Yogis, Ayurveda, and Kayakalpa: The Rejuvenation of Pandit Malaviya

How should we read claims about health and well-being which defy common sense? Are claims of extreme longevity to be viewed as fraudulent, or as pushing the boundaries of possibility for the human body? This article will consider the narrative and context around a particularly well-publicized incident of rejuvenation therapy, advertised as kāyakalpa (body transformation or rejuvenation), from 1938. In this year, the prominent Congress Activist and co-founder of Banaras Hindu University, Madan Mohan Malaviya (1861–1946), underwent an extreme – and very public – rejuvenation treatment under the care of a sadhu using the name of Shriman Tapasviji (c.1770?-1955). The first half of the article will explore the presentation of Malaviya’s treatment and how it inspired a focus on rejuvenation therapy within Indian medicine in the years immediately following. Exploring this mid-twentieth century incident highlight some of the themes and concerns of the historical period, just out of living memory, but in many ways similar to our own

Transmutations: Rejuvenation, Longevity, and Immortality Practices in South and Inner Asia

Introduction to Special Issue of Edited Journal - Transmutations: Rejuvenation, Longevity, and Immortality Practices in South and Inner Asia Wild and diverse outcomes are associated with transmutational practices: the prolongation of life, the recovery of youth, the cure of diseases, invincibility, immortality, enlightenment, liberation from the cycle of rebirths, and unending bliss. This range of outcomes is linked to specific practices taught in separate traditions and lineages in medical, alchemical, yogic and tantric milieus across South and Inner Asia. In this special issue of HSSA, we examine transmutational practices and their underlying concepts in the wider context of South and Inner Asian culture. How do these practices and ideas connect and cross-fertilise? And conversely, how are they delineated and distinct

Should Canada Re-join the Pan American Institute of Geography and History (PAIGH)?

PAIGH was formed in 1928, in Havana, as the first specialized organization of the Organization of American States. Headquarters remain in Mexico City. The organization is supported by a quota of its members as determined by the OAS. PAIGH members now include virtually all of the Latin American states. Canada was a member until 1997, but has since withdrawn

Guest Editorial for a Special Issue of Religions of South Asia: Yoga Darśana, Yoga Sādhana: traditions, transmissions and transformations

This special issue of Religions of South Asia is born out of this expanding area of study and collaboration between contemporary practitioners and established academic methods of study. Most of the articles in this volume were first presented at an international ‘Yoga Darśana, Yoga Sādhana’ conference hosted in Kraków, Poland in May 2016. The Krakow conference was initiated by Matylda Ciołkosz and Robert Czyżykowski of the Institute for the Study of Religions, Jagiellonian University and was co-sponsored by the Modern Yoga Research network established by Elizabeth de Michelis, with the help of Mark Singleton and Suzanne Newcombe

Coverage-adjusted confidence intervals for a binomial proportion

We consider the classic problem of interval estimation of a proportion $p$ based on binomial sampling. The "exact" Clopper-Pearson confidence interval for $p$ is known to be unnecessarily conservative. We propose coverage-adjustments of the Clopper-Pearson interval using prior and posterior distributions of $p$. The adjusted intervals have improved coverage and are often shorter than competing intervals found in the literature. Using new heatmap-type plots for comparing confidence intervals, we find that the coverage-adjusted intervals are particularly suitable for $p$ close to 0 or 1.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, 2 table

The institutionalization of the yoga tradition: ''gurus'' B. K. S. Iyengar and Yogini Sunita in Britain

The guru-śiṣya (guru-disciple) relationship is often considered an essential aspect of the transmission of yoga. Yet at the beginning of the twenty-first century, intense one-on-one yoga tuition from master to pupil is exceptional. There are now millions who describe themselves as practising yoga, the majority of them in group classes (Carter, 2004). Is it possible to have transmission of an authentic yoga tradition without an immediate guru-śiṣya relationship? In this chapter I will argue that an important characteristic contributing to the successful popularization of the Modern Postural Yoga (De Michelis, 2005: 188) as a global phenomenon has been the institutionalisation of charisma away from a direct guru-śiṣya interaction. My argument is based on a comparison between two key figures in the spread of yoga in 1960s Britain: B. K. S. Iyengar and Yogini Sunita. Both cases are examples of how personal charisma in teaching yoga were incorporated into a highly bureaucratic, state-funded adult education system. I will argue that the way Iyengar institutionalized his charisma was a direct contributing factor to his system's worldwide popularization. In contrast, Sunita's exceptional charisma was not successfully institutionalized into a globally known system and has now been virtually forgotten. In the 1960s the British adult education system was faced with a demand for yoga teaching, but without any established means of assessing the quality or qualifications of a yoga teacher. As early as 1965, Birmingham City Council was concerned about the proper qualifications for yoga practitioners. In an article reported in the London Times, the Council was said to be concerned abut the "hundreds" who had enrolled for yoga in adult education venues. Apparently, there had been an attempt at "methodological investigation" of yoga, but this was found to prove "an irritating business" ("Birmingham Tries to Size Up All This Yoga", 1965). The article described how one popular Birmingham yoga teacher had Keep-Fit qualifications but had learned yoga from books, while another teacher was a woman of Indian origin who "appeared to know quite a lot" but had not "graduated from a yoga academy" (likely Yogini Sunita). The article questioned, however, "If there were yoga graduates, would they, on the whole, be quite the sort of people one really wants?" (ibid.). Both Sunita and Iyengar were able to convince the local educational authorities in Birmingham and London, respectively, that they had the necessary skills and expertise to be a safe choice for state-funded yoga. From reading contemporary reports, both Sunita and Iyengar had an exceptional ability to give an almost immediate experiential understanding of what they termed yoga to many with whom they interacted, although the means to obtain this aim were somewhat different for each. According to Max Weber's (1947: 328) theories, this type of authority could be termed charismatic. Weber characterized charismatic authority as the motivating force for change in society, an inherently unstable, potentially revolutionary force that is "foreign to everyday routine structures" (ibid.). For any lasting organization to be created from charismatic authority, Weber argued that charismatic authority must be "radically changed" and he termed this process the "routinization of charisma" (ibid., p.364). In this chapter I focus on the importance of the routinization of charisma for creating global Modern Postural Yoga. However, this discussion is not intended to deny that the charisma of a guru remains an important reference point for many yoga practitioners. The transformative potential of an intense teacher-student interaction remains an integral aspect of many people's experience of yoga. But by drawing attention to the process of how charisma was routinized (or not), the tension between the emphasis on yoga teaching qualifications and the transformative experience of a guru-śiṣya relationship can be better understood