In viewing physical practice as instrumental, traditions of modern postural yoga contain an implicit spirituality that echoes its historical precursors in the medieval traditions of haṭhayoga. The physicality of modern postural yoga tradition links the practices of premodern haṭhayoga traditions with disciplines of body that are characteristic of modern cosmopolitanism, such as gymnastics and...
Reviewed by: Yoga: India's Philosophy of Meditation Stuart Ray Sarbacker Yoga: India's Philosophy of Meditation. Edited by Gerald James Larson and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya. Volume 12 of Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophy, Series Editor Karl Potter. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2008. Pp. 784. Yoga: India's Philosophy of Meditation is the most recent volume in the highly acclaimed...
Frederick Smith's The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature provides a number of groundbreaking insights with respect to conceptualisations of and methodological approaches to the phenomenon of possession (āveśa, praveśa, and samāveśa) in the Indian traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and more broadly in South Asian religion. Smith's analysis of the...