fragments from archaeologists.
Of course, we could interview modern practitioners, who might tell us what their teachers said, and what those teachers said their teachers said, and so on—suggesting a lineage dating back to prehistoric times. However, no one knows for sure how old it is. We might as well argue that yoga, like everything else, was born from a cosmic “golden womb” called Hiranyagarbha, as one of the earliest texts explains.
Some of the first descriptions of physical techniques come from the Buddha, who is said to have tried them before his awakening 2,500 years ago. His discourses mention his studies with yogic ascetics. He seemed unimpressed by their difficult methods, complaining that one called “meditation fully without breath” gave him “extremely strong headaches,” while trying to survive on a minimalist diet made the skin of his belly touch his spine, producing “painful, sharp, severe sensations due to [self-inflicted] torture.” Abandoning such austerities, he sought a middle way between indulgence and restraint, asking “could there be another road toward enlightenment?” (Majjhima Nikaya I.237–51).
Earlier Indian accounts offer mystical insights from deep meditation, without saying much about how to attain them. The first mentions of “yoga” in Vedic traditions involve the yoking of chariots to animals—often for fighting—or descriptions of priests absorbed in rituals. “The sages of the great all-knowing control their mind and control their thoughts,” says the Rig Veda (5.81.1), the oldest Indian sacred text, which is said by scholars to have been composed about 3,500 years ago. “The one who knows the law has ordered the ceremonial functions. Great is the praise of the divine Savitri.”
Undeterred by such cryptic references, some people argue that yoga is older. The widely quoted figure of five thousand years relates to a Bronze Age civilization in the Indus Valley, which traded with Sumer and possibly Egypt. Among its relics are soapstone seals adorned with images. These look like tags for bags of goods, yet seem too fragile for this purpose. The script on the pictures is still undeciphered, but they may have had ritual significance. One seal shows a horned-headed figure surrounded by animals, apparently sitting with knees spread wide. Since this resembles a meditative posture, some call it yoga. Yet in the absence of any description of what it was for, this seems far-fetched, particularly with no other records of systematic practice until much later.
The scholarly consensus is clear: yoga began among ascetics in northern India, beyond the mainstream of a Vedic religion that was linked to traditions across central Asia. Migrants who called themselves arya (a word meaning “noble” that is also the source of the name for Iran) staged elaborate ceremonies focused on fires. They were nomads with horses and cattle, and they ventured east across the Ganges plain in search of pastures. The Vedas are odes to their gods, describing ways to preserve cosmic order and communal prosperity.
Nonetheless, some ideas in the Vedas inspired early yogis. Vedic chants are rich in metaphor. Because fire was the mouth of the gods, offering it food and other sacrificial gifts preserved a state of auspiciousness. One hymn pays homage to butter, an oblation still commonly poured on sacred flames. It describes mystic visions that sound almost yogic (Rig Veda 4.58.11):
The whole universe is set in your essence
Within the ocean, within the heart, in the life-span.
Let us win your honeyed wave that is brought
To the face of the waters as they flow together.
ASCETICS AND TAPAS
Some of the first reports of physical practice come from foreigners. Shortly after the time of the Buddha, Alexander the Great invaded India. Greek historians describe how his army witnessed “fifteen men standing in different postures, sitting or lying down naked” under the baking Punjab sun. Another man, who came to visit Alexander, “stood on one leg, with a piece of wood three [feet] in length raised in both hands; when one leg was fatigued he changed to support the other, and thus continued the whole day.”
If spending hours in the equivalent of “tree pose” sounds excessive, try twelve years. Traditional austerities are often undertaken for this time span. Some practitioners never sit down, sleeping slumped on a swing; others stand on one leg or hold an arm in the air. One recent example is Amar Bharti, an ascetic who was featured on TV around the world, in both documentaries and less reverent shows like An Idiot Abroad. By the end of his life, in 2019, his right arm had been outstretched since the 1970s, and seemed to be stuck above his head. Gnarled and gaunt, it looked locked into place by a twisted shoulder, with corkscrewing nails sprouting out of its fist like blackened wood shavings.
Self-mortification reduces attachment to the body. When pushed to explain this, yogis use the language of devotion. Puran Puri, an eighteenth-century Indian, kept both arms raised for decades. Asked why by a British official, he said “God alone” knew. His reflections on his decision were matter-of-fact, with no reference to benefits. “It is necessary to be very abstemious when eating and sleeping for one year, and to keep the mind fixed, that is to be patient and resigned to the will of the deity,” he said. “For one year great pain is endured, but during the second less, and habit reconciles the party; the pain diminishes in the third year, after which no kind of uneasiness is felt.”
