The first recorded
contact between yoga and western thought occurred during the times of
Plato (428–348 BCE) and his disciple Aristotle (384–322 BCE). The
Greeks had heard much about the Indian yogis, whom they called gymnosophists (“naked philosophers”) and greatly admired their depth of wisdom.
In 327 BCE
Alexander the Great invaded a small portion of India, only to abandon
it, exhausted, after two years and move on to Persia. Alexander the
Great had been instilled with a deep appreciation of philosophy by his
master Aristotle as well as by the unorthodox teacher Diogenes, and was
eager to learn from yogis. The Greek historian Plutarch recounts two
interesting episodes in the life of Alexander in this respect.
Once Alexander
sent one of his messengers, Onesikritos (a student of Diogenes) to
summon a great forest-dwelling sage called Dandini (known as Dandamis
in Greek) to come to Alexander’s camp and engage in some philosophical
discourse with him. The sage, absorbed in blissful contemplation, gave
no answer. Onesikritos warned the yogi that Alexander did not take
kindly to not being obeyed, and that he would have the sage put to
death if he did not comply with his request. To which Dandini calmly
remarked that the tyrant may well cut off his head, but could never
disturb the peace of his soul… something that Alexander had apparently
never found in all his wanderings and conquests. When Alexander
received the message, he was seized by the greatest desire to meet such
a fearless sage, and came to him willingly. The great yogi taught him
that the body belongs to man, but that man does not belong to the body,
so even beheading does not bring any suffering to one established in
soul consciousness.
Another time,
Alexander’s army had captured a large group of prisoners in a fierce
battle, amongst which were ten brahmin yogis. Alexander decided to test
their wisdom with some trick questions, specifying that whoever gave
the worst answer would be the first to die. Having appointed the oldest
brahmin to be the judge of the competition, he began the
interrogation.
To the first yogi
he asked, “Which be the more numerous, the living or the dead?” “The
living,” said the yogi, “because the dead no longer count.”
“Which breeds more creatures, the sea or the land?” Alexander asked the second. “The land,” was his answer, “because the sea is only a part of it.”
Turning to the third brahmin, he asked “Which is the cleverest of beasts?”
“The one we have not found yet” he replied.
Alexander asked the fourth what argument he had used to stir up the Indians to fight against him, and he answered: “Only that one should either live nobly or die nobly.”
“Which existed first, the day or the night?” he asked the fifth yogi. “The day was first… by one day” he answered. As Alexander looked dissatisfied with this answer, the sage added: “Strange questions deserve strange answers.”
“What should a man do to make himself loved?” asked Alexander. The sixth yogi replied: “Be powerful without making yourself be feared.”
Alexander then asked a question very dear to his heart “What does a man have to do to become a god?” The seventh yogi responded: “Do what is impossible for a man to do.”
“Which is stronger, life or death?” he questioned the eighth yogi, who responded: “Life, because it bears so many miseries.”
To the ninth yogi he asked “How long is it proper for a man to live?”, and he said: “Until it seems better to die.”
Finally, Alexander turned to the last yogi officiating as the judge, and asked him for his verdict. The old sage said that each one had answered worse than the other. “You will die first, then, for delivering such a judgment,” said Alexander. “Not so, mighty king” said the yogi, “as you said that you would kill first the one who made the worst answer.”
Alexander was so impressed with each of the ten yogis’ sagacity that he set them all free and rewarded them richly. He further requested the oldest one, Swami Sphines, to stay on as his personal guide and instructor, to which the sage agreed.
Swami Sphines became known as Kalanos in Greek—due to the old saint’s custom of always uttering the name of his chosen deity, Kali.
Kalanos accompanied Alexander to Persia, where he left his body in extraordinary circumstances. Sensing the time of his death coming near, he embraced all his intimate friends, but he only looked at Alexander and addressed him with the words “I shall meet you shortly in Babylon”. He then calmly entered his own funeral pyre and let himself be consumed to ashes in front of the whole Macedonian army. A year later, on June 13, 323 BCE, Alexander died outside the walls of Babylon. Kalanos’ words had proved true, and guru and disciple were reunited beyond life and death.
“Which breeds more creatures, the sea or the land?” Alexander asked the second. “The land,” was his answer, “because the sea is only a part of it.”
Turning to the third brahmin, he asked “Which is the cleverest of beasts?”
“The one we have not found yet” he replied.
Alexander asked the fourth what argument he had used to stir up the Indians to fight against him, and he answered: “Only that one should either live nobly or die nobly.”
“Which existed first, the day or the night?” he asked the fifth yogi. “The day was first… by one day” he answered. As Alexander looked dissatisfied with this answer, the sage added: “Strange questions deserve strange answers.”
