Introduction

Abstract

This volume is the outcome of a workshop held at SOAS University of London in November 2019, under the auspices of the five-year, ERC-funded Haṭha Yoga Project (HYP). The workshop was organised because of several questions that had been on our minds for some time: considering the centuries-long presence of multiple embodied traditions in India, what was the relationship between the physical practices of yoga and other physical disciplines that bear certain similarities to yoga, at least in appearance? Had there been interchange or even influence across and between different physical disciplines and the practices of yoga? Could such a perspective on the history of yoga help to understand better any of its developments?