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What a wonderful job James Mallinson and Mark Singleton have done with their collection of PrimaryYoga sources for Penguin, Roots of Yoga.
It's highly readable and dip in'able.
The kindle version is available now and it's ideal for this kind of a text. Each chapter has an introduction introducing elements of the topic within a chapter with hyperlinks that allow you to jump straight to selections as well as to the notes. Kindle allows you to jump back to where you were after reading the note or selected text.
The publishers have also included page numbers on the kindle edition for reference.
I spent the better part of my morning reading through the introductions to each of the chapters dipping into selections along the way.
Here's an example from the introduction to first chapter 'Yoga'
and following the hyperlink 1.1.5 to the selection from Patanjali
Tap on the screen and it will bring up the page number as well as kindle location. Tap on the arrow that appears on the left and it will take you back to where you were in the introduction.
It's addictive.
It used to be such a pain going back and forth to notes and selections, kindle ( or in my case the kindle app for ipad) makes it easy.
I feared the text and selections would focus mostly on tantra/hatha but given the title it delves sufficiently into the roots of those practices by looking at the pre tantra/hatha texts from the 6th century, Patanjali, his commentators and back even further to the Mahabharata, Upanishads, and even to early references in the vedas.
Best of all it's in Penguin so no doubt I'll pick up the paperback when it's released in April.
I'm sure to be quoting selections here all year ( as well as perhaps adding to this poast) but for now here's the contents page.
If you go to Amazon.uk you can get a look at the introduction or download the sample which includes a nice timeline of texts.
Appendix
'Roots of Yoga' on you Mac or PC
You can also download Kindle for your PC or Mac and open the book there, this allows you to bring up your notes (and or highlights) side by side with the text
below I've followed the hyperlink above to the criticisms of hatha yoga in the Amanaskar.
The Amanaska, I see from the timeline was a 12th century text. The list of primary sources at the back of the book show me that this was translated by Jason Birch in 2013 as part of his Dphil.
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Links
Links
Modern Yoga Research
Dr James Mallinson
Dr Mark Singleton
The Hatha Yoga Project
THE LUMINESCENT
This is the blog of Jason Birch and Jacqueline Hargreaves. It contains articles on their historical research on yoga as well as their thoughts on contemporary yoga practice.
