Untangling Traditions
Yoga, ayurveda and alchemy have historically been considered different disciplinary fields. However, evidence also demonstrates complex interactions and areas of significant overlap. The AyurYog project’s goal has been to reveal the historical entanglements of these fields of knowledge and practice, and to trace the trajectories of their evolution as components of today’s global healthcare and personal development industries.
Drawing upon the primary historical sources of each respective discipline as well as on fieldwork data, we have explored their shared terminology, practical applications and discourses. Our research reveals how past encounters and cross-fertilizations have informed and shaped these bodies of knowledge over time.
These presentations introduce some of the project results and outputs and showcase our collaborations with other research projects, scholars and practitioners. We reflect on our research processes and critically explore methodologies. Finally, we offer important emerging directions for future research.
Project Introduction
A conversation between Dagmar Wujastyk (Principal Investigator, AyurYog) and Jacqueline Hargreaves (The Luminescent) giving a general introduction to the project: who has been involved, what we have been researching, what some of our results are, and where we go from here.
Yoga as Medicine in Modern India
An interview with Dr Suzanne Newcombe, Post-doctoral Research Fellow on the AyurYog project. Dr Newcombe discusses the institutionalisation of yoga as medicine in modern India.
Philology and Experimentation: Reconstructing Alchemical Procedures
An interview with Dr Dagmar Wujastyk and Andrew Mason about their collaboration on recreating alchemical procedures. See also the accompanying blog post.
Yoga and Medicine in the Dharmaputrikā
An interview with Dr Christèle Barois, Post-doctoral Research Fellow on the AyurYog project. Dr Barois discusses yoga and medicine in the Dharmaputrikā, the “Little Daughter of Dharma” — an early yoga manual that includes elaborate descriptions of methods for overcoming obstacles to success in yoga as well as methods for curing diseases.
Yoga and Ayurveda: Shared Theory and Terminology
Dr Jason Birch of the Haṭha Yoga Project discusses his research on yoga and Ayurveda (Indian medicine), which aims to determine their shared theory and terminology; compare the Indian medical body with the ‘yogic’ metaphysical body; and provide examples of historical yogins who claimed to be doctors and healers.
The Alchemy Reader
The Alchemy Reader will provide a broad introduction to Indian alchemy, tracing and explaining alchemical thought as it developed on the Indian subcontinent. Drawing on a selection of the most important Sanskrit alchemical works from the tenth to eighteenth centuries, it will offer the reader deep insight into the motivations and goals of Indian alchemists and illuminate the theories and methods they developed over time.
This will be the first book to bring together texts from the entire range of Indian alchemical thought, each piece serving to expand our understanding of what it meant to practice alchemy on the Indian subcontinent. Many of the Sanskrit alchemical works have never before been translated into English.
Contributors talk about their chapters in the following videos:
Prof. Dagmar Wujastyk speaks about her research in Indian alchemy and the creation of a field of study through the publication of an Alchemy Reader. Her contributions include the introduction to the volume, a chapter on the Rasahṛdayatantra, a chapter on the Rasaprakāśasudhākara, and a co-written chapter with Dr Priyanka Chorge on the Rasaratnasamuccaya.
Dr Patricia Sauthoff, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Alberta, discusses her three contributions to the Alchemy Reader:
- The alchemical laboratory: The Rasendracūḍāmaṇi (12th–13th century), Chapter Three
- Potency, virility, sexual pleasure: The Rasamañjarī (15th century), Chapter Nine
- Alchemical instruments: The Rasakāmadhenu (16th/17th century), Section One, Chapter One
Keith Cantú, PhD Candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, discusses his chapter on the Rasaratnākara’s Rasāyanakhaṇḍa. The Rasaratnākara is one of the longest and most complex Sanskrit alchemical treatises. Its chapter on pilgrimage at Srisailam describes what actions an adept (sādhaka) should take to benefit from the alchemical wonders of that site — an unusual but significant topic, as it informs pilgrims’ ritual activities in the region even today.
Dr Priyanka Chorge, an ayurvedic doctor in Hamburg studying for an MA in South Asian studies, discusses her contribution on “Medicine and Alchemy in the Rasaratnasamuccaya,” a 15th- or 16th-century Sanskrit work that became the classic work of Indian alchemy. Chapter 19 is dedicated to the ayurvedic category of abdominal diseases (udararoga) and their treatment.
Prof. Dominik Wujastyk, a Sanskritist specializing in Indian medicine (Ayurveda), alchemy (rasaśāstra), and the history of linguistics (vyākaraṇa), talks about his contribution: a chapter introducing the Rasendramaṅgala, whose fourth chapter presents an exposition by the famous Indian alchemist Nāgārjuna on the arts of aurifaction and making elixirs of immortality.
Dr James Mallinson, Professor at SOAS and Principal Investigator of the Haṭha Yoga Project, describes his work on the Amṛtasiddhi, an eleventh-century text on yoga that uses alchemical metaphors for yogic processes. The Amṛtasiddhi is the earliest substantial text on what became haṭha yoga, written in both Sanskrit and Tibetan, with a number of Buddhist features.