Puri’s account describes eighteen classical penances, from which he chose the “arms aloft” option, urdhva bahu. Another is called “five fires,” which involves being “immersed in smoke from fire on all sides, and having, fifthly, the sun above.” Some Indian practitioners still do this today, sitting in rings of smoldering cow dung during summer. In the final phase, they balance a pot of burning dung on their heads. The technical term for austerities is tapasya, which comes from tapas, meaning heat. This symbolizes Vedic fire, which ascetics internalize. The zeal of their effort is disciplined alchemy, manipulating matter to open the mind to higher truths. The Vedic god Agni personified fire, and was worshipped at dawn and dusk in the agnihotra ritual, whose flames became linked to the sun, the source of life.
The cultivation of tapas is integral to yoga. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra (2.43) says its ardor is purifying. Turning away from the body’s demands and sensory inputs, ascetics become less concerned with desires and dislikes. This makes it easier to focus within, and on the infinite.
SEERS AND SOMA
According to Indian tradition, the words of the Vedas were revealed to mystic seers, or rishis. Vedic chants are a faithful recording of what they heard, right down to the tone of each Sanskrit syllable.
As the Vedas themselves describe it, “the wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve [and] when they set in motion the first beginning of speech, giving names, their most pure and perfectly guarded secret was revealed through love” (Rig Veda 10.71). Language is personified as Vach, the voice of the cosmos, which “reveals itself to someone as a loving wife, beautifully dressed, reveals her body to her husband.” Enchanted by the presence of this goddess, rishis channeled it in verse.
Most of their works are songs of praise, combining instructions for sacred rites with tales of gods. The most popular is Indra, a thunderbolt-wielding warrior; others embody the heavens, earth, weather, and the sun. Two minor deities become more important in subsequent texts: Vishnu, the preserver, and Rudra, the fierce god of storms, who has healing powers and is later revealed as a form of Shiva. Rudra is “the sage who flies” with “braided hair,” which he sometimes ties in a dreadlocked knot like the yogic sadhus who still wander modern India (Rig Veda 1.114).
Another Vedic character echoes these themes. The keshin is a “long-haired ascetic” who “sails through the air” as if riding the wind by controlling his breath. Along with Rudra, he “reveals everything, so that everyone can see the sun” (Rig Veda 10.136). He is helped by a nameless drug, which appears to give strong hallucinations. Other hymns salute a similar substance known as Soma, “the sweet drink of life,” which was hailed as a god. As one of the rishis declares after taking some: “It inspires good thoughts and joyous expansiveness to the extreme” (Rig Veda 8.48).
No one knows for sure what Soma was, but it played a big part in Vedic life. One hymn reveres stones that were used to press juice from the stalks of plants, before being mixed with milk or water (Rig Veda 10.94). The resulting concoction sounds a bit like ayahuasca, the psychedelic brew of Amazonian shamans. Whatever Soma was, it was hard to obtain as Vedic culture spread east. Other substances were used as a substitute, and offerings became more important than consumption. Over time, the significance of Soma was reinterpreted. It is sometimes suggested today that it stands for transcendence, so nothing was ever imbibed except pure consciousness.
Regardless of whether rishis were high, they left some mind-expanding words. One hymn about creation is riddled with paradox (Rig Veda 10.129). It says the world may have “formed itself, or perhaps it did not,” while desire “was the first seed of mind” and “the gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.” This is ascribed to a source known as “Who,” and sometimes “One.” In other words, the cosmos had murky beginnings: form was preceded by thought, and awareness breathed life into matter.
Drugs play ambiguous roles in yogic practice. One of Patanjali’s sutras (4.1) says unnamed “herbs” produce mystical powers (as do austerities, chanting mantras, being absorbed in meditation, and having good luck from a previous life). Many Indian ascetics chain-smoke cannabis, which they regard as a gift from Shiva, whose name means “the auspicious one.” The point is not to get stoned, though they obviously do, but to detach from the world and conventional norms. However, their habit can become an attachment in itself. To practitioners, this is irrelevant, as long as they see beyond the mind.
RESTRAINT AND RITUAL
Renunciates thrived on the fringes of Vedic society. Among them were vratyas, unmarried young men who took celibate vows to conduct a sacrifice in winter outside villages, killing valuable cows as an offering to gods for a prosperous year. They were allowed to transgress, marauding in gangs to raid neighboring tribes and rustle cattle.
