Most people think of yoga as a relaxing way to exercise without realizing it is rooted in an ancient drive for salvation from the suffering of physical embodiment. The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali has become the go-to text for many modern-day yogis—instructors who guide practitioners through the meditations and postures which are said to provide escape from the toils of mortal life. But according to comparative religion scholar David Gordon White, the Yoga Sutra is only one of hundreds of ancient texts on yoga, and its current success belies its humble and contested origins.
In this episode, White discusses the Yoga Sutra—a collection of aphorisms that originated in ancient Hindu India which now occupies a prestigious place among contemporary yogis in the United States. He relates how the text has risen and fallen in prominence in India and in various places throughout the world for Buddhist, Hindu, and, increasingly, American communities. White argues that the yoga of India’s past doesn’t exactly resemble present-day yoga of India and the wider world. Along the way, White explains what it’s like for a scholar who has also been a practitioner of the religion he studies to examine the transmission of scripture over centuries of time.
Although the Maxwell Institute focuses its attention primarily on religious texts of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, this episode examines a religious text from an eastern tradition in order get a better understanding of the nature of religious texts in general.
Special Episodes: “Lives of Great Religious Books”
This ongoing series of Maxwell Institute Podcast episodes features interviews with authors of volumes in Princeton University Press’s impressive “Lives of Great Religious Books” series. (Check out the first episode on Aquinas’s Summa theologiae here.) In Princeton’s series, leading experts examine the origins of books like the Book of Mormon, Genesis, or Augustine’s Confessions. They trace shifts in the reception, influence, and interpretation of these landmark texts. As the Institute’s mission statement suggests, we perform scholarly study of religious texts and traditions in order to deepen understanding and nurture discipleship among Latter-day Saints and to promote mutual respect and goodwill among people of all faiths. That’s why our work encompasses texts and traditions beyond Latter-day Saint religious borders. By looking at other religious texts—worthwhile in their own right—we come to understand other faiths better, as well as our own.About David Gordon White
David Gordon White is the J.F. Rowny Professor of Comparative Religion at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has edited and authored several critically acclaimed books tracing the history of yoga from its origins down to the present time including Yoga in Practice (Princeton, 2011) and Sinister Yogis (University of Chicago, 2009).
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