• DOI:10.1086/RESv1n1ms20166655
• Corpus ID: 192221643

An Archaeology of Yoga

@article{Mcevilley1981AnAO,
  title={An Archaeology of Yoga},
  author={Thomas Mcevilley},
  journal={RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics},
  year={1981},
  volume={1},
  pages={44 - 77}
}

• Thomas Mcevilley
• Published 1 March 1981
• Philosophy
• RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics

Various models have been offered for the early history of yoga: this paper will deal with two. The primitivist model proposes that yogic practices derived somehow from shamanism and agricultural magic. This hypothesis has naturally enlisted the Indus Valley to its cause, finding in certain seal impressions and sculptures evidences of proto-yoga. The chief problems of this approach have been the vagueness with which it has been presented, and the definition of the changes which this Ur-yoga underwent when it entered the Aryan community, particularly its ideological reinterpretation. Opposed to this model is what Filliozat has called the "scientific" hypothesis, which rejects pre-Aryan input and proposes that yoga was worked out deliberately and as it were "scientifically" by members of the Aryan community who were consciously searching for mystical techniques.1 Those who adopt this position are forced to reject the alleged evidences of yoga, or proto-yoga, in the Indus Valley remains.2 This paper will reexamine these questions in some detail, concentrating on the primitivist hypothesis, by which the other also stands or falls, and introducing both new arguments and new evidence into the discussion. The model that will emerge is composite, affirming both pre-Aryan input and "scientific" investigation within the Aryan community, and attempting to make the boundary between them clear. I hope to give a more definitive and reliable answer than was previously possible to the question, Was there yoga, or proto-yoga, in the Indus Valley? My answer will be affirmative, but with many qualifications, which will, I hope, give new content to the semi-intuitive affirmations of past authors. Believing that the great weakness of the primitivist hypothesis has been its lack of specificity, I will attempt to formulate its argument more precisely. In areas where evidence is insufficient for detailed connections, I shall try to show at least what the possible types of relationships are. Though my emphasis will be on the primitivist model, its discussion should also help to clarify questions concerning the Aryan developments. For instance: Why did the Indo-Aryans borrow yogic techniques from the non-Aryan communities? Which ones did they borrow? What reinterpretations did they place on them, and from what motives? How has the Aryan/non-Aryan dichotomy survived in the later history of yoga? The controlling ?mage of this investigation will be the famous Indus Valley seal impression shown in figure 1. On it hinges the question of yoga in the Indus Valley, and in fact, as we will see when we let this expressive ?con speak, it has a good deal to say about the other questions also.