Yoga

Yoga (/ˈjoʊɡə/;[1] Sanskrit: योग; About this soundpronunciation) is a accumulation of physical, mental, and airy practices or disciplines which originated in age-old India. Yoga is one of the six Āstika (orthodox) schools of Hindu abstract traditions.[2]

There is a ample array of yoga schools, practices, and goals[3] in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.[4][5][6] The appellation "Yoga" in the Western apple generally denotes a avant-garde anatomy of hatha yoga and yoga as exercise, consisting abundantly of the postures or asanas.

The convenance of yoga has been anticipation to date aback to pre-vedic Indian traditions; possibly in the Indus basin acculturation about 3000 BCE. Yoga is mentioned in the Rigveda,[note 1] and additionally referenced in the Upanishads,.[8] Although, yoga best acceptable developed as a analytical abstraction about the 5th and 6th centuries BCE, in age-old India's abstinent and Śramaṇa movements.[9][note 2] The agenda of ancient texts anecdotic yoga-practices is unclear, varyingly accustomed to the Upanishads.[10] The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali date from the 2nd aeon BCE,[11][12] and acquired bulge in the west in the 20th aeon afterwards actuality aboriginal alien by Swami Vivekananda.[13] Hatha yoga texts began to appear ancient amid the 9th and 11th aeon with origins in tantra.[14][15]

Yoga gurus from India after alien yoga to the West,[16] afterward the success of Swami Vivekananda in the backward 19th and aboriginal 20th aeon with his adjustment of yoga tradition, excluding asanas.[16] Outside India, it has developed into a posture-based concrete fitness, stress-relief and alleviation technique.[17] Yoga in Indian traditions, however, is added than concrete exercise; it has a attentive and airy core.[17][18] One of the six above accepted schools of Hinduism is additionally alleged Yoga, which has its own epistemology, aesthetics and metaphysics, and is carefully accompanying to Hindu Samkhya philosophy.Etymology
A bronze of Patañjali, the columnist of the amount argument Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, apperception in Padmasana.

The Sanskrit noun योग yoga is acquired from the sanskrit basis yuj (युज्) "to attach, join, harness, yoke".[20] The chat yoga is affiliated with English "yoke".[21]

The airy faculty of the chat yoga aboriginal arises in Epic Sanskrit, in the additional bisected of the 1st millennium BCE, and is associated with the abstract arrangement presented in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with the arch aim of "uniting" the animal spirit with the Divine spirit.[22] The appellation kriyāyoga has a abstruse acceptation in the Yoga Sutras (2.1), anecdotic the "practical" aspects of the philosophy, i.e. the "union with the supreme" through achievement of duties in accustomed life.[23]

According to Pāṇini, the appellation yoga can be acquired from either of two roots, yujir yoga (to yoke) or yuj samādhau ("to concentrate").[24] In the ambience of the Yoga Sutras, the basis yuj samādhau (to concentrate) is advised by acceptable commentators as the actual etymology.[25] In accordance with Pāṇini, Vyasa who wrote the aboriginal annotation on the Yoga Sutras,[26] states that yoga agency samādhi (concentration).[27]

Someone who practices yoga or follows the yoga aesthetics with a aerial akin of charge is alleged a yogi (may be activated to a man or a woman) or yogini (a woman).[28]
Definition in archetypal Indian texts

The appellation Yoga has been authentic in assorted agency in the abounding altered Indian abstract and religious traditions.
Source Argument     Approx. Date     Definition of Yoga[29]
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali     c. 4th aeon BCE     yogas chitta vritti nirodhah(1.2)

"Yoga is the abstracted bottomward the fluctuations/patterns of consciousness"
Katha Upanishad     c. 5th aeon BCE     "When the bristles senses, forth with the mind, accept still and the ability is not active, that is accepted as the accomplished state. They accede yoga to be close abstemiousness of the senses. Then one becomes un-distracted for yoga is the arising and the casual away" (6.10-11)
Bhagavad Gita     c. 2nd aeon BCE     "Be according absent in both success and failure. Such aplomb is alleged Yoga" (2.48)

"Yoga is accomplishment in action" (2.50) "Know that which is alleged yoga to be break from acquaintance with suffering" (6.23).
Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra (Sravakabhumi), a Mahayana Buddhist Yogacara assignment     4th aeon CE     "Yoga is fourfold: faith, aspiration, backbone and means" (2.152)
Vaisesika sutra     c. 4th aeon BCE     "Pleasure and adversity appear as a aftereffect of the cartoon calm of the faculty organs, the apperception and objects. When that does not appear because the apperception is in the self, there is no amusement or adversity for one who is embodied. That is yoga" (5.2.15-16)
Yogaśataka a Jain assignment by Haribhadra Suri     6th aeon CE     "With conviction, the lords of Yogins accept in our article authentic yoga as the accedence (sambandhah) of the three [correct ability (sajjñana), actual article (saddarsana) and actual conduct (saccaritra)] alpha with actual knowledge, back [thereby arises] affiliation with liberation....In accepted acceptance this [term] yoga additionally [denotes the soul’s] acquaintance with the causes of these [three], due to the accepted acceptance of the account for the effect. (2, 4).[30]
Kaundinya's Pancarthabhasya on the Pasupatasutra     4th aeon CE     "In this system, yoga is the abutment of the cocky and the Lord" (I.I.43)
Linga Purana     7th-10th aeon CE     "By the chat 'yoga' is meant nirvana, the action of Shiva." (I.8.5a)
Brahmasutra-bhasya of Adi Shankara     c. 3rd aeon BCE     "It is said in the treatises on yoga: 'Yoga is the agency of acquainted reality' (atha tattvadarsanabhyupāyo yogah)" (2.1.3)
Mālinīvijayottara Tantra, one of the primary authorities in non-dual Kashmir Shaivism     6th-10th aeon CE     "Yoga is said to be the absoluteness of one article with another." (MVUT 4.4–8)[31]
Mrgendratantravrtti, of the Shaiva Siddhanta academic Narayanakantha     6th-10th aeon CE     "To accept conduct is to be a Yogin. The appellation Yogin agency "one who is necessarily “conjoined with” the appearance of his nature...the Siva-state (sivatvam)" (MrTaVr yp 2a)[31]
Yogabija, a Hatha yoga assignment     14th aeon CE     "The abutment of apana and prana, one's own rajas and semen, the sun and moon, the alone anatomy and the absolute soul, and in the aforementioned way the abutment of all dualities, is alleged yoga. " (89)
Śaradatilaka of Lakshmanadesikendra, a Shakta Tantra assignment     11th aeon CE     "Yogic experts accompaniment that yoga is the absoluteness of the alone anatomy (jiva) with the atman. Others accept it to be the analysis of Siva and the anatomy as non-different. The advisers of the Agamas say that it is a Ability which is of the attributes of Siva’s Power. Added advisers say it is the ability of the basic soul." (SaTil 25.1–3b)[32]
Goals

The ultimate ambition of Yoga is Moksha (liberation), although the exact anatomy this takes depends on the abstract or apostolic arrangement with which it is conjugated.

In the classical Astanga yoga system, the ultimate ambition of yoga convenance is to accomplish the accompaniment of Samadhi and accept in that accompaniment as authentic awareness.

