Yoga is a widely known all over the world as a form of exercise, a meditation tool and a relaxation device. The concept of yoga is not new. Now the question to be asked here is that what is the history of yoga? Though the history of yoga is long but due to the oral transmission of most of its sacred text, it has a number of uncertainties. Initially the sacred text of yoga was written on fragile palm leaves that got damaged easily.
The history of yoga and Buddhism has a very close connection with each other because yoga originated as a set of some spiritual practices linked with the most ancient Indian religions and Buddhism is one of the India’s oldest religions. Given below is a brief history of yoga that takes the reader through the glimpse of ages of yoga.
A Brief History Of Yoga
The history and development of yoga could be traced back to some five thousand years. In the following paragraphs a brief yoga facts history is given,
While studying yoga history it could be seen that the very first text found about yoga is Rig Veda. Rig Veda has been now translated and published with the name of Knowledge of Praise. It includes about 1,028 songs yoga chants compositions.
In this regard some Indian sculptures have also been found. These sculptures show some prominent yoga posses and are dating back to almost three thousand years. Hindu scriptures named as Vedas described yoga in a much greater detail. Gita, the religious text of Hindu religion, gave more details of the yoga postures. All of the above mentioned scriptures and text gave a lot of yogic detail.
But Patanjali first developed a system that covered each and every detail regarding yoga. It is named as Yoga Sutras and was written in 200 B.C. yoga Sutras is even used by today’s yoga experts as a reference guide. Because of Patanjali’s great contribution in yoga history in the form of Yoga sutras he is known as father of yoga
After a few centuries of yoga sutras, yoga masters declared that body is a mean to achieve enlightenment. The physical spiritual connection created by the yoga scholar gave birth to both Tantra and Hatha yoga. Thus in this way started the long and ever evolving hatha yoga history. In second decade of the twentieth century hatha yoga was strongly developed especially in India. Now a number of schools and styles to practice hatha yoga exist in world.
Yoga system developed by Patanjali is known as raja yoga. So the history of raja yoga is linked with the yoga sutras. Raja yoga is a form of yoga that is linked with the control of mind. In the history of raja yoga it could be seen that it has passed through a number of developmental phases but the basic concept remained the same.
Karma yoga is an ancient form of yoga that exists in today’s modern world. The history of karma yoga is linked with the Gita. The main focus of karma yoga is on a simple concept i.e. just follow your duties without considering the reward.
The history of jnana yoga, another well renowned form of yoga is linked with Rig Veda. Patanjali’s yoga sutras also talks about jnana yoga. The underlying philosophy behind jnana yoga is that it is the yoga of knowledge and is considered best for the people who are intellectual in nature.
This was a comprehensive and brief history of yoga, in order to learn the history of yoga in a more detail, separate history of each of the branch of yoga must be considered.
