In Indian languages from Sanskrit to Marathi, yoga has an enormous range of meanings, though most often it refers to philosophy or methods to control the mind and body. This book argues for a wider understanding, demonstrating that yoga has long expressed political thought and practice. The political idea of yoga names the tools of kings, poets, warriors, and revolutionaries. It encodes stratagems for going into battle and for the demands of governance. This idea suggests routes to self-rule even when faced with implacable obstacles, and it defines righteous action amid the grime and grief of politics and war.
Sunila S. Kale and Christian Lee Novetzke chart a new genealogy of yoga, beginning with uses of the term in the ?g Veda, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Arthasastra. In the world of these texts, yoga names everything from war and battle strategy to good governance, espionage, taxation, and welfare. Kale and Novetzke follow this trail into the modern period, examining the writings and speeches of thinkers such as Gandhi, Tilak, Aurobindo, and Ambedkar as well as the extraordinary story of the Princely State of Aundh, whose ruler saw the Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation) as a tool for sovereignty. Offering a novel interpretation of yoga that embraces its long-standing political conceptualization, this book sheds light on South Asian political thought and history from its earliest texts to the present day.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
[The Yoga of Power] is a brilliant piece of scholarship on the enduring tradition of thought and practice, where yoga, religion, and politics intersect. * Outlook India * This brilliant work reveals a new way of understanding yoga that makes sense of a hugely important but hitherto overlooked aspect of its history. It is essential reading for students and scholars of yoga. -- Jim Mallinson, coauthor of <i>Roots of Yoga</i> Novetzke and Kale's combined disciplinary insights-from religious studies and political science-provide something that is extremely rare in the study of Indian politics: a convincing argument for how and why it is critically important to understand political philosophy in a way that engages with modernity but is not defined by the ideological supposition of Enlightenment reasoning. The authors of The Yoga of Power do a masterful job of radically demythologizing yoga. -- Joseph S. Alter, author of <i>Yoga in Modern India: The Body Between Science and Philosophy</i> The Yoga of Power is a marvelous piece of scholarship that argues that yoga is more than either a school of philosophy or a regime of psychophysical practice, but rather rewrites the history of yoga as an enduring tradition of political thought and practice in India. Combining textual reading, archival work, and ethnographic study, the book intervenes in the disciplines of history and area studies by demonstrating the epistemological gains of breaching the temporal boundaries between the precolonial, the colonial, and the postcolonial, urging us to rethink what we imagine today as politics and the political. -- Prathama Banerjee, author of <i>Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South</i>
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Für höhere Schule und Studium
Produkt-Hinweis
Illustrationen
Maße
Höhe: 229 mm
Breite: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-231-22001-9 (9780231220019)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Sunila S. Kale is a professor in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her books include Electrifying India: Regional Political Economies of Development (2014).
Christian Lee Novetzke is a professor in the Jackson School of International Studies and the Comparative History of Ideas Department at the University of Washington, Seattle. His books include The Quotidian Revolution: Vernacularization, Religion, and the Premodern Public Sphere in India (Columbia, 2016).
Preface
A Note on Diacritics, Sources, and Citations
Introduction
Part I. Ancient and Classical Periods
1. Yoga as War and Peace in the ?g Veda and the Mahabharata
2. Yoga as Political Strategy in the Arthasastra
Interlude
Part II. Modern Period
3. Yoga as Revolution in Anticolonial Nationalism
4. Yoga as Sovereignty in Princely India
Conclusion: Yoga Infrastructure in India's Bureaucracy
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index