According to Jacobsen, Yoga has bristles arch acceptable meanings:[33]

    A acclimatized adjustment for attaining a goal.
    Techniques of authoritative the anatomy and the mind.
    A name of a academy or arrangement of aesthetics (darśana).
    With prefixes such as "hatha-, mantra-, and laya-, traditions specialising in accurate techniques of yoga.
    The ambition of Yoga practice.[33]

According to David Gordon White, from the 5th aeon CE onward, the amount attempt of "yoga" were added or beneath in place, and variations of these attempt developed in assorted forms over time:[34]

    A attentive agency of advertent abortive acumen and cognition, as able-bodied as advantageous it to absolution any suffering, acquisition close accord and salvation. Illustration of this assumption is begin in Hindu texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and Yogasutras, in a cardinal of Buddhist Mahāyāna works, as able-bodied as Jain texts.[35]
    The adopting and amplification of alertness from oneself to actuality adequate with anybody and everything. These are discussed in sources such as in Hinduism Vedic abstract and its Epic Mahābhārata, Jainism Praśamaratiprakarana, and Buddhist Nikaya texts.[36]
    A aisle to omniscience and aware alertness enabling one to appreciate the brief (illusive, delusive) and abiding (true, transcendent) reality. Examples of this are begin in Hinduism Nyaya and Vaisesika academy texts as able-bodied as Buddhism Mādhyamaka texts, but in altered ways.[37]
    A address for entering into added bodies, breeding assorted bodies, and the accomplishment of added abnormal accomplishments. These are, states White, declared in Tantric abstract of Hinduism and Buddhism, as able-bodied as the Buddhist Sāmaññaphalasutta.[38] James Mallinson, however, disagrees and suggests that such binding practices are far removed from the boilerplate Yoga's ambition as meditation-driven agency to liberation in Indian religions.[39]

White clarifies that the aftermost assumption relates to allegorical goals of "yogi practice", altered from applied goals of "yoga practice," as they are beheld in South Asian anticipation and convenance back the alpha of the Accepted Era, in the assorted Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain abstract schools.

History

There is no accord on its agenda or specific agent added than that yoga developed in age-old India. Suggested origins are the Indus Valley Civilization (3300–1900 BCE)[41] and pre-Vedic Eastern states of India,[42] the Vedic aeon (1500–500 BCE), and the śramaṇa movement.[43] According to Gavin Flood, continuities may abide amid those assorted traditions:

    [T]his dichotomization is too simplistic, for continuities can assuredly be activate amid abandonment and vedic Brahmanism, while elements from non-Brahmanical, Sramana traditions additionally played an important allotment in the accumulation of the renunciate ideal.[44][note 3]

Pre-philosophical speculations of yoga began to appear in the texts of c. 500 – c. 200 BCE. Amid 200 BCE and 500 CE, abstract schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism were demography anatomy and a articular abstract arrangement of yoga began to emerge.[46] The Average Ages saw the development of abounding accessory traditions of yoga. Yoga came to the absorption of an able western accessible in the mid 19th aeon forth with added capacity of Indian philosophy.
Pre-Vedic India
Main article: Indus Valley Civilization

Yoga may accept pre-Vedic elements.[41][42] Some accompaniment yoga originated in the Indus Valley Civilization.[47] Marshall,[48] Eliade[10] and added advisers agenda that the Pashupati allowance apparent in an Indus Valley Civilization armpit depicts a amount in a position akin an asana acclimated for meditation, Mulabandhasana. This estimation is advised abstract and ambiguous by added contempo assay of Srinivasan[10] and may be a case of bulging "later practices into archeological findings".[49]
Vedic aeon (1700–500 BCE)
Further information: Vedic period

According to Crangle, some advisers accept favoured a beeline theory, which attempts "to adapt the agent and aboriginal development of Indian attentive practices as a consecutive advance from an Aryan genesis",[50][note 4] aloof like acceptable Hinduism commendations the Vedas to be the ultimate antecedent of all airy knowledge.[52][note 5] Thomas McEvilley favors a blended archetypal area pre-Aryan yoga ancestor existed in the pre-Vedic aeon and its clarification began in the Vedic period.[55]

Ascetic practices, absorption and actual postures declared in the Vedas may accept been precursors to yoga.[56][57] According to Geoffrey Samuel, "Our best affirmation to date suggests that [yogic] practices developed in the aforementioned abstinent circles as the aboriginal sramana movements (Buddhists, Jainas and Ajivikas), apparently in about the sixth and fifth centuries BCE."[9]

According to Zimmer, Yoga aesthetics is reckoned to be allotment of the non-Vedic system, which additionally includes the Samkhya academy of Hindu philosophy, Jainism and Buddhism:[42] "[Jainism] does not acquire from Brahman-Aryan sources, but reflects the cosmology and anthropology of a abundant beforehand pre-Aryan high chic of northeastern India [Bihar] – actuality abiding in the aforementioned alluvium of age-old abstract belief as Yoga, Sankhya, and Buddhism, the added non-Vedic Indian systems."[58][note 6]
Textual references

The aboriginal use of the basis of the chat "yoga" is in aria 5.81.1 of the Rig Veda, a adherence to the ascendance Sun-god in the morning (Savitri), area it has been interpreted as "yoke" or "yogically control".[61][62][note 7]

The age-old affirmation of Yogis and Yoga attitude is activate in the Keśin aria 10.136 of the Rigveda, states Karel Werner.[7]

    The Yogis of Vedic times larboard little affirmation of their existence, practices and achievements. And such affirmation as has survived in the Vedas is bare and indirect. Nevertheless, the actuality of able Yogis in Vedic times cannot be doubted.
    — Karel Werner, Yoga and the Ṛg Veda[7]

The Rigveda, however, does not call yoga, and there is little affirmation as to what the practices were.[7] Aboriginal references to practices that after became allotment of yoga, are fabricated in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the age-old Hindu Upanishad.[64] For example, the convenance of pranayama (consciously acclimation breath) is mentioned in aria 1.5.23 of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (c. 900 BCE), and the convenance of pratyahara (concentrating all of one's senses on self) is mentioned in aria 8.15 of Chandogya Upanishad (c. 800–700 BCE).[65][note 8] The Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana teaches mantra alliteration and ascendancy of the breath.[67]
Vedic abstinent practices

Ascetic practices (tapas), absorption and actual postures acclimated by Vedic priests to conduct yajna (sacrifice), ability accept been precursors to yoga.[note 9] Vratya, a accumulation of ascetics mentioned in the Atharvaveda, emphasized on actual postures which may accept acquired into yogic asanas.[56] Aboriginal Samhitas additionally accommodate references to added accumulation ascetics such as munis, the keśin, and vratyas.[64] Techniques for authoritative animation and basic energies are mentioned in the Brahmanas (texts of the Vedic corpus, c. 1000–800 BCE) and the Atharvaveda.[56][68] Nasadiya Sukta of the Rig Veda suggests the attendance of an aboriginal attentive tradition.[note 10]
Preclassical era (500–200 BCE)

Systematic Yoga concepts activate to appear in the texts of c. 500–200 BCE such as the Aboriginal Buddhist texts, the average Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata.[71][note 11]
Buddhism and śramaṇa movement
Prince Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) shaves his beard and becomes a sramana (a abnormality abstinent or seeker). Borobudur, 8th century
Painting of Mahavira apperception beneath a tree
The āsana in which the Jain Mahavira is said to accept accomplished omniscience

According to Geoffrey Samuel, our "best affirmation to date" suggests that yogic practices "developed in the aforementioned abstinent circles as the aboriginal śramaṇa movements (Buddhists, Jainas and Ajivikas), apparently in about the sixth and fifth centuries BCE." This occurred during what is alleged the ‘Second Urbanisation’ period.[9] According to Mallinson and Singleton, these traditions were the aboriginal to use psychophysical techniques, mainly accepted as dhyana and tapas. but after declared as yoga, to strive for the ambition of liberation (moksha, nirvana) from samsara (the annular of rebirth).[74]

Werner states, "The Buddha was the architect of his [Yoga] system, alike though, admittedly, he fabricated use of some of the adventures he had ahead acquired beneath assorted Yoga agents of his time."[75] He notes:[76]

    But it is alone with Buddhism itself as expounded in the Pali Assize that we can allege about a analytical and absolute or alike basic academy of Yoga practice, which is appropriately the aboriginal and oldest to accept been preserved for us in its entirety.[76]

The aboriginal Buddhist texts call yogic and attentive practices, some of which the Buddha adopted from the śramaṇa tradition.[77][78] The Pali assize contains three passages in which the Buddha describes acute the argot adjoin the aficionado for the purposes of authoritative ache or the mind, depending on the passage.[79] However, there is no acknowledgment of the argot actuality amid into the nasopharynx as in accurate khecarī mudrā. The Buddha acclimated a aspect area burden is put on the perineum with the heel, agnate to alike avant-garde postures acclimated to activate Kundalini.[80] Some of the aloft suttas that altercate yogic convenance accommodate the Satipatthana sutta (Four foundations of amenity sutta) and the Anapanasati sutta (Mindfulness of animation sutta).

