
Yoga Breath
Pra?a and Pra?ayama in Early Modern Yoga
Magdalena Kraler(Author)
Brill Deutschland (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 14. April 2025
Book
Hardback
447 pages
978-3-8471-1746-9 (ISBN)
Description
A central practice of both premodern and modern yoga, pra?ayama ("breath control") is practised in yoga classes worldwide. Like the notion of pra?a ("breath", "vitality"), pra?ayama has a longstanding history in South Asia, constituting the fourth limb of Patanjali's yoga. Since roughly 1850, pra?a and pra?ayama have been reinterpreted in light of the ideas of Hindu reform movements, nineteenth-century occultism, science, biomedicine, and transnational hygiene. In this book, Magdalena Kraler traces the history of yogic breath cultivation between 1850 and 1945 for the first time. She reconstructs how pra?a assumed a central role in the cosmological frameworks of modern yoga and how pra?ayama came to be understood as a form of self-cultivation. Engaging one of modern yoga's key practices, this book not only offers a thorough academic analysis, but also responds to a growing worldwide interest in breath cultivation.
More details
Series
Thesis
Doctoral thesis
2022
Universität Wien
Edition
1. Edition 2025
Language
English
Place of publication
Göttingen
Germany
Publishing group
V&R unipress
Illustrations
with 19 figures
Dimensions
Height: 233 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
768 gr
ISBN-13
978-3-8471-1746-9 (9783847117469)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
04/2025
1st Edition
V&R unipress
€70.00
Available for download
Person
Author
Magdalena Kraler holds a PhD in Religious Studies (University of Vienna) and an MA in Music and Dance Education (University Mozarteum Salzburg). She currently teaches in Graz.