“What should a man do to make himself loved?” asked Alexander. The sixth yogi replied: “Be powerful without making yourself be feared.”
Alexander then asked a question very dear to his heart “What does a man have to do to become a god?” The seventh yogi responded: “Do what is impossible for a man to do.”
“Which is stronger, life or death?” he questioned the eighth yogi, who responded: “Life, because it bears so many miseries.”
To the ninth yogi he asked “How long is it proper for a man to live?”, and he said: “Until it seems better to die.”
Finally, Alexander turned to the last yogi officiating as the judge, and asked him for his verdict. The old sage said that each one had answered worse than the other. “You will die first, then, for delivering such a judgment,” said Alexander. “Not so, mighty king” said the yogi, “as you said that you would kill first the one who made the worst answer.”
Alexander was so impressed with each of the ten yogis’ sagacity that he set them all free and rewarded them richly. He further requested the oldest one, Swami Sphines, to stay on as his personal guide and instructor, to which the sage agreed.
Swami Sphines became known as Kalanos in Greek—due to the old saint’s custom of always uttering the name of his chosen deity, Kali.
Kalanos accompanied Alexander to Persia, where he left his body in extraordinary circumstances. Sensing the time of his death coming near, he embraced all his intimate friends, but he only looked at Alexander and addressed him with the words “I shall meet you shortly in Babylon”. He then calmly entered his own funeral pyre and let himself be consumed to ashes in front of the whole Macedonian army. A year later, on June 13, 323 BCE, Alexander died outside the walls of Babylon. Kalanos’ words had proved true, and guru and disciple were reunited beyond life and death.
Two fresh waves
of occupation in India re-started the spreading of yoga abroad: the
Muslim invasions between 1200 and 1700, which fostered the westward
dissemination of yogic mysticism through Sufism; and the British
colonization (1600-1947) which opened up a flood of interest from
western scholars, institutions and students for this timeless
discipline and philosophy.
Some of the most
notable milestones of this renaissance in oriental and yogic studies
were the formation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 (which
brought to light a wealth of information about Hindu culture and
Sanskrit literature), the foundation of the Theosophical Society in
1875 (which originally concerned itself with Kabala and gnosticism, but
shifted more to their own blend of Hinduism and occultism after the
founder Madam Blavatsky’s visit to India in 1879), and the publication
of the 51-volume collection The Sacred Books of the East (1879–1904) under the direction of German Orientalist Max Müller.
This intense
European scholarly activity also contributed to introduce a number of
grave philosophical misconceptions and historical myths about India,
Hinduism, and Yoga. This is only a natural consequence when
encountering a great and rich civilization which forces us to confront
our own limitations. As the great historian Will Durant once said,
“History is mostly guessing; the rest is prejudice.”
For starters,
there is no such country as “India,” and not a single scripture or text
in the whole of South Asia has ever mentioned this name. The true name
of the country has always been Bharata, an ancient Sanskrit term which means “engrossed (rata) in divine illumination (bha)”—referring
to a land which has ever specialized in the science of spiritual
illumination above all. The country was also known as Bharata-varsha
(“land of Bharata”), a continent-like land which covered present-day
Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, as well as a small
portion of Iran.
The name “India” is of foreign import and is usually traced back to Alexander the Great (yes, him again!). When he attempted to invade India in 325 BCE, he first encountered the Sindhu river (in modern-day Pakistan) and renamed it as the Indu, dropping the initial “S” to make it easier for a Greek tongue to pronounce. This became known as the Indus. His Macedonian forces thereafter called the land east of the Indus as “India,” a name which gained popularity only during the British regime. The name “India” may have gained prominence due to politics, but Bharata really describes the soul of the land.
The name “India” is of foreign import and is usually traced back to Alexander the Great (yes, him again!). When he attempted to invade India in 325 BCE, he first encountered the Sindhu river (in modern-day Pakistan) and renamed it as the Indu, dropping the initial “S” to make it easier for a Greek tongue to pronounce. This became known as the Indus. His Macedonian forces thereafter called the land east of the Indus as “India,” a name which gained popularity only during the British regime. The name “India” may have gained prominence due to politics, but Bharata really describes the soul of the land.
Just as there is no India, there are no Hindus or Hinduism either. The religion had previously been known as Sanatana dharma (the eternal law), Vaidika dharma (law of the Vedas), Arya dharma (the noble religion), or Manava dharma (the religion of mankind).