The agenda of achievement of these yoga-related Aboriginal Buddhist Texts, however, is unclear, aloof like age-old Hindu texts.[81][82] Aboriginal accepted Buddhist sources like the Majjhima Nikāya acknowledgment meditation, while the Anguttara Nikāya describes Jhāyins (meditators) that resemble aboriginal Hindu descriptions of Muni, Kesins and apperception ascetics,[83] but these meditation-practices are not alleged yoga in these texts.[84] The age-old accepted specific altercation of yoga in the Buddhist literature, as accepted in avant-garde ambience are from the after Buddhist Yogācāra and Theravada schools.[84]

A yoga arrangement that predated the Buddhist academy is Jain yoga. But back Jain sources antedate Buddhist ones, it is difficult to analyze amid the attributes of the aboriginal Jain academy and elements acquired from added schools.[85] Most of the added abreast yoga systems alluded in the Upanishads and some Buddhist texts are absent to time.[86][87][note 12]
Uncertainty with chronology

Alexander Wynne observes that amorphous brainwork and basal brainwork ability accept originated in the Upanishadic tradition.[89] The age-old advertence to brainwork is in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, one of the oldest Upanishads.[64] Chandogya Upanishad describes the bristles kinds of basic energies (prana). Concepts acclimated after in abounding yoga traditions such as centralized complete and veins (nadis) are additionally declared in the Upanishad.[56] Taittiriya Upanishad defines yoga as the ability of anatomy and senses.[90]
Upanishads

The aboriginal accepted actualization of the chat "yoga", with the aforementioned acceptation as the avant-garde term, is in the Katha Upanishad,[10][91] apparently composed amid the fifth and third aeon BCE,[92][93] area it is authentic as the abiding ascendancy of the senses, which forth with abeyance of brainy activity, arch to a absolute state.[64][note 13] Katha Upanishad integrates the monism of aboriginal Upanishads with concepts of samkhya and yoga. It defines assorted levels of actuality according to their adjacency to the centermost actuality Ātman. Yoga is accordingly apparent as a action of interiorization or ascendance of consciousness.[95][96] It is the age-old arcane assignment that highlights the fundamentals of yoga. White states:

    The age-old actual analytical annual of yoga and a arch from the beforehand Vedic uses of the appellation is activate in the Hindu Katha Upanisad (Ku), a scripture dating from about the third aeon BCE[…] [I]t describes the bureaucracy of mind-body constituents—the senses, mind, intellect, etc.—that comprise the basal categories of Sāmkhya philosophy, whose abstract arrangement area the yoga of the Yogasutras, Bhagavad Gita, and added texts and schools (Ku3.10–11; 6.7–8).[97]

The hymns in Book 2 of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, accession backward aboriginal millennium BCE text, states a action in which the anatomy is captivated in cocked posture, the animation is aseptic and apperception is meditatively focussed, finer central a cavern or a abode that is simple, plain, of blackout or acclaim abounding water, with no noises nor acrid winds.[98][99][96]

The Maitrayaniya Upanishad, acceptable composed in a after aeon than Katha and Shvetashvatara Upanishads but afore Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, mentions sixfold yoga adjustment – animation ascendancy (pranayama), attentive abandonment of senses (pratyahara), brainwork (dhyana), apperception absorption (dharana), abstract inquiry/creative acumen (tarka), and absorption/intense airy abutment (samadhi).[10][96][100]

In accession to the Yoga altercation in aloft Principal Upanishads, twenty Yoga Upanishads as able-bodied as accompanying texts such as Yoga Vasistha, composed in 1st and 2nd millennium CE, altercate Yoga methods.[101][102]
Macedonian actual texts

Alexander the Great accomplished India in the 4th aeon BCE. Forth with his army, he took Greek academics with him who after wrote memoirs about geography, bodies and community they saw. One of Alexander's accompaniment was Onesicritus, quoted in Book 15, Sections 63–65 by Strabo, who describes yogins of India.[103] Onesicritus claims those Indian yogins (Mandanis ) accomplished absorption and "different postures – continuing or sitting or lying naked – and motionless".[104]

Onesicritus additionally mentions his aide Calanus aggravating to accommodated them, who is initially denied audience, but after arrive because he was beatific by a "king analytical of acumen and philosophy".[104] Onesicritus and Calanus apprentice that the yogins accede the best article of activity as "rid the spirit of not alone pain, but additionally pleasure", that "man trains the anatomy for application in adjustment that his opinions may be strengthened", that "there is no abashment in activity on frugal fare", and that "the best abode to abide is one with scantiest accessories or outfit".[103][104] These attempt are cogent to the history of airy ancillary of yoga.[103] These may reflect the age-old roots of "undisturbed calmness" and "mindfulness through balance" in after works of Hindu Patanjali and Buddhist Buddhaghosa respectively, states Charles Rockwell Lanman;[103] as able-bodied as the assumption of Aparigraha (non-possessiveness, non-craving, simple living) and abnegation discussed in after Hinduism and Jainism.Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita

Description of an aboriginal anatomy of yoga alleged nirodhayoga (yoga of cessation) is absolute in the Mokshadharma area of the 12th affiliate (Shanti Parva) of the Mahabharata (third aeon BCE).[105] Nirodhayoga emphasizes accelerating abandonment from the capacity of empiric alertness such as thoughts, sensations etc. until purusha (Self) is realized. Agreement like vichara (subtle reflection), viveka (discrimination) and others which are agnate to Patanjali's analogue are mentioned, but not described.[106] There is no accordant ambition of yoga mentioned in the Mahabharata. Separation of cocky from matter, acquainted Brahman everywhere, entering into Brahman etc. are all declared as goals of yoga. Samkhya and yoga are conflated calm and some verses call them as actuality identical.[107] Mokshadharma additionally describes an aboriginal convenance of basal meditation.[108] Mahabharata defines the purpose of yoga as the acquaintance of chain the alone ātman with the accustomed Brahman that pervades all things.[107]
Krishna address the Gita to Arjuna

The Bhagavad Gita ('Song of the Lord') is allotment of the Mahabharata and additionally contains all-encompassing article on Yoga. According to Mallinson and Singleton, the Gita "seeks to adapted yoga from the renunciate ambience in which it originated, teaching that it is accordant with carnal activity agitated out according to one's amount and activity stage; it is alone the fruits of one's accomplishments that are to be renounced."[105] In accession to an complete affiliate (ch. 6) committed to acceptable yoga practice, including meditation,[109] it introduces three arresting types of yoga:[110]

    Afterlife yoga: The yoga of action.[111]
    Bhakti yoga: The yoga of devotion.[111]
    Jnana yoga: The yoga of knowledge.[112][113]

The Gita consists of 18 capacity and 700 shlokas (verses),[114] with anniversary affiliate called as a adapted yoga, appropriately delineating eighteen adapted yogas.[114][115][116] Some advisers bisect the Gita into three sections, with the aboriginal six capacity with 280 shlokas ambidextrous with Afterlife yoga, the average six complete 209 shlokas with Bhakti yoga, and the aftermost six capacity with 211 shlokas as Jnana yoga; however, this is asperous because elements of karma, bhakti and jnana are begin in all chapters.[114]
Philosophical sutras

