This introductory chapter will first sketch out “embodied reception” as a heuristic concept by discussing some of the assumptions and challenges that its two terminological components—embodiment and reception—entail. It will then position the volume with regard to previous research on bodily practices in South Asia and their modern global globalization. Two aspects of embodied reception that emerge from reading the contributions together will then receive closer attention. The first aspect is the construction of lineages and origins that appears to be crucial for turning bodily practices into a reception of something, be it a textual source, a guru, or a diffuse idea of Indian tradition. The second aspect concerns the performativity and affectivity of bodily practices. Here, the contributions show that while a bodily practice does not have a universal intrinsic meaning, it works on practitioners’ bodies and interrelates with their meaning-making processes. Finally, the individual chapters that make up the four parts of the volume will be presented.

Since the cultural turn, the embodiment of practices is an axiom. But what does ‘embodiment’ mean? And how can embodied knowledge, embodied practices, embodied reception be operationalized and related to specific contexts instead of just claiming embodiment as a matter of fact? What difference does an account of the embodiment of practices make regarding theoretical stances that take other dimensions into account, like semiotics or power structures? We will sketch the relevance of philosophy of mind for embodiment because embodiment touches the very base of science: epistemology and the conception of the subject/agent. Against this backdrop, body knowledge and training knowledge will be introduced, which prepares us for a bundle of further subcategories appropriate for analysing the dynamics of cultural reception, especially of embodied practices.

The status of researcher as insider or outsider to the communities they study has long been of debate. Within long term ethnographic research into cultural practices, a world of nuance arises in the possible relationships of researcher and researched. We are engaged in complex processes of reconciliation between the under-represented communities whose stories we aim to tell (Shaw 1999, 108; Orsi 2013, 5), and the power an academic position confers to “define reality for others” (Hufford 1999, 298). Besides the issue of positionality, the study of practices of movement and interoception confer distinct embodied skillsets. As a long-term practitioner of yoga who researches contemporary practice, my experience and analysis will be different from non-practicing scholars in the field. In this paper I will build on insights from Dance Studies and Yoga Studies to discuss the methodological frameworks it was necessary to develop for my own doctoral research. I will describe co-practice as a method, notation as an analytic tool, and the concept of methodology as an experimental process, guided by the ideal of research as seva: research as a service freely dedicated to both academic rigour and the untold stories of our communities of practice. From this, I hope to offer space for an open and intellectually invigorating conversation about new methods and frameworks, so that we may break new ground together, in the ethnographic study of bodily practices.

The paper explores interconnected instances of cultural transfer from India to Europe of elements pertaining to the Trika school of Shaivism and tantric goddess traditions. The first instance concerns the translation and reception of a Trika text (the Parātrīśikā) and its commentary (Abhinavagupta’s Parātrīśikāvivaraṇa) by a group of therapeutic practitioners based in Northern Germany, as well as its application in transpersonal psychotherapeutic and psychosomatic practice. The second case addresses the establishment of a yoginī temple by one of these therapists, after having visited sites dedicated to yoginī worship in Hirapur and Bheraghat. The paper discusses the selective approach to Kashmirian Shaiva teachings in the process of their therapeutic application, as well as the transfer and reception of tantric traditions by Western practitioners.

While the historical, philological, and socio-cultural research on (modern) yoga saw an immense boom in the last two decades, the biomedical dimension of body practices associated with yoga has seldom been taken into account in cultural studies. This paper proposes an approach to an interdisciplinary exchange between methods and theories in the social sciences combined with the insights of neuroscience and cognitive psychology on yoga. The paper’s topic itself, the contemporary reception of the Yogasūtra, an old Indian text, bridges textual exegesis and bodily practices: Combining fieldwork in an advanced Ashtanga Yoga teacher training in Germany with theories in religious aesthetics, my research approach shows that the practitioner’s understanding of the text is substantively related to the somatic techniques they practice and the experiential dimensions that emerge from their practices. In what I call ‘contemporary yoga philosophy’, the exegesis of the Yogasūtra and modern body practices interact with one another and (re-)define each other. Therefore, I argue that such ‘philosophical’ contemporary discourses cannot be adequately investigated without considering the physical practices and their effects with the help of an interdisciplinary approach. The paper presents six aspects of contemporary yoga philosophy and introduces key body knowledge categories which enable a cultural-scientific analysis of body practices. It finishes with two examples, ‘Touch’ and ‘Eutony’ that show, how contemporary religious practices that are intertwined with physical practices can be analyzed.