The origin of the
term “Hindu” is still subject to considerable scholarly and religious
debate, but the prevalent view is that it came with the Muslim invaders
from Afghanistan and Persia in the 12th century, who renamed the river
Sindhu as the river Hindu, because the Sanskrit sound of “S” converts
to “H” in the Parsee language. Thereafter, the name “Hindu” was
extended to describe the inhabitants from that area in the northwest of
the subcontinent where the Sindhu River flowed, and the region itself
was called “Hindustan.” It was only during the British colonization
period that the term took on a religious coloring, and the word
“Hinduism” was introduced, to describe the religion of the natives as
contrasted with the religion of the Muslims. Here again, political
powers created the concept, in order to better rule through division.
Today, some people have started substituting the term “Hindus” for sanatana-dharmists, while others have shortened it to sanatanis or dharmists, which better illustrate the universal nature of the Vedic path.
Finally, there
is no reference in any of the scriptures to a “Vedic religion” or
“Vedic culture” – these terms were once again invented by Western
scholars. It would be more appropriate to speak of an Eternal Tradition
and Culture.
It is worth
noting that Western scholars’ interest in India and Yoga was not
exclusively motivated by a love of knowledge and scientific curiosity,
and history has later revealed many twisted motives behind this
research. But the beauty of yogic values and wisdom can convert even
some of its fiercest opponents at times. Max Müller (1823-1900) was
representative of a general tendency amongst many Western Christian
scholars of that time – to demonstrate, through their biased
translations, the inferiority and savagery of the Vedic religion and
Indian civilization, and prepare it for conversion to Christianity. In a
letter addressed to his wife and mother in 1867 for instance, he
explained, “It took only 200 years for us to Christianise the whole of
Africa, but even after 400 years India eludes us. I have come to
realize that it is Sanskrit which has enabled India to do so. And to
break it I have decided to learn Sanskrit.” And yet, as he progressed
through his colossal task of supervising the translation of all the
sacred books of the East, Max Müller’s soul was seized by such a
profound awe and respect for the Vedic culture that he wrote, later in
his life, “If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully
developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the
greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to
India.”
One myth wholly
fabricated by the Indologists and Euro-centric scholars of that time
was the theory of the Aryan invasion, according to which conquering
legions of white 'Aryans' from Central Asia invaded North India on
horseback around 1500 BCE and ultimately displaced India's Dravidian
tribes towards the southern tip of the subcontinent or turned them into
low-caste people. These invaders supposedly brought many technological
and agricultural advancements, as well as the Vedas to the country.
Despite the fact that not a single Hindu text ever mentioned such an
invasion, this theory was uncritically accepted. The British Empire in
particular enthusiastically seized upon this theory for a number of
reasons:
It created two classes of Indians which could conveniently be pitted against each other—the Dravidians (the “subjugated primitive Indians” exiled in the South) and the Aryans (“the sophisticated invading foreigners” in the North). The “divide to conquer” strategy found its perfect weapon.
It fitted with the ignorant Biblical chronology of the time as conceived by Archbishop Ussher in 1650, who placed the beginning of the world on Sunday 23 October 4004 BC (“at 9 am”, added the helpful Sir John Lightfoot a few years later), and the end of the flood on Wednesday 5 May 2348 BC (no time given—but 5 pm is my guess).It established that the Vedas were of foreign import, and that India had no great native religion.It gave a European basis to all sciences, arts and achievements of ancient India, providing an easy justification for the new masters of India to help themselves to “what was theirs in the first place.”
Fortunately new
astrological, satellite and archaeological evidence has now greatly
discredited such a “convenient truth”, for instance:
A wealth of other discoveries have been unearthed (see for instance David Frawley’s book Gods, Sages and Kings: Vedic Secrets of Ancient Civilization for a remarkable scholarly presentation); yet the majority of scholars today are still clinging to their old-cherished notion of an India which owes everything—including yoga—to its foreign influencesExcavations have shown that the Indus Valley culture (2800 BCE-1800 BCE)—the supposed center of invasion by the Aryans— was not destroyed by outside conquerors, but by natural causes (the drying up of the Saraswati river being probably one of them—see below).Satellite photography has shown that the Saraswati river—which is mentioned in the Vedas but nowhere to be found on earth—went dry and took an underground course at the end of the Indus Valley culture.Many ancient cities have been discovered in Western India, particularly in Punjab, Gujarat and Rajasthan, revealing large numbers of fire altars, potsherds, shell jewelry and other artifacts used in the rituals described in the Vedas.Careful calculations based on the Vedic calendar have been able to fix certain historical dates. The Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda for instance mention a vernal equinox occurring in the nakshatra of Krittikas (or Pleiades, which corresponds to the beginning of the sign of Taurus) nd a summer solstice in the nakshatra of Magha (corresponding to the beginning of the sign of Leo). This gives a date of about 2400 BCE, much earlier than the supposed Aryan invasion of 1500 BCE.