Yoga is discussed in the age-old basal Sutras of Hindu philosophy. The Vaiśeṣika Sūtra of the Vaisheshika academy of Hinduism, anachronous to acquire been composed age-old amid 6th and 2nd aeon BCE discusses Yoga.[note 14] According to Johannes Bronkhorst, an Indologist accustomed for his studies on aboriginal Buddhism and Hinduism and a assistant at the University of Lausanne, Vaiśeṣika Sūtra describes Yoga as "a accompaniment area the apperception resides alone in the anatomy and accordingly not in the senses".[117] This is agnate to pratyahara or abandonment of the senses, and the age-old Sutra asserts that this leads to an absence of sukha (happiness) and dukkha (suffering), again describes added yogic brainwork accomplish in the adventure appear the accompaniment of airy liberation.[117]

Similarly, Brahma sutras – the basal argument of the Vedanta academy of Hinduism, discusses yoga in its sutra 2.1.3, 2.1.223 and others.[118] Brahma sutras are estimated to acquire been complete in the actual anatomy age-old amid 450 BCE to 200 CE,[119][120] and its sutras advance that yoga is a agency to accretion "subtlety of body" and added powers.[118] The Nyaya sutras – the basal argument of the Nyaya school, abnormally estimated to acquire been composed amid the 6th-century BCE and 2nd-century CE,[121][122] discusses yoga in sutras 4.2.38–50. This age-old argument of the Nyaya academy includes a altercation of yogic ethics, dhyana (meditation), samadhi, and amid added things animadversion that agitation and aesthetics is a anatomy of yoga.[123][124][125]
Classical era (200 BCE – 500 CE)

During the aeon amid the Mauryan and the Gupta eras (c. 200 BCE–500 CE) the Indic traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism were demography anatomy and articular systems of yoga began to emerge.[46] This aeon witnessed abounding new texts from these traditions discussing and systematically accumulation yoga methods and practices. Some key works of this era accommodate the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, the Yoga-Yājñavalkya, the Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra and the Visuddhimagga.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Main article: Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Traditional Hindu delineation of Patanjali as an avatar of the all-powerful serpent Shesha

One of the best accustomed aboriginal expressions of Brahmanical Yoga anticipation is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali , the aboriginal name of which may acquire been the Pātañjalayogaśāstra-sāṃkhya-pravacana (c. age-old amid 325 - 425) which some advisers now acquire included both the sutras and a commentary.[126] As the name suggests, the abstract base for this argument is the Indian aesthetics termed Sāṃkhya. This agnostic academy is mentioned in Kauṭilya's Arthashastra as one of the three categories of anviksikis (philosophies) forth with Yoga and Cārvāka.[127][128] The two schools acquire some differences as well. Yoga accustomed the apperception of "personal god", while Samkhya developed as a rationalist, non-theistic/atheistic arrangement of Hindu philosophy.[129][130][131] Sometimes Patanjali's arrangement is referred to as Seshvara Samkhya in animosity to Kapila's Nirivara Samkhya.[132] The parallels amid Yoga and Samkhya were so abutting that Max Müller says that "the two philosophies were in accepted chat acclaimed from anniversary added as Samkhya with and Samkhya after a Lord."[133]
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali[134]
Pada (Chapter)     English acceptation     Sutras
Samadhi Pada     On actuality captivated in spirit    
51
Sadhana Pada     On actuality absorbed in spirit    
55
Vibhuti Pada     On abnormal abilities and ability    
56
Kaivalya Pada     On complete abandon    
34

Karel Werner argued that the action of allocation of yoga which began in the average and aboriginal Yoga Upanishads culminated with the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.[note 15]

The Yoga Sutras are additionally afflicted by the Sramana traditions of Buddhism and Jainism, and may represent a added Brahmanical attack to acquire yoga from the Sramana traditions.[126] As acclaimed by Larson, there are abundant parallels in the concepts in age-old Samkhya, Yoga and Abhidharma Buddhist schools of thought, decidedly from the 2nd aeon BCE to the 1st aeon AD.[136] Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is a amalgam of these three traditions. From Samkhya, the Yoga Sutras acquire the "reflective discernment" (adhyavasaya) of prakrti and purusa (dualism), its abstract rationalism, as able-bodied its three epistemic methods of accepting reliable knowledge.[136] From Abhidharma Buddhism's abstraction of nirodhasamadhi, suggests Larson, Yoga Sutras acquire the following of adapted accompaniment of awareness, but clashing Buddhism's abstraction of no cocky nor soul, Yoga is physicalist and realist like Samkhya in assertive that anniversary alone has a cocky and soul.[136] The third abstraction Yoga Sutras amalgamate into its aesthetics is the age-old abstinent traditions of brainwork and introspection, as able-bodied as the yoga account from average Upanishads such as Katha, Shvetashvatara and Maitri.[136]

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras are broadly admired as the aboriginal accumulation of the academic yoga philosophy.[note 16] The verses of the Yoga Sutras are terse. Abounding after Indian advisers advised them and appear their commentaries, such as the Vyasa Bhashya (c. 350–450 CE).[137] Patanjali defines the chat "yoga" in his additional sutra:

    योगश्‍चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः
    (yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ)
    - Yoga Sutras 1.2

This abrupt analogue hinges on the acceptation of three Sanskrit terms. I. K. Taimni translates it as "Yoga is the inhibition (nirodhaḥ) of the modifications (vṛtti) of the apperception (citta)".[138]Swami Vivekananda translates the sutra as "Yoga is abstinent the mind-stuff (Citta) from demography assorted forms (Vrittis)."[139] Edwin Bryant explains that, to Patanjali, "Yoga about consists of attentive practices culminating in attaining a accompaniment of alertness chargeless from all modes of alive or abstruse thought, and of eventually attaining a accompaniment area alertness is blind of any article alien to itself, that is, is alone acquainted of its own attributes as alertness unmixed with any added object."[140][141][142]

If the acceptation of yoga is accepted as the convenance of nirodha (mental control), again its ambition is "the amateur accompaniment of niruddha (the accomplishment of that process)",[143] according to Baba Hari Dass. In that context, "yoga (union) implies duality (as in abutting of two things or principles); the aftereffect of yoga is the nondual state", and "as the abutment of the lower cocky and college Self. The nondual accompaniment is characterized by the absence of individuality; it can be declared as abiding peace, authentic love, Self-realization, or liberation."[143]

Patanjali's autograph authentic an Ashtanga or "Eight-Limbed" Yoga in Yoga Sutras 2.29. They are:

    Yama (The bristles "abstentions"): Ahimsa (Non-violence, non-harming added active beings),[144] Satya (truthfulness, non-falsehood),[145] Asteya (non-stealing),[146] Brahmacharya (celibacy, allegiance to one's partner),[146] and Aparigraha (non-avarice, non-possessiveness).[145]
    Niyama (The bristles "observances"): Śauca (purity, acumen of mind, accent and body),[147] Santosha (contentment, accepting of others and of one's circumstances),[148] Tapas (persistent meditation, perseverance, austerity),[149] Svādhyāya (study of self, self-reflection, abstraction of Vedas),[150] and Ishvara-Pranidhana (contemplation of God/Supreme Being/True Self).[148]
    Asana: Literally agency "seat", and in Patanjali's Sutras refers to the built-in position acclimated for meditation.
    Pranayama ("Breath exercises"): Prāna, breath, "āyāma", to "stretch, extend, restrain, stop".
    Pratyahara ("Abstraction"): Abandonment of the faculty organs from alien objects.
    Dharana ("Concentration"): Fixing the absorption on a distinct object.
    Dhyana ("Meditation"): Intense ambition of the attributes of the article of meditation.
    Samadhi ("Liberation"): amalgamation alertness with the article of meditation.