This chapter presents some of the practices of the Kāpil Maṭh monastic institution founded in early 20th century that subscribe to the teaching of the Yoga and Sāṃkhya systems of religious thought with Pātañjalayogaśāstra and Sāṃkhyakārikā as the foundation texts. The chapter argues that their practice is based on an understanding that all is suffering which is stated prominently not only in the Yogasūtra but also in the Sāṃkhyakārikā. Suffering is because of a basic disharmony at the foundation of the material creation (prakṛti) and the avoidance of pain means the avoidance of the uniting of the subject (puruṣa) and the object (prakṛti) (Yogasūtra 2.17) and when this union ends, the cycle of rebirth also ends. The followers of the Kāpil Maṭh realize that it will take many lifetimes to attain this. What is attainable in this life is the improvement of their karmāśaya and vāsanās. In the Kāpil Maṭh one important way of influencing the vāsanās is repeating the teaching of Sāṃkhyayoga every day in ritual recitation of stotras that state the teaching and goals of Sāṃkhyayoga. This recitation creates a state of mind that leaves an impression, a saṃskāra and forms a behavioral tendency, a vāsanā and prepares for a Sāṃkhyayoga practice that will continue over many lives. This understanding that no practice of Sāṃkhyayoga is lost but shapes tendencies over many lives is an essential aspect of the yoga tradition of the Kāpil Maṭh. The teaching of Sāṃkhyayoga is here closely connected to conceptions of rebirth and does not make sense without the doctrine of repeated embodiment.

This paper explores themes of authorship and authority within the yoga tradition through unpacking the publication process of B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Prāṇāyāma (1981). The argument is based on extensive use of newly discovered sources which include early manuscript drafts and correspondence relating to the composition of the text found in the personal collection of Gerald Yorke now held at the University of Reading’s Special Collections. The exploration of these primary sources shows how the technical content of Light on Prāṇāyāma developed primarily through Iyengar’s intense phenomenological practices and powerful of observation of his own experiences, challenging idealistic assumptions about the nature of guru-śiṣya paramparā (student-teacher transmission lineage) in the development of yoga traditions. Moreover, it will argue that an effective transmission of Iyengar’s teaching in this publication emerged out of a dialogue with his English editor Gerald Yorke and several ‘test readers’ who ensured that the instructions were coherent and understandable across cultures. The paper explores the hidden labour of several women central to eventual publication of Light on Prāṇāyāma, whose contributions were handled (and largely erased at the point of publication) within the gendered social expectations of the late 1970s. The conclusions are a salutary reminder of the complex dialogical process involved in any successful transmission of an embodied tradition.

This article examines Acem’s philosophy and practice of yoga as taught by Acem School of Yoga (Norsk Yoga-skole). Acem was founded as part of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s TM movement in 1966. The organizations cooperated closely in the 1960s, but disagreements led to an organizational rupture in 1971. The discursive framing of the practices has changed significantly since the rupture with the TM movement. Whereas Maharishi was inspired by Advaita Vedanta philosophy and referred to the Vedas for legitimation, Acem has discarded all religious explanations. Today, Acem promotes its activities as secular and scientifically based techniques for self-development. The aims of yoga and meditation go beyond the more mundane benefits like increased flexibility and ease of mind. When performed consistently, meditative yoga is also said to be conducive to personal growth and existential acknowledgment. This article discusses Acem’s interpretation of yoga as a term and practice. It is argued that Acem has a selective view of yoga that is inspired by Western psychology and yoga in the Indian tradition. Acem promotes a highly individualized view of the goals of meditation, while Acem’s emphasis on personal growth and existential acknowledgment can be seen as firmly embedded in ‘the therapeutic ethos’ of contemporary Western societies. Somewhat paradoxically, the aims of yoga and meditation are stated to be highly individualized—at the same time as there is a shared discourse about these aims in the organization.

Kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘is a martial art with an allied medical system that originated in South India in what is now the modern state of Kerala. Its long and complex history includes a revival from near-extinction in the early 20th century, whose features parallel the creation of modern yoga in the same period. While still a niche activity, kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘’s visibility has increased in recent years. I argue that an important factor in the dissemination of kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ beyond Kerala and its historical quasi-temple environment is its adoption by contemporary dancers in India in the last half of the 20th century, both in their training and in performance. This paper examines the imbrications between kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘’s home context of the kaḷari-temple and the fertile ground of the Indian contemporary dance scene. My research focuses on the CVN lineage, part of ‘northern style’ or ‘Malabar’ kaḷaris, so-called because they originate in the Malabar region of northern Kerala. I draw on my relationship with CVN Kalari in Thiruvananthapuram which began in 2002, and has, since 2010, included eight extended periods of intensive study and training. My first encounter with this kaḷari was among dance artists at an international choreographic laboratory in Bengaluru, and so this paper contains autoethnographic as well as more conventional ethnographic elements.