Like warrior ascetics in more recent centuries—who fought as mercenaries and resisted occupation—vratyas combined the violent and the sacred, providing an outlet for youthful exuberance. They also channeled energy inward to cultivate powers for use in rituals.
The Vedas say a vratya could master his breath to be one with the cosmos. One hymn proclaims, “Homage to breath,” and names it prana, the life force that animates everything. “Breath is lord of all, both what breathes and what does not,” the text explains: “In breath is all established” (Atharva Veda 11.4).
Another passage gives an early taste of yogic breathing (Atharva Veda 15.15–17). It lists seven forms of upward-moving breath (somewhat confusingly, also called prana), seven downward breaths (apana), and seven that pervade the whole body (vyana). The vratya is said to visualize these in relation to his environment, from five basic elements (earth, water, fire, wind, and space) to the sun, the moon, the stars, the passing seasons, and all creatures. His breath is also linked to sacrificial offerings.
In a notorious Vedic ceremony called the “great rite” (mahavrata), a prostitute seduced a young vratya. And as part of another important ritual—the ashvamedha “horse sacrifice”—a queen had to simulate sex with the animal’s corpse. Like unorthodox tantric practices centuries later, these displays of abandoned restraint created power by blurring boundaries. The previously celibate vratya’s pent-up energy was unleashed, with the idea that it would fertilize soil. From the Vedic perspective of communal well-being, the less restrained this performance, the better.
However bizarre they might sound to us now, these practices sought to preserve a cosmic balance. Building on ideas from ancient fertility cults, they regarded the body as the universe in microcosm. If transformative tapas was linked to the sun, then ritualized sexual activity might keep it rising.
MYSTIC MANTRAS
The oldest Veda includes a eulogy to nature that is widely recited in modern India (Rig Veda 3.62.10). It is commonly known as Gayatri, the poetic rhythm to which it is set, but it also has the title Savitri, a name for the sun’s creative power.
When taught as a mantra, it starts with “Om,” the sound of unity in everything, followed by three other mystical words (bhur, bhuvah, and svah) that refer to the cosmos. Together with the rest of the verse, they celebrate the sun for facilitating life with heat and light. This reverential outlook can also illuminate inner wisdom, reminding us of our reliance on natural forces.
Vedic traditionalists chant these words in three low tones, but today they are also sung to other tunes:
om bhur bhuvah svah
tat savitur varenyam
bhargo devasya dhimahi
dhiyo yo nah prachodayat
Heaven, earth, and all between.
May we contemplate the radiant power
Of the sun’s divine light and energy;
May this inspire our understanding.
Another popular mantra that comes from the Vedas invokes immortality (Rig Veda 7.59.12). It pays tribute to Shiva as the conqueror of death (mrityumjaya), who in later texts becomes a metaphor for consciousness.
om tryambakam yajamahe sughandhim pushti vardhanam
urvarukam iva bandhanan mrityor mukshiya mamritat
We worship the three-eyed Shiva,
Whose sweet fragrance nourishes our growth.
Just like the cucumber fruit is released from its stalk when it ripens,
Free us from attachment and death; do not keep us from immortality.
SALUTING THE SUN
The Gayatri mantra and similar verses are Vedic forms of sun salutations. None of them describes the gymnastics implied by those words in modern yoga. Most give thanks for solar energy, portrayed as “the soul of all that moves not or moves” (Rig Veda 1.115).
Although the sun is personified as Surya, related gods have solar traits, including Savitri, the creative force in the Gayatri mantra, and Pushan, who drives the sun across the sky. Arka and Mitra are also synonyms for Surya. Some chants used in postural yoga cite these names, along with others. Many of them also appear in the Adityahridayam, a hymn from the Ramayana epic, which empowers the god Rama to battle a demon.
Equating the sun to inner strength has an ancient heritage. “The light which shines above this heaven, above all,” says the Chandogya Upanishad (3.13.7), “that is the same as this light which is here within the person.” Water, food, and flowers have long been offered to solar deities, and accompanied by bows and prostrations. But the first textual record of sequential actions called sun salutations dates from the early twentieth century. The raja of Aundh, a princely Indian state, was a fitness enthusiast who wrote a book entitled Surya Namaskars. This taught a series of postures to cultivate strength, which the raja had learned from his father. All the schools in his kingdom were told to instruct it.
Teachers of yoga adopted the term for related approaches, combining physical movements with a focus on breathing, and sometimes the chanting of Sanskrit mantras. Most systems of yoga include their own version of sun salutations, with variations in postures, transitions, and chants. The following dozen are widely heard:
Copyright © 2021 by Daniel Simpson
Copyright © 1942 by T. S. Eliot