In after Hindu scholasticism (12th aeon onwards), yoga became the name of one of the six accepted abstract schools (darsanas), which refers to traditions that acquire the affidavit of Vedas.[note 17][note 18][151]
Yoga and Vedanta

Yoga and Vedanta are the two better actual schools of Hindu traditions. They allotment abounding contemporary principles, concepts and acceptance in self/soul, but bend in degree, appearance and some of their methods. Epistemologically, Yoga academy accepts three agency to reliable knowledge, while Advaita Vedanta accepts six ways.[152] Yoga disputes the monism of Advaita Vedanta.[153] Yoga academy believes that in the accompaniment of moksha, anniversary alone discovers the blissful, liberating faculty of himself or herself as an absolute identity; Advaita Vedanta, in contrast, believes that in the accompaniment of moksha, anniversary alone discovers the blissful, liberating faculty of himself or herself as allotment of Oneness with everything, anybody and the Accustomed Self. They both authority that the chargeless censor is above yet transcendent, absolved and self-aware. Further, Advaita Vedanta academy enjoins the use of Patanjali's yoga practices and the account of Upanishads for those gluttonous the absolute good, ultimate abandon and jivanmukti.

Buddhist Abhidharma and Yogacara
Asanga, a 4th-century CE academic and a co-founder of the Yogacara ("Yoga practice") academy of Mahayana Buddhism.[161]

The Buddhist attitude of Abhidharma developed assorted treatises which added broadcast article on Buddhist phenomenological access and yogic techniques. These had a abstruse access on Buddhist traditions such as the Mahayana and the Theravada.

During the Gupta aeon (4th to 5th centuries), a movement of arctic Mahāyāna Buddhism termed Yogācāra began to be alike with the writings of the Buddhist advisers Asanga and Vasubandhu. Yogācāra Buddhism accustomed the name as it provided a "yoga," a analytical framework for agreeable in the practices that advance through the aisle of the bodhisattva arise activation and abounding Buddhahood.[162] Its article can be begin in the absolute and all-embracing work, the Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra (Treatise on the Foundation for Yoga Practitioners), which was additionally translated into Tibetan and Chinese and appropriately exerted a abstruse access on the East Asian Buddhist and Tibetan Buddhist traditions.[163] According to Mallinson and Singleton, the abstraction of Yogācāra Buddhism is capital for the compassionate of yoga's aboriginal history, and its article afflicted the argument of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra.[164]

Like the arctic tradition, the south India and Sri Lankan based Theravada academy additionally developed manuals for yogic and attentive training, mainly the Vimuttimagga and the Visuddhimagga.
Jainism
Main article: Jainism

According to Tattvarthasutra, 2nd aeon CE Jain text, yoga is the sum of all the activities of mind, accent and body.[6] Umasvati calls yoga the account of "asrava" or karmic influx[165] as able-bodied as one of the essentials—samyak caritra—in the aisle to liberation.[165] In his Niyamasara, Acarya Kundakunda, describes yoga bhakti—devotion to the aisle to liberation—as the accomplished anatomy of devotion.[166] Acarya Haribhadra and Acarya Hemacandra acknowledgment the bristles above vows of ascetics and 12 accessory vows of aggregation beneath yoga. This has led assertive Indologists like Prof. Robert J. Zydenbos to alarm Jainism, essentially, a arrangement of yogic cerebration that grew into a full-fledged religion.[167] The bristles yamas or the constraints of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali buck a affinity to the bristles above vows of Jainism, advertence a history of able cross-fertilization amid these traditions.[167][note 19]

Mainstream Hinduism's access on Jain yoga can be see in Haribhadra's Yogadṛṣṭisamuccaya which outlines an eightfold yoga afflicted by Patanjali's eightfold yoga.[169]
Middle Ages (500–1500 CE)
A macho yogi
Two changeable yoginis
Male and changeable yogis from 17th- and 18th-century India

Middle Ages saw the development of abounding accessory traditions of yoga. Hatha yoga emerged in this period.[170]
Bhakti movement
Main article: Bhakti Yoga

The Bhakti movement was a development in medieval Hinduism which advocated the abstraction of a claimed God (or "Supreme Personality of Godhead"). The movement was accomplished by the Alvars of South India in the 6th to 9th centuries, and it started accepting access throughout India by the 12th to 15th centuries.[171] Shaiva and Vaishnava bhakti traditions chip aspects of Yoga Sutras, such as the applied attentive exercises, with devotion.[172] Bhagavata Purana elucidates the convenance of a anatomy of yoga alleged viraha (separation) bhakti. Viraha bhakti emphasizes one acicular assimilation on Krishna.[173]
Hindu Tantra

Tantra is a ambit of abstruse traditions that began to arise in India no after than the 5th aeon CE.[174][note 20] George Samuel states, "Tantra" is a contested term, but may be advised as a academy whose practices appeared in mostly complete anatomy in Buddhist and Hindu texts by about 10th aeon CE.[176] Tantric yoga developed circuitous visualizations which included brainwork on the anatomy as a apple of the cosmos. They included additionally the use of mantras, pranayama, and the abetment of the attenuate body, including its nadis and cakras. These article on cakras and Kundalini would become axial to after forms of Indian Yoga.[177]

Over its history, some account of Tantra academy afflicted the Hindu, Bon, Buddhist, and Jain traditions. Elements of Tantric yoga rituals were adopted by and afflicted accompaniment functions in medieval Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in East and Southeast Asia.[178] By the about-face of the aboriginal millennium, hatha yoga emerged from tantra.[14][179]
Vajrayana and Tibetan Buddhism

Vajrayana is additionally accepted as Tantric Buddhism and Tantrayāna. Its texts were aggregate starting with 7th aeon and Tibetan translations were completed in the 8th aeon CE. These tantra yoga texts were the capital antecedent of Buddhist ability that was alien into Tibet.[180] They were after translated into Chinese and added Asian languages, allowance advance account of Tantric Buddhism. The Buddhist argument Hevajra Tantra and Caryāgiti alien hierarchies of chakras.[181] Yoga is a cogent convenance in Tantric Buddhism.[182][183][184]

The tantra yoga practices accommodate asanas and animation exercises. The Nyingma attitude practices Yantra yoga (Tib. "Trul khor"), a conduct that includes animation assignment (or pranayama), attentive ambition and added exercises.[185] In the Nyingma tradition, the aisle of brainwork convenance is disconnected into added stages,[186] such as Kriya yoga, Upa yoga, Yoga yana, Mahā yoga, Anu yoga and Ati yoga.[187] The Sarma traditions additionally accommodate Kriya, Upa (called "Charya"), and Yoga, with the Anuttara yoga chic substituting for Mahayoga and Atiyoga.[188]
Zen Buddhism

Zen, the name of which derives from the Sanskrit "dhyāna" via the Chinese "ch'an"[note 21] is a anatomy of Mahayana Buddhism. Yoga practices integrally abide aural the Zen Buddhist school.[190]
Hatha Yoga
A carve of Gorakshanath, a acclaimed 11th aeon yogi of Nath attitude and a above backer of Hatha yoga[191]
Main article: Hatha yoga

The age-old references to hatha yoga are in Buddhist works dating from the eighth century.[192] The age-old analogue of hatha yoga is begin in the 11th aeon Buddhist argument Vimalaprabha, which defines it in affiliation to the centermost channel, bindu etc.[193] Hatha yoga synthesizes elements of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras with aspect and animation exercises.[194] It marks the development of asanas (plural) into the abounding anatomy 'postures' now in accepted usage[179] and, forth with its abounding avant-garde variations, is the appearance that abounding bodies accessory with the chat yoga today.[195]
Sikhism

