Ridiculous Story": Sri Sabhapati Swami's Flight to the Celestial MountainIn December of 1879, a yogin named Sri Sabhapati Swami (ca.1828-1923/4) traveled from his birthplace near Madras (now Chennai) to Lahore, British Punjab (now Pakistan). 1 There he delivered a series of lectures, which were first published in 1880 along with additional material and an account of his life in English...
This article examines how the patronage of tumuli, belief in sacred geography, the institution of meditation halls, and the practice of mantra at these halls converged in Tamil Nadu at the turn of the 19th century to facilitate a pan-sectarian Tamil “consensus” on yoga in the literature of Sri Sabhapati Swami (Capāpati Cuvāmikaḷ, b. 1828). The article begins by analyzing the phenomenon of...