Course Description
How are yoga and devotion (bhakti) related? Throughout Indian history, what role has yoga played in the life of devotion and what role has devotion played in the life of yoga? This online course explores the rich and shifting historical relationship between yoga and devotion (bhakti) from ancient India up to the present-day. Advancing beyond preconceived modern notions of what yoga and devotion are, we will examine the body of ideas, values, and practices historically associated with each term and the ways in which the two have fused, intertwined, and conflicted in different Indian traditions and historical eras. In understanding how yoga and devotion have been positioned in relation to one another, we will come to see the history of Yoga in a new and fascinating light.
Drawing on primary sources – the Upaniṣads, Bhagavad Gītā, Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra, Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Indian Sufi romance, Nāth Yogī literature, bhakti poetry, and more – alongside cutting edge scholarship, the course will chart out the important ways in which the history of devotion and the history of yoga in India intersect with and inform each other. Beginning in ancient and classical India, then proceeding to medieval India’s “Tantric Age,” we will give special attention to the Sufis, bhaktas (devotees), and yogīs of early modern North India, whose relationships with one another offer unique insights into shifts in Indian understandings of devotional religiosity vis-à-vis yoga, tantra, and asceticism. Finally, we explore the ways that colonial (Western Christian) viewpoints regarding the nature of religion, devotion, and Indian yogīs prompted new developments in the history of yoga and fundamentally shaped the character of modern postural yoga today as ‘spirituality’ and secular fitness.
Course Readings
Among many other curated readings available for download, students will have the opportunity to read and discuss select chapter's from Dr. Burchett's recently published book, A Genealogy of Devotion: Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga, and Sufism in North India (Columbia University Press, 2019).
Course Modules
Module 1 — Yoga & Devotion in Ancient and Classical India
Module 2 — Yoga & Devotion in Medieval India
Module 3 — Yoga & Devotion in Sultanate and Mughal India
Module 4 — Yoga & Devotion from Kabīr to Vivekānanda to Postural Yoga Today
Students Will Receive:
- 4 Pre-recorded Video + Audio lectures (90 min)
- 4 Pre-recorded Q&A sessions (90 min)
- 4 ACP Credits
- 12 Hours of CE credit with YA
- Course Syllabus (PDF)
- Weekly Readings (PDF)
- 4 Multiple Choice Quizzes
- Yogic Studies Certificate (PDF)
- Access to the private Community Forum
Dr. Patton Burchett
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at William & Mary
Dr. Burchett earned his PhD in South Asian Religions from Columbia University in 2012 and then spent three years as an Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow in Religious Studies at New York University (NYU). Patton's research focuses on early modern devotional (bhakti) traditions and tantric and yogic religiosity in North India and on the interrelations of magic, science, and religion in the rise of Indian and Western modernities. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on bhakti literature and Mughal-era Indian religious history (among other topics), and his first book, A Genealogy of Devotion: Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga, and Sufism in North India (Columbia University Press) was published in 2019.
This course is eligible for 12 hours of Continued Education (CE) credits with Yoga Alliance
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