Yoga in Literary Canon: From Asana to Aesthetics (Yogic Consciousness, Embodiment and Textuality in Interdisciplinary Literary Discourse)

Abstract

Yoga, a spiritual and philosophical discipline that originated in ancient India, has come to be recognised as a hermeneutic framework of importance in the field of literary and cultural studies. Beyond its contemporary links to body poses and health culture, yoga has epistemological, metaphysical, ethical and aesthetic dimensions that intersect with literary traditions in different cultures and times. In this paper, I explore the relationship between yoga and literature from an interdisciplinary perspective, exploring how yogic consciousness informs literary aesthetics, narrative structures, symbolism, embodiment, and textual spirituality. Drawing on classical Indian texts, Bhakti and Sufi traditions, modern literary theory, phenomenology and postcolonial criticism, the study argues that yoga is not merely a theme in literature, but a mode of reading, writing and experiencing consciousness itself. The paper also explores the representation of meditative awareness, selfhood, silence, corporeality and transcendence in literary traditions from Sanskrit poetics to contemporary global literature. The study’s situating of yoga in literary discourse contributes to emergent discussions within comparative literature, consciousness studies, and embodied humanities. In the end the paper suggests that yogic aesthetics offer an alternative epistemology which through contemplative, ethical, and experiential paradigms can reconfigure contemporary literary criticism (Eliade 12).