Many of us today practice yoga for spiritual isight and better health, but few know of yoga's extraordinary visual history, Yoga: The Art of Transformation, the first publication of its kind, invites readers to explore 2,000 years of yoga's visual record, from depictions of beneficient deities and tantric yogini goddesses to miltiant ascetics and romantic heroes. Beautiful works of art including temple sculptures, masterpieces of Mughal painting, and the first illustrated asana treatise-depict the aesthetic aspects of a practice that has transformed over time and across communities. While many objects emerged out of Hindu contexts or depict Hindu pratitioners, others reveal that yoga was never the domain of any single religion, and indeed yogic identity crossed 'sacred' and 'secular' boundaries. Photographs, postcards, early films, and other materials shed light on the enormous shifts in yoga's receptions in nineteenth century, as well as on the creation of modern yoga.

Written for diverse audiences by scholars of art history, philology, religion, and sociology, the catalogue provides deeper contexts for key artworks and objects that convey yoga's transformations over time. Five essays act as a chronology, tracing the practice from its ancient roots to early modern manifestations. Two essays focus on yoga's more recent evolution into the discourses of spirituality, fitness, and medicine in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century India, which helped shape today's global yoga boom. Following the essays, thematically grouped catalogue entries explore key yogic practices, indentities, and cultural perceptions within the visual record. Together these texts demonstrate the potential of visual culture to illuminate yoga's profound and unexpected manifestations in culture, art, and history.

Unique among scholarly art catalogues in that it speaks to the international yoga community, Yoga: the Art of Transformation will delight both yogic pratitioners and lovers of Indian art.

Contents

Forweord
Acknowledgments
Map: Indian subcontinent
A note on the transliteration
Essays
Yoga: The Art of Transformation by Debra Diamond
Yoga in Transformation by David Gordon White
From Guru to God: Yogic Prowess and Places of Practice in Early-Medieval India by Tamara I. Sears
Muslim Interpreters of Yoga by Carl W. Ernst
Yogis in Mughai Indial by James Mallinson
Yog, Bodybuilding, and Wrestling: Metaphysical Fitness by Joseph S. Alter
Globalized Modern Yoga by Mark Singleton
Catalogue
Part One The path of yoga
Manifestations of Shiva
Portraying the Guru
Yoginis
Nath Siddhas
Jain Yoga: Nonviolence for Karmic Purification
Yoga and tapas: The Buddhists and Ajvikas
Austrities
Meditation
Asana
The cosmic body
The subtle body
The militant ascetic body
Illusion and reality in the Yoga Vasishta
Part Two Landscapes of yoga
Ashram and math
Pilgrimage
The cremation ground
Part Three Yoga in the Indian imagination 16th-19th century
Yogis in the literary imagination
Transcendence and desire in Ragamala paintings
Moghal albums
Part Four Yoga in the transnational imagination, 18th-20th century
Company paintings
Colonial photography
The bed of nails: The exotic across borders and media
Fakirs, fakers, and magic
Part Five Modern transformations
Vivekananda and rational spirituality
Medical yoga
Modern postural yoga
Reference material
Exhibition checklist
Glossary
Endnotes to the catalogue
Selected bibliography
Contributors
Credits
Index

An exploration of yoga's meanings and transformations over time; the discipline's goals of spiritual enlightenment, worldly power, and health and well-being; and the beauty and profundity of Indian art. Published by the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Smithsonian Museum of Asian Art) on the occasion of the exhibition "Yoga: The Art of Transformation", October 19, 2013-January 26, 2014.