Various yogic groups had become arresting in Punjab in the 15th and 16th century, aback Sikhism was in its beginning stage. Compositions of Guru Nanak, the architect of Sikhism, call abounding dialogues he had with Jogis, a Hindu association which accomplished yoga. Guru Nanak alone the austerities, rites and rituals affiliated with Hatha Yoga. He propounded the aisle of Sahaja yoga or Nama yoga (meditation on the name) instead.[196] The Guru Granth Sahib states:

    Listen "O Yogi, Nanak tells annihilation but the truth. You charge conduct your mind. The addict charge meditate on the Chat Divine. It is His adroitness which brings about the union. He understands, he additionally sees. Good accomplishments advice one absorb into Divination."[197]

Modern revival
Swami Vivekananda in London in 1896
Philosophy

Yoga came to the assimilation of an accomplished western accessible in the mid-19th aeon forth with added capacity of Indian philosophy. In the ambience of this beginning interest, N. C. Paul arise his Treatise on Yoga Aesthetics in 1851.[198]

The aboriginal Hindu abecedary to actively apostle and advertise aspects of yoga, not including asanas, to a western audience, Swami Vivekananda, toured Europe and the United States in the 1890s.[199] The accession which Swami Vivekananda accustomed congenital on the alive assimilation of intellectuals, in accurate the New England Transcendentalists, amid them Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), who drew on German Romanticism and philosophers and advisers like G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), the brothers August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845) and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), Max Mueller (1823–1900), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), and others who had (to capricious degrees) interests in things Indian.[200][201]

Theosophists including Madame Blavatsky additionally had a ample access on the Western public's appearance of Yoga.[202] Abstruse angle accepted at the end of the 19th aeon provided a added base for the accession of Vedanta and of Yoga with its access and convenance of accord amid the airy and the physical.[203] The accession of Yoga and of Vedanta appropriately entwined with anniversary added and with the (mostly Neoplatonism-based) currents of religious and abstract ameliorate and transformation throughout the 19th and aboriginal 20th centuries. Mircea Eliade brought a new aspect into the accession of Yoga with the able accent on Tantric Yoga in his seminal book: Yoga: Immortality and Freedom.[204] With the addition of the Tantra traditions and aesthetics of Yoga, the apperception of the "transcendent" to be accomplished by Yogic convenance confused from experiencing the "transcendent" ("Atman-Brahman" in Advaitic theory) in the apperception to the anatomy itself.[205]
Practice
Main article: Yoga as exercise

Yoga as exercise is a concrete action consisting abundantly of asanas, generally affiliated by abounding sequences alleged vinyasas, sometimes accompanied by the animation contest of pranayama, and usually catastrophe with a aeon of alleviation or meditation. It is generally accepted artlessly as yoga,[206] admitting the actuality of assorted earlier traditions of yoga aural Hinduism area asanas played little or no part, some dating aback to the Yoga Sutras, and admitting the actuality that in no attitude was the convenance of asanas central.[207]

Yoga as exercise was created in what has been alleged the Avant-garde Yoga Renaissance[208] by the aggregate of Western styles of gymnastics with postures from Haṭha yoga in India in the 20th century, pioneered by Shri Yogendra and Swami Kuvalayananda.[209] Before 1900 there were few continuing poses in Haṭha yoga. The abounding sequences of address to the Sun, Surya Namaskar, were pioneered by the Rajah of Aundh, Bhawanrao Shrinivasrao Pant Pratinidhi, in the 1920s.[210] Abounding continuing poses acclimated in gymnastics were congenital into yoga by Krishnamacharya in Mysore from the 1930s to the 1950s.[211] Several of his acceptance went on to begin affecting schools of yoga: Pattabhi Jois created Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga,[212] which in about-face led to Power Yoga;[213] B. K. S. Iyengar created Iyengar Yoga, and systematised the assize of asanas in his 1966 book Light on Yoga;[214] Indra Devi accomplished yoga to abounding blur stars in Hollywood; and Krishnamacharya's son T. K. V. Desikachar founded the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandalam in Chennai.[215][216][217] Added above schools founded in the 20th aeon accommodate Bikram Choudhury's Bikram Yoga and Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh's Sivananda Vedanta Schools of Yoga. Avant-garde yoga advance beyond America and Europe, and again the blow of the world.[218][219]

The cardinal of asanas acclimated in yoga as exercise has added rapidly from a nominal 84 in 1830, as illustrated in Joga Pradipika, to some 200 in Light on Yoga and over 900 performed by Dharma Mittra by 1984. At the aforementioned time, the goals of Haṭha yoga, namely airy liberation (moksha) through the adopting of kundalini energy, were abundantly replaced by the goals of fettle and relaxation, while abounding of Haṭha yoga's apparatus like the shatkarmas (purifications), mudras (seals or gestures including the bandhas, locks to arrest the prana or basic principle), and pranayama were abundant bargain or removed entirely.[220] The appellation "hatha yoga" is additionally in use with a altered meaning, a affable unbranded yoga practice, absolute of the above schools, sometimes mainly for women.[221]

Yoga has developed into a accepted multi-billion dollar business, involving classes, acceptance of teachers, clothing, books, videos, equipment, and holidays.[222] The age-old cross-legged sitting asanas like lotus affectation (Padmasana) and Siddhasana are broadly recognised symbols of yoga.[223]

The United Nations General Assembly accustomed 21 June as "International Day of Yoga",[224][225][226] acclaimed annually in India and about the apple from 2015.[227][228] On December 1, 2016, yoga was listed by UNESCO as an abstract cultural heritage.[229]

The appulse of postural yoga on concrete and brainy bloom has been a affair of analytical studies, with affirmation that approved yoga convenance yields allowances for low aback affliction and stress.[230][231] In 2017, a Cochrane analysis begin low‐ to moderate‐certainty affirmation that yoga bigger aback action compared to non-exercise.[232]
Traditions

Yoga is practised with a array of methods by all Indian religions. In Hinduism, practices accommodate Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, Laya Yoga and Hatha Yoga.
Classical yoga
Main article: Yoga (philosophy)

What is generally referred to as Classical Yoga, Astanga (Yoga of eight limbs), or Raja Yoga is mainly the blazon of Yoga categorical in the awful affecting Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.[233] The origins of the Classical Yoga attitude are unclear, admitting aboriginal discussions of the appellation arise in the Upanishads.[234] The name "Rāja yoga" (yoga of kings) originally denoted the ultimate ambition of yoga, samadhi,[235] but was popularised by Vivekananda as a accepted name for Ashtanga Yoga,[note 22] the eight limbs to be practised to attain samadhi, as declared in the Yoga Sutras.[236][233] Yoga is additionally advised as one of the accepted abstract schools (darsanas) of Hinduism (those which acquire the Vedas as antecedent of knowledge).[237][238]

Classical yoga incorporates epistemology, metaphysics, ethical practices, analytical contest and self-development techniques for body, apperception and spirit.[140] Its epistemology (pramana) and aesthetics is agnate to that of the Sāṅkhya school. The aesthetics of Classical Yoga, like Sāṅkhya, is mainly dualistic, positing that there are two audible realities. These are prakriti (nature), which is the abiding and alive benumbed antecedent of the actual apple and is composed of three gunas, and the puruṣas (persons), the plural consciousnesses which are the able attempt of the world, and are multiple, abeyant and abiding witnesses. Anniversary actuality has an alone puruṣa, which is their accurate self, the attestant and the enjoyer, and that which is liberated. This abstract arrangement holds that puruṣas abide cycles of reincarnation through its alternation and identification with prakirti. Liberation, the ambition of this system, after-effects from the abreast (kaivalya) of puruṣa from prakirti, and is accomplished through a brainwork which detaches oneself from the altered forms (tattvas) of prakirti.[239] This is done by stilling one's anticipation after-effects (citta vritti) and comatose in authentic acquaintance of puruṣa.

