A Comprehensive History of Yoga: Research and Scholarship

What Will I Learn?

Over the 8 weeks of the course you will study:

• What is yoga? How has the meaning of the term developed through the ages?
• The historical background to the rise of yoga
• Yogic ideas and references to yoga in the Upaniṣads and the Mahābhārata
• An introduction to the yoga system of Patañjali
• Recent innovative scholarship on the yoga of Patañjali
• The yoga practices of the early tantrics
• Origins and hallmarks of early haṭha yoga
• Rāja yoga and its relationship with haṭha yoga
• The rise of āsana, and the growth of modern postural yoga
• The interaction of yoga with fitness, religion and politics

How long will I have access to course material?

Included in the course is six months' extra access to course materials after the course end date.

Hours and Certification

You will receive a Yogacampus certificate of completion on finishing the course, stating the course duration of study as 8 weeks.

Meet the Teachers

The course is delivered by top yoga academics, scholars and practitioners who between them represent the cutting edge of knowledge in the field of yoga history. They are:

• Dr. Mark Singleton: Dr. Singleton is a Senior Research Fellow at SOAS, University of London, and Senior Researcher on the Haṭha Yoga Project. He is an expert on yoga in the pre-colonial and modern world (in which field he obtained a PhD from Cambridge University), and has published several books and articles on yoga. He co-edited the recent widely acclaimed book Roots of Yoga, and his earlier book Yoga Body: the Origins of Modern Posture Practice has become a classic in the study of yoga history.
• Dr. James Mallinson: Reader in Indology and Yoga Studies at SOAS, and Principal Investigator for the Haṭha Yoga Project, Dr. Mallinson is probably the world’s leading expert on the tradition of haṭha yoga. He holds a doctorate from Oxford University, and has published several books and articles, including co-editing Roots of Yoga with Mark Singleton.
• Dr. Jason Birch: Dr. Birch is a Sanskrit scholar and post-doctoral researcher on the Haṭha Yoga Project. His specialisations include the tradition of rāja yoga (in which he obtained his PhD from Oxford University) and the study of the early proliferation of yoga postures, on both of which he has published a number of articles in peer reviewed journals.
• Dr. Somdev Vasudeva: Dr. Vasudeva received his PhD from Oxford University in 2000 for his work on tantric yoga, and is considered one of the world’s leading scholars of yoga in the tantric traditions. He is currently Associate Professor of Indian Philosophy and Transcultural Studies at Kyoto University in Japan.
• Dr. Graham Burns: Graham Burns is a former Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS, from where he holds an MA in Religions, and a PhD on the philosophical teachings of the Upaniṣads. A yoga teacher since 2001, Graham also teaches the yoga history components of the Yogacampus Yoga Teacher Training Diploma courses.
• Dr Karen O’Brien-Kop: previously a Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS and now Lecturer in Asian Religions and Ethics at the University of Roehampton, Karen holds an MA from SOAS in Traditions of Yoga and Meditation, and a PhD from SOAS on the yoga of Patañjali in relation to Buddhist textual accounts of yoga in the first millennium CE.

We are also delighted to include contributions by other leading academics and teachers.

The course moderator, Amelia Wood, is a PhD candidate at SOAS, University of London, researching modern transnational yoga movements. She completed her MA in Traditions of Yoga and Meditation at SOAS in 2015. Amelia has been teaching yoga and working in the yoga world for over ten years. Her teaching focuses on the therapeutic application of yoga following the Krishnamacharya tradition.