Jim Mallinson talks to Adam about the Origins of Hatha Yoga
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ก.ย. 2022
- James Mallinson is Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit and Classical and Indian Studies at SOAS, University of London. His interest in yoga grew out of a fascination for India and Indian asceticism - he spent several years living with Indian ascetics and yogis, in particular Rāmānandī Tyāgīs.
His MA thesis, part of a major in ethnography, was on Indian asceticism. He became frustrated, however, with (to quote Sheldon Pollock) the “hypertrophy of method” that afflicts much of the humanities, and anthropology in particular, so sought to ground his future research in philology.
The one aspect of ascetic practice that is well represented in Sanskrit texts is yoga, so for his doctoral thesis he chose to edit an early text on haṭhayoga, the Khecarīvidyā, which teaches in detail khecarīmudrā, one of traditional haṭhayoga’s most important practices, and he used fieldwork among traditional yogis in India to shed light on the text’s teachings.
As he worked on his thesis he became more and more unsure that the received wisdom on the origins of haṭhayoga (whose practices form the basis of much of modern yoga) was correct, in particular its blanket attribution to the Nāth sect, based as that wisdom was on a very small selection of the available texts and modern oral history (which is rarely a reliable source in India).
But it was clear that to put his work in the broader context was going to be impossible while working on his thesis. When he was revising it for publication a few years after completing it, he was asked to contribute to a volume on the Nāths and their literature.
He agreed and decided to concentrate on the corpus of texts of haṭhayoga. It soon became apparent that this was going to be too big a task for a single chapter of a book and he apologised to the volume’s editor but continued with his research. Four years on he has identified a corpus of eight works that teach early haṭhayoga and about a dozen more that contribute to its classical formulation in the Haṭhapradīpikā.
With this philological basis established it has been possible at last to put all of haṭhayoga’s aspects into context, which is what he is doing in the monograph on which he is currently working, Yoga and Yogis: The Texts, Techniques and Practitioners of Early Haṭhayoga.
Many of the conclusions that can be drawn from the corpus and the other sources he uses (from Mughal miniatures to his fieldwork amongst traditional yogis) overturn what was previously thought about yoga’s formative period. Although he has decided to present the bulk of the findings in a single monograph (because its parts are all so interdependent), in the course of working on it he has written various spin-off articles and reviews on specific aspects of haṭhayoga.
Between September 2015-2020, Mallinson was the Principle Investigator of The Haṭha Yoga Project (HYP), a five-year research project funded by the European Research Council and based at SOAS, University of London which aims to chart the history of physical yoga practice by means of philology, i.e. the study of texts on yoga, and ethnography, i.e. fieldwork among practitioners of yoga.
From January 2021, Mallison has been the lead on three year project entitled “Light on Hatha Yoga: A critical edition and translation of the Haṭhapradīpikā, the most important premodern text on physical yoga” funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the German Research Foundation Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
He has been interviewed on yoga for BBC Radio on Beyond Belief and for the Secret History of Yoga.
More information about Dr Mallinson’s work, his CV and publications, many of them downloadable, can be found here, and on his website: www.khecari.com
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Loved every second of your podcast Adam....thank you and your quest.♥️
Thanks! Jim is always one of my favourite guests!
I believe that an ancient Tamil text called Aintiram mentions six chakras in the body, it is perhaps older then the text that Jim believes are the oldest text that mention chakras
....ps your probing questions on yoga history is so vitally important. ♥️
such a great interview, the content was so captivating and interesting, thank you.
I always enjoy speaking with Jim, glad you appreciate it.
Great, entertaining, interview, thank you. Thanks in particular for mentioning the use of cannabis, which I have been using to go through Kundalini rising. It is very difficult to get any information about how it works as a sacred medicine because of the taboos, and difficulties of communicating while in a state of holy madness.... No doubt this info was part of the secrets hidden in the texts. I find it interesting that the use of cannabis co-incided with the somatic and charismatic expressions of yoga. It would be great to start a research project looking at the links between cannabis and kundalini, and its possible identity as Soma.
Glad you enjoyed the conversation. Of course, I would love to delve deeper in all things associated with kundalini and the more powerful aspects of practice. Jim’s probably not the man for this, but it’s made me start to reflect on finding a suitable guest … 🙏
@@keenonyoga hi Adam (it's Michaela). It would be great if you could get an Indian teacher, from a living tradition which knows about kundalini as a process rather than a practice - good luck with that :-)
Interesting interview, thank you. On the China connection, the Indian prana/chakra/kosha system is fundamentally different from the Chinese qi/meridian system. What would be really interesting is if the two systems are mapped and connections discovered, if any.
Thanks, that would indeed be interesting and if anyone does manage it please let me know, I'd love to see it.
🙏🔥🔥🔥🙏
Trust me apart from the Bisleri bottle selling shopkeeper on the streets of Varanasi even the pandits and priests of the great Kashi Vishwanath temple would have known that you were an ash smeared white sadhu. They must have kept quiet due to some reason including your Guru's presence.I was hoping Jim Mallinson would speak on pranayama and bandhas rather than only asanas and mudras.Adam,did you really think Jim would discuss at length the hidden practice of 'vajroli' online, that would have been a betrayal of the 'sampradaya' which elevated him to the status of a 'mahant'.
On a sidenote(trivia) what a high class clipped British accent coupled with a baritone voice!
Thanks for your feedback
If you could please share the scholars name Jim mentions that is doing research on Chinese alchemy's influence on tantric Indian practices? Thanks.
Yes, I agree this is interesting. I don’t have any more idea than you do about this though unfortunately. I do know that David Gordon White has done some research, so that might be someone to start with.
I have so many questions for Jim Mallinson. How would I come into contact with him?
Hi Jim's website is listed in the description :)
My apologies that was a typo, the length of a danda I found is 24 minutes.
So if I were correct, then this suggests that the subtle bodies are submerged within this one; which is interesting to me for the fact that yoga implies union. So, these bodies being merged into one would indeed be a union. Perhaps transforming the entire being altogether.
I’m reminded of accounts of the siddhas and of siddhis with this.
Theoretically, when transforming the body in this manner, this new body would operate under entirely new and different rules.
What im baffled by is this. You are a scholar and a practioner; its easy to go to the source but you rely solely on " written references " Are you looking hard enough? There is this book
Yogic Secrets of the Vedas: Exploring the Roots of Yoga and Ayurvedic
Yogi Baba Prem Tom Beal
In this book they explain how all these practices were informed by the Vedas
And this book and practice
Vishoka Meditation Pandit Rajmani
Where he explains Vishoka and The Yoga Sutras are the same teaching
I watched a lecture with you and Louis Komjathy and you seemed to be without adequate information in alchemy and also your references were less succinct.
Even scholar Debashish Banerji explains these points with great accuracy and open-mindedness but hes well acquainted with how all these came to be from historical and from a Tradition/Lineage based context. Im sorry man you have to do better with this information. Lastly, interviewer you are all over the plsace sorry for the criticism guys but just my observation