This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||
|
This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
I propose to merge Yoga (postural) into Hatha_yoga. The content in the Prostural Yoga article is IMO a series of insinuations by Western scholars disassociating yogic asanas from Hinduism which can easily be incorporated in the context of Hatha Yoga. Moreover, most of the things are being repeated in Postural Yoga from Hatha Yoga. Rioter 1 ( talk) 04:52, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Oppose. Modern postural yoga is a worldwide non-religious activity carried out by millions of people from the mid-20th century onwards for fitness, relaxation and well-being. Hatha yoga was a minor branch of medieval Hinduism carried out by Nath yogins from around 1100 to around 1800 AD, despised by Brahmins and other high-caste Hindus, after which its practice declined. Hatha yoga consisted of Shatkarmas (Kriyas), Bandhas, a limited number of mainly seated Asanas, Drishti, Pranayama and Mudras and was performed to purify the supposed Nadi channels in the yoga body, so as to enable the serpent Kundalini to rise through the Sushumna channel and enable Samadhi and ultimately Moksha, spiritual liberation. Modern postural yoga consists of many hundreds of Asanas, mostly created or adopted from gymnastics in the 20th century, and occasionally a little Pranayama: all the other components of Hatha yoga are much reduced or absent. The reuse of the name "yoga" was political, to do with early 20th century Hindu nationalism, creating a distinctively Indian method of exercise. Hatha yoga was never performed for exercise; it was always private; it was entirely uncommercial. Modern postural yoga always involves exercise, often as its dominant component; it is largely public, and now involves fashionable clothing, contributing to an image of urban cool: it could scarcely be more distant from private Hindu ritual practice. The article makes clear that there is some historical connection, but it is one of sharp difference in content and even sharper difference in objectives.
To reply directly to your unfounded allegations:
I should make one more thing clear for other readers, which is that "hatha yoga" is in use (e.g. in England) to mean "non-denominational postural yoga", as distinct from brands like Bikram Yoga and Iyengar Yoga. "Hatha yoga" classes do not however teach haṭha yoga with its kriyas, bandhas, and so on, but a gentle variety of postural yoga, often mainly for women. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 10:30, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Oppose. SHORT ANSWER: According to WP:N the term 'modern postural yoga' or 'modern yoga' is eligible for a standalone page. LONGER ANSWER: 'Modern Yoga' isn't a useful distinction to make (because of the problems with periodization). It is an invented term that is used inconsistently. If we were to follow normative periodizations we would have to include Vivekananda with say 'Bikram Yoga' which doesn't really help anyone understand what is actually going on today any better. Whatever we think of the scholarship (and personally I think: 'not much') the point is Wikipedia has clear rules on this. EVEN LONGER ANSWER: Hatha Yoga has also developed into a catch-all for a variety of activities that may or may not resemble earlier forms. We are dealing with highly polysemous terms which evade reliable analysis. Modern postural yoga may have borrowed from 20th century gymnastics but it is nevertheless symbolically comparable to earlier forms in the hearts/minds of people that practice it. The reuse of the name "yoga" still is political, today it is used to sell consumer goods, keep-fit regimes and 'spiritual but not religious' sentiments. It is linked with the political economy of neoliberalism, American exceptionalism, Victorian (British) feminized patriarchal respectability, gothic imaginaries, globalization, beatnik counter culture and much more besides. It is naive to suggest we can even talk from a post-political position about yoga today. There is evidence of yoga as far back as the 15th C being performed at trade fairs and at different places along the Silk route. Yoga has always had a mercantile element too with links to Banyan merchants and so forth. Modern postural yoga may involve exercise, but then so has ancient forms, the point is that 'exercise' means a great deal more than just an aerobic workout. Some exercises attenuated the cardiovascular system for longevity and for psychological affects while contemporary tastes often aim to raise the heart rate to lose weight and so forth. The point is that 'exercises' can take many forms too and does not create any meaningful distinction between contemporary or medieval / ancient formats. Buddhist sanghas and Hindu wandering ascetic were public figures especially at festivals and fairs again blurring the alleged distinctions between 'postural' and 'other' yoga. The consequences of adopting this taxonomy are truly bizarre because it suggests there is a counterpart to postural yoga - 'non-postural' which is of course totally absurd. The differences in content and objectives are not crisp but very soggy based on NOTABLY unreliable scholarship and puffed up claims in time-sensitive periodicals but they are nevertheless good enough for Wikipedia. 'Postural yoga' is probably no more and no less than shorthand for 'keep fit', but then so is almost any yoga with adjectives, including 'Hatha Yoga' and that of course is a sociological phenomenon that is very difficult to fix, and certainly not something Wikipedia is designed to solve. Thanks. Yoga Mat ( talk) 13:04, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
