From Tapas to Modern Yoga: Sadhus' Understanding of Embodied Practices

Extensively based on fieldwork material, From Tapas to Modern Yoga primarily analyses embodied practices of ascetics belonging to four religious orders historically associated with the practice of yoga and hatha yoga. This focus on ascetics stems from the fact that yogic techniques probably developed in ascetic contexts, yet scholars have rarely focused their attention on non-international ascetic practitioners of yoga. Creating a confrontation between textual sources and ethnographic data,...