Softcover, 158 pages, Pondycherry 2025, new
This book introduces, edits and translates the Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati, an eighteenth-century Sanskrit manual on the practice of Haṭhayoga. Probably intended for personal use by practitioners, the manual provides uniquely detailed instructions on a range of topics, including the yogi’s hut, yama and niyama, ṣaṭkarma, prāṇāyāma and mudrā. The most important feature of the text, however, is its treatment of 112 āsanas, many of which are not found in other yoga texts. Some involve repetitive or sequential movements and others require the use of ropes. In the nineteenth century, a manuscript of the text found its way into the Mysore Palace, where it may have had an influence on modern yoga through the teachings of T. Krishnamacharya.
Jason Birch (DPhil Oxon) is a historian of South Asian traditions of yoga and medicine. His recent publications include Āsanas of the Yogacintāmaṇi and The Amaraugha and Amaraughaprabodha of Gorakṣanātha. At SOAS University of London, he was a Senior Research Fellow of the Light on Haṭha Project (2021–2023) and a Post-doctoral Research Fellow of the Haṭha Yoga Project (2015–2020).
Mark Singleton is a Research Associate at SOAS University of London. His work focuses on the intersection of “modern” and “traditional” yoga. His publications include Yoga Body, the Origins of Modern Posture Practice (2010), Roots of Yoga(2017, with James Mallinson) and four co-edited volumes of scholarship on yoga.
James Mallinson is Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford. From 2013 to 2023 he worked at SOAS University of London, where in 2018 he established the SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies. From 2015 to 2020 he was Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded Hatha Yoga Project and from 2021 to 2024 Principal Investigator of the AHRC/DFG-funded Light on Hatha project, which produced a critical edition of the Haṭhapradīpikā.
| Autor: | Jason Birch, Mark Singleton, James Mallinson |