Ever have a yoga question you were aching to ask a yoga teacher but never have? Here's your chance.
Simply click the Submit Your Question link to the lift and fill out the form with your question. You can direct it to
the PYS faculty in general or to an individual teacher listed on this page.
Simply click the Submit Your Question link to the lift and fill out the form with your question. You can direct it to
the PYS faculty in general or to an individual teacher listed on this page.
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| POSTED QUESTIONS & ANSWERS |
PARTICIPATING TEACHERS:
QUESTION:
Liza Pengelly: Two newsletters ago you talked about how Hatha Yoga, the way that it's practiced in it's simplified
version in most Yoga classes, is only about 80-100 years old. Thank you for talking about this, since people do
think that they are doing Yoga as was done "thousands" of years ago.
And you mentioned that Yoga can conservatively date back to 2500 BC, but that this number has been cast into
doubt. In "The Deeper Dimension of Yoga" Georg Feuerstein says that "Yoga is the current of spirituality that has
developed on the Indian peninsula over a period of some five thousand years." What are some of the complicated
reasons for this huge difference in years?
ANSWER:
Richard Rosen: Thanks for writing. To start I should note your email has a slight error, or more likely I didn’t
express myself clearly in the news letter. I didn’t date Yoga back to 2500 BCE, what I said (or meant to say) was
the book in which the earliest mention of Yoga is made is 2500 years old, which dates it around 500 BCE. So yes
indeed there is a vast difference in the dating of Yoga--some 2500 years--between myself and Dr Feuerstein. Of
course if ever you have to bet on the outcome of any Yoga debate between myself and the world-renowed expert
Dr Feuerstein, you would be most unwise (and somewhat poorer) to take my side. But here, in the case of the age
of Yoga, it's a matter of who you believe the most--or how far out on that Vriksha limb you're willing to climb--
when dating these ancient books. I'm sticking for now with the mainstream Western academics, those who date
the oldest Hindu sacred book, the Rig Veda, at about 1500 BCE, and the later Upanishads, where you'll find that
first concrete reference to Yoga, at about 500 BCE.
Dr Feuerstein however, for reasons too complicated to explain here, has dated the Rig and its attendant
Upanishads considerably earlier, which accounts for the vast gulf between our dates. Who do you believe? Before
you make up your mind, you should research Feuerstein's rationale behind his estimate in a controversial book he
co-authored with two other Yoga experts, Subhash Kak and David Frawley. It's titled In Search of the Cradle of
Civilization, published almost 15 years ago, interestingly enough, by the Theosophists, who were instrumental in
introducing Americans to Sanskrit classics in the late 19th century. Something to remember: even though the I'm
dating the earliest mention of Yoga at 500 BCE, you can bet that the actual practice is far older, since these
Upanishads are the written record of a long preceding oral teaching. We just can't say for sure how long, and
while 5000 years might be stretching things a bit, certainly 3000 to 3500 years isn’t beyond the realm of
possibility. Hope this answers your question.
Liza Pengelly: Two newsletters ago you talked about how Hatha Yoga, the way that it's practiced in it's simplified
version in most Yoga classes, is only about 80-100 years old. Thank you for talking about this, since people do
think that they are doing Yoga as was done "thousands" of years ago.
And you mentioned that Yoga can conservatively date back to 2500 BC, but that this number has been cast into
doubt. In "The Deeper Dimension of Yoga" Georg Feuerstein says that "Yoga is the current of spirituality that has
developed on the Indian peninsula over a period of some five thousand years." What are some of the complicated
reasons for this huge difference in years?
ANSWER:
Richard Rosen: Thanks for writing. To start I should note your email has a slight error, or more likely I didn’t
express myself clearly in the news letter. I didn’t date Yoga back to 2500 BCE, what I said (or meant to say) was
the book in which the earliest mention of Yoga is made is 2500 years old, which dates it around 500 BCE. So yes
indeed there is a vast difference in the dating of Yoga--some 2500 years--between myself and Dr Feuerstein. Of
course if ever you have to bet on the outcome of any Yoga debate between myself and the world-renowed expert
Dr Feuerstein, you would be most unwise (and somewhat poorer) to take my side. But here, in the case of the age
of Yoga, it's a matter of who you believe the most--or how far out on that Vriksha limb you're willing to climb--
when dating these ancient books. I'm sticking for now with the mainstream Western academics, those who date
the oldest Hindu sacred book, the Rig Veda, at about 1500 BCE, and the later Upanishads, where you'll find that
first concrete reference to Yoga, at about 500 BCE.
Dr Feuerstein however, for reasons too complicated to explain here, has dated the Rig and its attendant
Upanishads considerably earlier, which accounts for the vast gulf between our dates. Who do you believe? Before
you make up your mind, you should research Feuerstein's rationale behind his estimate in a controversial book he
co-authored with two other Yoga experts, Subhash Kak and David Frawley. It's titled In Search of the Cradle of
Civilization, published almost 15 years ago, interestingly enough, by the Theosophists, who were instrumental in
introducing Americans to Sanskrit classics in the late 19th century. Something to remember: even though the I'm
dating the earliest mention of Yoga at 500 BCE, you can bet that the actual practice is far older, since these
Upanishads are the written record of a long preceding oral teaching. We just can't say for sure how long, and
while 5000 years might be stretching things a bit, certainly 3000 to 3500 years isn’t beyond the realm of
possibility. Hope this answers your question.