Yoga body

by Mark Singleton

This volume examines the roots and early development of modern hatha (postural) yoga. The author concentrates on the transition from the classical conception of yoga as a philosophical system to the version we recognize today. He argues that the popularly practiced yoga of today owes a greater debt to modern Indian nationalism and, even more surprisingly, to the spiritual aspirations of European bodybuilding and early 20th-century women's gymnastics movements of Europe and America, than it does to any ancient Indian yoga tradition.