Unlike the Sāṅkhya academy of Hinduism, which pursues a non-theistic/atheistic agnostic approach,[129][240] the Yoga academy of Hinduism accepts the abstraction of a "personal, yet about inactive, deity" or "personal god" (Isvara).[241][242]
Buddhist yoga
Sakyamuni Buddha in built-in brainwork with the dhyāna mudrā (meditation mudra), Gal Vihara, Sri Lanka.
Main articles: Buddhist brainwork and Dhyāna in Buddhism

Buddhist yoga encompasses an all-encompassing array of methods that aim to advance key virtues or qualities accepted as the 37 aids to awakening. The ultimate ambition of Buddhist yoga is bodhi (awakening) or nirvana (cessation), which is commonly apparent as the abiding end of adversity (dukkha) and rebirth.[note 23] Buddhist texts use abundant agreement for airy praxis besides yoga, such as bhāvanā ("development")[note 24] and jhāna/dhyāna.[note 25]

In aboriginal Buddhism, assorted yogic practices were accomplished including:

    the four dhyānas (four meditations or brainy absorptions),
    the four satipatthanas (foundations or establishments of mindfulness),
    anapanasati (mindfulness of breath),
    the four immaterial dwellings (supranormal states of mind),
    the brahmavihārās (divine abodes).
    Anussati (contemplations, recollections)

These meditations were apparent as actuality accurate by the added elements of the eightfold path, such as the convenance of ethics, appropriate exertion, faculty abstemiousness and appropriate view.[243] Two brainy qualities are said to be basal for yogic convenance in Buddhism, samatha (calm, stability) and vipassanā (insight, bright seeing).[244] Samatha is the affection of a stable, airy and calm mind. It is additionally associated with samadhi (mental unification, focus) and dhyana (a accompaniment of attentive absorption). Vipassanā meanwhile, is a affectionate of acumen or acute compassionate into the accurate attributes of phenomena. It is additionally authentic as "seeing things as they absolutely are" (yathābhūtaṃ darśanam). The accurate attributes of things is authentic and explained in altered ways, but an important and different affection of classical Buddhism is its compassionate of all phenomena (dhammas) as actuality abandoned of a cocky (atman) or inherent essence, a article termed Anatta ("not-self") and Śūnyatā (emptiness).[245][246] This is in aciculate adverse with best added Indian traditions, whose goals are founded either on the abstraction of an alone body (atman, jiva, purusha) or a accepted monistic alertness ( Brahman). Vipassanā additionally requires an compassionate of adversity or dukkha (and appropriately the four blue-blooded truths), conciseness (anicca) and commutual origination.

Later developments in the assorted Buddhist traditions led to new innovations in yogic practices. The Theravada school, while actual almost conservative, still developed new account on brainwork and yogic phenomenology in their after works, the best affecting of which is the Visuddhimagga. The Indic brainwork article of Mahayana Buddhism can be apparent in affecting texts like the Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra (compiled c. 4th century). Mahayana brainwork practices additionally developed and adopted new yogic methods, such as the use of mantra and dharani, authentic acreage practices which aimed at activation in a authentic acreage or buddhafield, and decision methods. Chinese Buddhism developed its own methods, such as the Chan convenance of Koan brooding and Hua Tou. Likewise, Tantric Buddhism (also Mantrayana, Vajrayana) developed and adopted tantric methods, which abide the base of the Tibetan Buddhist yogic systems, including the Six yogas of Naropa, Kalacakra, Mahamudra and Dzogchen.Jain yoga
Main article: Jain meditation

Jain yoga has been a axial convenance in Jainism. Jain adherence is based on a austere cipher of nonviolence or ahimsa (which includes vegetarianism), almsgiving (dana), appropriate acceptance in the three jewels, the convenance of austerities (tapas) such as fasting, and yogic practices.[248][249] Jain yoga aims at the liberation and ablution of the cocky (atma) or anatomy (jiva) from the armament of karma, which accumulate all souls apprenticed to the aeon of transmigration. Like Yoga and Sankhya, Jainism believes in a complication of alone souls which apprenticed by their alone karma.[250] Only through the abridgement of karmic influxes and the burnout of one's calm afterlife can a anatomy become antiseptic and released, at which point one becomes an all-seeing actuality who has alcove "absolute knowledge" (kevala jnana).[251]

The aboriginal convenance of Jain yoga seems to accept been disconnected into several types, including brainwork (dhyāna), abandonment of the anatomy (kāyotsarga), ambition (anuprekṣā), and assimilation (bhāvanā).[252] Some of the ancient sources for Jain yoga are the Uttarādhyayana-sūtra, the Āvaśyaka-sūtra, the Sthananga Sutra (c. 2nd aeon BCE). After works accommodate Kundakunda's Vārassa-aṇuvekkhā (“Twelve Contemplations”, c. 1st aeon BCE to 1st aeon CE), Haribhadra's Yogadṛṣṭisamuccya (8th century) and the Yogaśāstra of Hemachandra (12th century). After forms of Jain yoga adopted Hindu influences, such as account from Patanjali's yoga and after Tantric yoga (in the works of Haribhadra and Hemachandra respectively). The Jains additionally developed a accelerating aisle to liberation through yogic praxis, analogue several levels of advantage alleged gunasthanas.

In the avant-garde era, new forms of Jain brainwork accept additionally been developed. One of the best affecting ones is the prekṣā arrangement of Ācārya Mahāprajña which is all-embracing and includes the use of mantra, animation control, mudras, bandhas, and so on.
Yoga in Advaita Vedanta
Adi Shankara with Disciples, by Raja Ravi Varma (1904). Studying Vedic scripture with a authority is axial to the Jñāna yoga of Advaita Vedanta.

Vedanta is a assorted attitude with abundant sub-schools and abstract views. Vedanta focuses on the abstraction of the Upanishads, and one of its aboriginal texts, the Brahma sutras. Regarding yoga or meditation, the Brahma sutras focuses on accepting airy ability of Brahman, the abiding complete absoluteness or Self.[253]

One of the ancient and best affecting sub-traditions of Vedanta, is Advaita Vedanta, which posits nondualistic monism. This attitude emphasizes Jñāna yoga (yoga of knowledge), which is aimed at acumen the character of one's atman (soul, alone consciousness) with Brahman (the Complete consciousness).[254][255] The best affecting thinker of this academy is Adi Shankara (8th century), who wrote assorted commentaries and aboriginal works which advise Jñāna yoga. In Advaita Vedanta, Jñāna is accomplished on the base of scripture (sruti) and one's authority and through a action of alert (sravana) to teachings, cerebration and assimilation on them (manana) and assuredly apperception on these article (nididhyāsana) in adjustment to apprehend their truth.[256] It is additionally important to advance qualities such as bigotry (viveka), abandonment (virāga), tranquility, temperance, dispassion, endurance, faith, assimilation and a anxious for ability and abandon ('mumukṣutva).'[257] Yoga in Advaita is ultimately a "meditative exercise of abandonment from the accurate and identification with the universal, arch to ambition of oneself as the best universal, namely, Consciousness".[258]

An affecting argument which teaches yoga from an Advaita angle of nondualistic celebrity is the Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha.[259] This assignment uses abundant abbreviate acceptance and anecdotes to allegorize its basic ideas. It teaches seven stages or bhumis of yogic practice. It was a above advertence for medieval Advaita Vedanta yoga advisers and afore the 12th century, it was one of the best accustomed texts on Hindu yoga.[260]

Another argument which teaches yoga with an Advaita point of appearance is the Yoga-Yājñavalkya.[261] This assignment contains all-encompassing article on ten Yamas (ethical rules) and ten Niyamas (duties), and eight asanas. It additionally discusses a approach of nadis and prana (vital breath), and follows this with instructions on pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (sense withdrawal), brainwork on mantras, attentive visualizations and Kundalini.
Tantric yoga
Main article: Tantra

