The first module will locate our earliest available evidence for yogic postures (āsana) in early Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Jain sources. We'll see that rooted in the very Sanskrit word āsana, is the sedentary and practical meaning of cultivating a stable and comfortable "meditative seat." We'll see how this is articulated most clearly in the Classical Yoga of Patañjali's Yogasūtra (c. 4th century CE) and its commentarial traditions. We'll also give attention to the creative and emancipatory ways in which ascetics cultivated the body through austerities (tapas) in ancient India—as represented across textual and visual sources.  

The second module locates a major shift in the history of physical yoga, from seated to non-seated postures, around the end of the first millennium of the common era. With the rise of Tantra and Haṭha Yoga, we'll see how a changing view of the body may have led to innovations in yogic bodily praxis. Here we'll examine the increasing rise of complex non-seated balancing postures, twists, and inversions—as evidenced in the textual and sculptural record. We'll also consider the influence of ascetic traditions of tapas, as well as yoga's possible relations with other modes of Indian physical culture including wrestling, acrobatics, the art of love (kāmaśāstra), and martial arts. 

In the final module, we'll examine early modern yoga treatises and illustrated manuscripts which begin to teach large numbers of 84+ postures. We will then look ahead to the rise of modern postural yoga against the backdrop of global physical cultural discourse and the colonial context of 20th-century India. We'll conclude the course by assessing the contested origins of vinyāsa, and the famous "sun salutations"(sūryanamaskāra), considering the latter's historical and political implications.