Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - AYURYOG (Medicine, Immortality, Moksha: Entangled Histories of Yoga, Ayurveda and Alchemy in South Asia)

Teaser

The practice of yoga is today widely associated with the improvement of health and well-being. In India, yoga is considered an indigenous form of health practice: The Ministry of AYUSH supports education and research in yoga medicine, and has established first steps in the...

Summary

The practice of yoga is today widely associated with the improvement of health and well-being. In India, yoga is considered an indigenous form of health practice: The Ministry of AYUSH supports education and research in yoga medicine, and has established first steps in the regulation of practice with a voluntary certification scheme through the Quality Council of India. Now predominantly associated with physical practices (postural and breathing exercises), the health-related aspects of yoga practice have been promoted globally since the middle of the twentieth century. However, in its historic origins, the attainment of yoga was understood as a soteriological undertaking, and its auxiliary practices were directed at the attainment of spiritual aims. When did yoga become medicine? And how are medical claims within yoga traditions connected to the dominant Indian medical traditions of the past? Can ideas about healing and well-being arising in historic yoga traditions be linked to the scholarly medical tradition of ayurveda, or to the heterodox medicine of rasaśāstra (Indian alchemy and iatrochemistry)? How do these traditions compare with each other in their medical goals, concepts and practices?

To answer these and related questions, the Ayuryog project examines the histories of yoga, ayurveda and rasaśāstra from the ninth century to the present, focussing on the disciplines\' health, juvenescence and longevity practices (Sanskrit: rasāyana) as potential key areas of exchange. The goals of the project are to reveal the entanglements of these historical traditions, and to trace the trajectories of their evolution as components of today\'s global healthcare and personal development industries.

Drawing upon the primary historical sources of each respective tradition as well as on fieldwork data, the research team has been exploring the shared terminology, praxis and theory of these three disciplines and examining why, when and how health, juvenescence and longevity practices were employed; how each discipline’s discourse and practical applications relates to those of the others; and how past encounters and cross-fertilizations impact on contemporary health-related practices in yogic, ayurvedic and alchemists’ milieus.

Research is divided into three main areas of enquiry: Research area 1 examines the reciprocal influence of ayurveda and rasaśāstra on each other, exploring in particular the development of iatrochemical formulations and their use in applications in health, rejuvenation and longevity therapies (rasāyana) in Sanskrit medical and alchemical literature. Research area 2 studies the influence of ayurvedic thought on representations of yoga in relevant Sanskrit yoga literature. Research area 3 explores the more recent history of interactions between ayurveda, yoga and rasaśāstra in institutionalized settings, examining continuities and disjunctures of aims and practices in the colonial and post-colonial period with the medieval and early modern forms of yoga, ayurveda, and alchemy examined in research areas 1 and 2.

Work performed

First research results are available in several publications, while a number of publications are in press or under review/forthcoming. We have convened one international workshop (Rejuvenation, longevity, immortality. Perspectives on rasāyana, kāyakalpa and bcud len practices, October 2016) and one international conference (Medicine and Yoga in South and Inner Asia, August 2017) on the subject of longevity practices in medical, alchemical and yogic milieus. Both have enabled valuable discussion between colleagues working on the histories of similar beliefs and practices in different geographical and linguistic areas of expertise.

As an outcome of these meetings, we have edited a special issue of the Open Access journal History of Science in South Asia, entitled “Transmutations: Rejuvenation, Longevity, and Immortality practices in South and Inner Asia”. The special issue contains an introduction and three articles by the Ayuryog research team members, representing some of the initial findings and explorations of the Ayuryog project; as well as six further articles by scholars researching longevity practices in various South and Inner Asian traditions and literatures. All of these articles represent cutting-edge research and substantially further our understanding of the relations between South and Inner Asian medical, alchemical and yogic traditions.

All Ayuryog researchers have given lectures and presentations at academic conferences and public events to give updates on our research and to engage in discussion. Videos of our presentations and those of speakers invited to the Ayuryog events can be viewed on the Ayuryog YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4ssviEb_KoAtb2U_XaXf_w

Our website at www.ayuryog.org outlines the project and gives updates on our progress through a blog. It also contains an interactive timeline tracing the development of yoga as medicine in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We will continue to add data to this timeline.

The website also contains lists of our publications

Final results

We are ahead of the proposed work schedule in having already convened a conference in 2017, instead of in 2019, and also in preparing an edited volume based on the research results presented at the Ayuryog workshop and conference.

By the end of the project in 2020, we expect to have a further six publications, as well as a monograph and drafts of three edited volumes.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.ayuryog.org.