1960s
20th century
A01=David Gordon White
academic
accessible
Age Group_Uncategorized
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Author_David Gordon White
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HRAX
Category=HRLK
Category=HRLP1
Category=QRAX
Category=QRR
Category=QRVK
Category=QRVS1
contemporary
COP=United States
cultural
culture
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eastern
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eq_nobargain
finance
hipster
historical
history
housewife
industry
Language_English
literature
modern
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myth
new age
old aged
PA=Available
popular
power
practice
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
religion
religious studies
scholarly
sexuality
softlaunch
south asia
spiritual
spirituality
supernatural
teacher
true story
wealth
western
yoga
Product details
- ISBN 9780226895147
- Weight: 567g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 30 Mar 2011
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Since the 1960s, yoga has become a billion-dollar industry in the West, attracting housewives and hipsters, New Agers and the old-aged. But our modern conception of yoga derives much from nineteenth-century European spirituality, and the true story of yoga's origins in South Asia is far richer, stranger, and more entertaining than most of us realize. To uncover this history, David Gordon White focuses on yoga's practitioners. Combing through millennia of South Asia's vast and diverse literature, he discovers that yogis are usually portrayed as wonder-workers or sorcerers who use their dangerous supernatural abilities - which can include raising the dead, possession, and levitation - to acquire power, wealth, and sexual gratification. As White shows, even those yogis who aren't downright villainous bear little resemblance to Western assumptions about them. By turns rollicking and sophisticated, "Sinister Yogis" tears down the image of yogis as detached, contemplative teachers, finally placing them in their proper context.
David Gordon White is professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of several books, including The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India and Kiss of the Yogini: "Tantric Sex" in its South Asian Contexts.
