Introduction: Why Thinking about Texts Matters in Contemporary Yoga Studies

In his address at the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 27, 2014, India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, suggested to adopt an international Yoga Day, calling yoga “an invaluable gift of our ancient tradition.”¹ Modi did not specify in his speech how old yoga is; he simply affirmed the widespread view that yoga is ancient. Yet in her book On Hinduism, Wendy Doniger investigates the claim about yoga’s ancient origins, examining the arguments used to support this historical idea. She distinguishes among four different claims. The first claim asserts that yoga originated in the Indus Valley before 2500 BCE. Evidence for this claim includes several soapstone seals depicting a figure seated in what is taken to be the so-called lotus position. The second claim advances the notion that the term “yoga” appears in the oldest Sanskrit text, the Rig Veda, dating from around 1500 BCE. The third claim suggests a date around the middle of the first millennium with reference to the early Upanishads that mention a spiritual practice called “yoga.” The fourth claim refers to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, promoting a date for the emergence of yoga in the third century CE.².