This chapter discusses the question of how contemporary performances of mind-body techniques relate to the authoritative figures, institutions, and discourses that created them. The case under investigation is OSHO Dynamic Meditation, the most famous meditation technique created by the controversial guru Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) that has been practiced from the early days of the Neo-Sannyas Movement in the 1970s until today. Dynamic Meditation has five characteristic stages leading meditators from chaotic breathing, cathartic explosion and complete exhaustion to stillness and celebration. Both sannyasins and scholars have referred to the technique as a ‘microcosm’ of Osho’s teaching and method (Urban 2015, 59). The chapter scrutinizes this claim and re-evaluates the relationship between teaching and bodily practice. The analysis is based on ethnographic observations and interviews from Osho-related meditation centres in Scandinavia, Germany, and India. A stable communicative form in an otherwise dispersed and diverse field, Dynamic Meditation has a specific affective dramaturgy tailored to induce experiences in need of interpretation. How meditators make sense of their experience varies according to contextual factors and can be detached from Osho’s authority. Still, the communities under investigation share discourses around therapy and meditation that are reproduced and legitimized through bodily techniques (such as Dynamic Meditation) that again socialize newcomers into the communicative milieu of the Sannyas scene.

Alongside modern yoga, mindfulness meditation is considered to be a driving force for “revolutionizing” body-mind practices in Western societies. A major influence here is the popular MBSR programme, developed in the late 1970s by the MIT-educated scientist Jon Kabat-Zinn. MBSR practitioners position themselves predominantly within scientific and therapeutic discourses. In more opaque ways, modern mindfulness also refers to principles of Buddhist spirituality, while at the same time universalizing the method of mindfulness meditation. This paper investigates what it means to be present in modern mindfulness, and especially in the setting of Mindfulness Based-Stress Reduction (MBSR). Focus is laid upon the group setting and interaction in which mindfulness as an embodied practice of being present is enacted and cultivated. The paper is based on (auto-)ethnographic accounts, produced by the author as a practitioner and trained teacher of MBSR/mindfulness and sociologist of religion in one person.

Around February-March, Rishikesh is visited by large numbers of people, mainly from “Western” countries, who come to participate in satsang. This yearly, transnational satsangscene, although housing a variety of teachers, can be characterized as “Modern Advaita” (Lucas 2011, 2014), as the underlying, commonly held metaphysical assumptions rests on modernized, universalized interpretations of Advaita Vedanta. At the outset, the most characteristic feature of these satsangs were verbal dialogues and discourses, mainly revolving around the realization of the non-dual nature of the Self, a state referred to as “awakening”. However, it was frequently argued by teachers and satsang participants that non-dual teachings as intellectual concepts were of secondary importance only; the most important thing was rather to come to a realization of non-dual tenets through personal experience. Hence, while verbal discourses did have a significant function in satsang, a great part of the value ascribed to participation appeared to lie elsewhere. Following the proposal of Michal Pagis (2010) to view meditation retreats as occasions where abstract concepts are turned into experiential knowledge, I suggest that satsangs mirror a similar process. The particular conditions of the satsang hall—the presence of the guru as an embodiment of awakening, together with the communitas of participants representing a sense of human oneness—produced a situation in which non-dual discourses were not only discussed, but partly and temporarily became embodied. The function and appeal of these satsangs, I therefore suggest, lay not so much in the verbal discourses presented as in their experiential, and hence embodied aspects. This focus on personal experience, further, serves as an illustration of the cross-cultural nature of these types of satsangs, as it diffuses the concept of anubhava (“direct perception”) (Forsthoefel 2018) with New Age notions of subjective experience as a strategy for legitimating spiritual claims (Hammer 2004; Heelas 2008).

This paper argues that modern postural yoga—and the spiritual wellness industry more broadly—often exhibits an ideal formulation of the body wherein beauty and morality are co-constituted, each providing an index of the other. Beautiful people, that is to say, people who are deemed beautiful, are celebrated for their presumed moral elevation and spiritual advancement. The demand to present as perfected-wellness-embodied has significant ramifications for wellness influencers (including yogis), not the least of which are financial. This paper argues that there are South Asian antecedents to this type of indexing of beauty and morality in South Asian religious forms, and provides evidence by looking to the bodily descriptions of religious virtuosi in religious and yogic texts, and in the presumptions of Ayurvedic remedies. However, it also shows how the contemporary global yoga industry, in collusion with the beauty industry, has exponentially expanded this latent confluence and now creates moral hierarchies that are based largely in unequal access to economic and social capital.