{"title":"The Ethics of Yoga and the Spirit of Godmen","authors":"Joseph S. Alter","doi":"10.3167/sa.2022.660403","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nDrawing on Weber's classic study of religion, salvation, and the motivation to be a successful capitalist, this article problematizes the relationship among competition and the embodiment of success in the practice of yoga in modern India. Contemporary postural yoga has been popularized in ways that fetishize the body and the relation between the body and enlightenment. It has become a sign of self-realization in a mode that reflects the possibility of transcendence. So-called godmen in India, who embody this possibility, popularize yoga in different ways. Contrasting Swami Sivananda's brand of twentieth-century yoga in the context of Nehruvian modernity with Baba Ramdev's yoga as an expression of free market religious nationalism, this article examines the work that embodied competition does in different ideological contexts.","PeriodicalId":51701,"journal":{"name":"Social Analysis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Social Analysis","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2022.660403","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Drawing on Weber's classic study of religion, salvation, and the motivation to be a successful capitalist, this article problematizes the relationship among competition and the embodiment of success in the practice of yoga in modern India. Contemporary postural yoga has been popularized in ways that fetishize the body and the relation between the body and enlightenment. It has become a sign of self-realization in a mode that reflects the possibility of transcendence. So-called godmen in India, who embody this possibility, popularize yoga in different ways. Contrasting Swami Sivananda's brand of twentieth-century yoga in the context of Nehruvian modernity with Baba Ramdev's yoga as an expression of free market religious nationalism, this article examines the work that embodied competition does in different ideological contexts.
期刊介绍：
Social Analysis is an international peer-reviewed journal devoted to exploring the analytical potentials of anthropological research. It encourages contributions grounded in original empirical research that critically probe established paradigms of social and cultural analysis. The journal expresses the best that anthropology has to offer by exploring in original ways the relationship between ethnographic materials and theoretical insight. By forging creative and critical engagements with cultural, political, and social processes, it also opens new avenues of communication between anthropology and the humanities as well as other social sciences. The journal publishes four issues per year, including regular Special Issues on particular themes. The Editors welcome individual articles that focus on diverse topics and regions, reflect varied theoretical approaches and methods, and aim to appeal widely within anthropology and beyond. Proposals for Special Issues are selected by the Editorial Board through an annual competitive call.
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