Samuel states that Tantrism is a contested concept.[176] Tantra yoga may be described, according to Samuel, as practices in 9th to 10th aeon Buddhist and Hindu (Saiva, Shakti) texts, which included yogic practices with busy celestial visualizations application geometrical arrays and assets (mandala), angry macho and decidedly changeable deities, transgressive action date accompanying rituals, all-encompassing use of chakras and mantras, and animal techniques, all aimed to advice one's health, continued action and liberation.[176][262]
Hatha yoga
Viparītakaraṇī, a aspect acclimated both as an asana and as a mudra[263]
Main article: Hatha yoga

Hatha yoga, additionally alleged hatha vidyā, is a affectionate of yoga assimilation on concrete and brainy backbone architecture contest and postures declared primarily in three texts of Hinduism:[264][265][266]

    Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Svātmārāma (15th century)
    Shiva Samhita, columnist alien (1500[267] or backward 17th century)
    Gheranda Samhita by Gheranda (late 17th century)

Many advisers would accommodate the Goraksha Samhita by Gorakshanath of the 11th aeon in this list.[264] Gorakshanath is broadly advised to accept been amenable for popularizing hatha yoga as we apperceive it today.[268][269][270] Added hatha yoga texts accommodate the Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati, the Hatha Ratnavali, the Joga Pradīpikā, and the Sritattvanidhi.

Vajrayana Buddhism, founded by the Indian Mahasiddhas,[271] has a alternation of asanas and pranayamas, such as tummo (Sanskrit caṇḍālī)[182] and trul khor which alongside hatha yoga.
Laya Yoga and Kundalini yoga

Laya and Kundalini yoga are carefully associated with Hatha yoga but are generally presented as actuality complete approaches.[23]

According to Georg Feuerstein, Laya yoga (yoga of dissolution or merging) "makes attentive assimilation (laya) its focus. The laya-yogin seeks to transcend all anamnesis traces and acoustic adventures by abandoning the microcosm, the mind, in the abstruse Self-Consciousness."[272] There are assorted forms and techniques of Laya yoga, including alert to the "inner sound" (nada), practicing assorted mudras like Khechari mudra and Shambhavi mudra as able-bodied as techniques meant to activate a airy action in the anatomy (kundalini).[273]

The convenance of activation the coiled action in the anatomy is sometimes accurately alleged Kundalini yoga. It is based on Indian theories of the attenuate anatomy and uses assorted pranayamas (breath techniques) and mudras (bodily techniques) to activate the action accustomed as kundalini (the coiled one) or shakti. In assorted Shaiva and Shakta traditions of yoga and tantra, yogic techniques or yuktis are acclimated to affiliate kundalini-shakti, the all-powerful acquainted force or energy, with Shiva, accustomed consciousness.[274] A accustomed way of teaching this adjustment is to activate the kundalini residing at the everyman chakra and to adviser it through the axial approach to affiliate with the complete alertness at the accomplished chakra (in the top of the head).[275]
Reception in added religions
Christianity

Some Christians accommodate yoga and added aspects of Eastern adherence with adoration and meditation. This has been attributed to a admiration to acquaintance God in a added complete way.[276] In 2013, Monsignor Raffaello Martinelli, application Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, accepting formed for over 23 years with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI),[277] said that for his Meditation, a Christian can apprentice from added religious traditions (zen, yoga, controlled respiration, Mantra), commendation Aspects of Christian meditation: "Just as "the Catholic Abbey rejects annihilation of what is accurate and angelic in these religions," neither should these means be alone out of duke artlessly because they are not Christian. On the contrary, one can booty from them what is advantageous so continued as the Christian apperception of prayer, its argumentation and requirements are never obscured. It is aural the ambience of all of this that these $.25 and pieces should be taken up and bidding anew."[278] Previously, the Roman Catholic Church, and some added Christian organizations accept bidding apropos and disapproval with account to some eastern and New Age practices that accommodate yoga and meditation.[279][280][281]

In 1989 and 2003, the Vatican issued two documents: Aspects of Christian brainwork and "A Christian assimilation on the New Age," that were mostly analytic of eastern and New Age practices. The 2003 certificate was appear as a 90-page handbook account the Vatican's position.[282] The Vatican warned that absorption on the concrete aspects of brainwork "can base into a band of the body" and that equating actual states with mysticism "could additionally advance to analytic agitation and, at times, to moral deviations." Such has been compared to the aboriginal canicule of Christianity, back the abbey against the gnostics' acceptance that conservancy came not through acceptance but through a mystical close knowledge.[276] The letter additionally says, "one can see if and how [prayer] ability be accomplished by brainwork methods developed in added religions and cultures"[283] but maintains the abstraction that "there charge be some fit amid the attributes of [other approaches to] adoration and Christian behavior about ultimate reality."[276] Some[which?] fundamentalist Christian organizations accede yoga to be adverse with their religious background, because it a allotment of the New Age movement inconsistent with Christianity.[284]

Another appearance holds that Christian brainwork can advance to religious pluralism. This is captivated by an alloyed affiliation of Christians that convenance it. "The ritual accompanying operates as an ballast that maintains, enhances, and promotes denominational action and a captain that allows institutional boundaries to be crossed." [285]
Islam

In the aboriginal 11th century, the Persian academic Al Biruni visited India, lived with Hindus for 16 years, and with their advice translated several cogent Sanskrit works into Arabic and Persian languages. One of these was Patanjali's Yogasutras.[286][287] Al Biruni's adaptation preserved abounding of the amount capacity of Patañjali 's Yoga philosophy, but assertive sutras and analytic commentaries were restated authoritative it added constant with Islamic monotheistic theology.[286][288] Al Biruni's adaptation of Yoga Sutras accomplished Persia and Arabian peninsula by about 1050 AD. Later, in the 16th century, the hath yoga argument Amritakunda was translated into Arabic and again Persian.[289] Yoga was, however, not accustomed by boilerplate Sunni and Shia Islam. Minority Islamic sects such as the abstruse Sufi movement, decidedly in South Asia, adopted Indian yoga practises, including postures and animation control.[290][291] Muhammad Ghawth, a Shattari Sufi and one of the translators of yoga argument in the 16th century, drew altercation for his absorption in yoga and was afflicted for his Sufi beliefs.[292]

Malaysia's top Islamic anatomy in 2008 anesthetized a fatwa, prohibiting Muslims from practicing yoga, adage it had elements of Hinduism and that its convenance was blasphemy, accordingly haraam.[293] Some Muslims in Malaysia who had been practicing yoga for years, criticized the accommodation as "insulting."[294] Sisters in Islam, a women's rights accumulation in Malaysia, additionally bidding disappointment and said yoga was aloof a anatomy of exercise.[295] This fatwa is accurately enforceable.[296] However, Malaysia's prime abbot antiseptic that yoga as concrete exercise is permissible, but the chanting of religious mantras is prohibited.[297]

In 2009, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), an Islamic anatomy in Indonesia, anesthetized a fatwa banning yoga on the area that it contains Hindu elements.[298] These fatwas have, in turn, been criticized by Darul Uloom Deoband, a Deobandi Islamic seminary in India.[299] Similar fatwas banning yoga, for its articulation to Hinduism, were issued by the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa in Egypt in 2004, and by Islamic clerics in Singapore earlier.[300][301]

In Iran, as of May 2014, according to its Yoga Association, there were about 200 yoga centres in the country, a division of them in the basic Tehran, area groups can generally be apparent practising in parks. This has been met by action amid conservatives.[302] In May 2009, Turkey's arch of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, Ali Bardakoğlu, discounted claimed development techniques such as reiki and yoga as bartering ventures that could advance to extremism. His comments were fabricated in the ambience of reiki and yoga possibly actuality a anatomy of proselytization at the amount of Islam.