The name of this page was Yoga (postural) up until an undiscussed move after the above merge discussion, and moved without an RM. As Hatha Yoga is the recognized name of a yoga which uses asana, and the merge discussion had little participation, a wider discussion of the topic which would be gained by an RM seems appropriate. Randy Kryn ( talk) 12:28, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
I like the current title: Modern yoga. Also the comparison table is very useful. Ta! Zezen ( talk) 14:21, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
@ Joshua Jonathan, Kautilya3, and Ronz: when you have time, can you read this article and share your thoughts? We need to check the sources and the content of this 6-month old Modern yoga article. I just did a limited check and find serious issues. The first efn note "[a]" of the current article reads "Perhaps the first use of the term "Modern yoga" was in the title of Ernest Wood's 1948 book.[1]" is OR, something we would expect a source should conclude rather than an editor. The next cited source is Singleton, who actually questions the premise of modern yoga being really different than traditional yoga in that chapter and elsewhere. And on and on it goes. There was a merge discussion above, closed by a voter and the primary editor who has contributed 99%+ content of this article. There is a case for a separate article on modern yoga given the work of Elizabeth De Michelis, Andrea Jain and a few others, there is also the reverse case that Mark Singleton, Ellen Goldberg and many scholars make. The current article reads, in some parts, like a fork of what used be a good sized section of our main Yoga article. The history section discussion has WP:CFork issues with the Yoga and Hatha yoga article. See this note as well. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 21:43, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
For purposes of this paper, the expression ‘modern yoga’ will be used to signify those disciplines and schools which are, to a greater or lesser extent, rooted in South Asian cultural contexts, and which more specifically draw inspiration from certain philosophies, teachings and practices of Hinduism.
Buddhism and Jainism, however, are very important with regard to both the pre-modern and the modern history of yoga, but while elements of other religions are also to be found (the founder of the 3HO movement, [...]; and Sahaja Yoga, whose founder was brought up as a Christian, [...]), it may safely be said that most of what is called ‘yoga’ in everyday English stems broadly from a Hindu background (or Neo-Hindu and New Age to be more precise; see De Michelis 2004)."
That is to say, as a “way in” to thinking about expressions of yoga in the modern age, these [Modern Yoga etc] are extremely useful categorizations. But typology is not a good starting point for history insofar as it subsumes detail, variation, and exception. Can we really refer to an entity called Modern Yoga and assume that we are talking about a discrete and identifiable category of beliefs and practices? Does Modern Yoga, as some seem to assume, differ in ontological status (and hence intrinsic value) from “traditional yoga”? Does it represent a rupture in terms of tradition rather than a continuity? And in the plethora of experiments, adaptations, and innovations that make up the field of transnational yoga today, should we be thinking of all these manifestations as belonging to Modern Yoga in any typological sense? [...] Though such readings should not be attributed to De Michelis herself, who explicitly acknowledges her typology’s provisional, heuristic status, they are a common consequence of adopting it as if it were more than a working construct. I have therefore sought to avoid using the term Modern Yoga (or “modern yoga”) in any rigidly typological sense. When I do refer to “modern yoga” it is intended to designate yoga in the modern age (or, more often than not, transnational anglophone yogas of the period) rather than De Michelis’s 2004 interpretive framework.
These included, most notably, Swami Vivekananda, the Indian founder of 'modern yoga' (De Mechelis 2004)[...] (p. 20) [...] More than any other text, it was this work, the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, that Swami Vivekananda – the late-nineteenth-century reformer, nationalist, and father of modern yoga – championed as the theoretical foundation for all authentic yoga practice. (p. 27)
Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 23:23, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
On content forking, I believe you are simply mistaken (unless you are speaking of something specific that I have not grasped), and I am upset by your choice of language ("one of the more serious cases of WP:CFork I have seen"): modern yoga (not only in De Michelis's sense, and she did not create the term) is a major subject and easily worthy of its own article. The limited copying of materials from other articles is acknowledged in edit comments and is more than justified by the fact that although modern yoga is in many ways new, it also owes much to hatha yoga and other traditions, so the history is naturally a summary of what the articles on the historical topics state, and I made that apparent with "main" and "further" links as is usual. The article is not a content fork of anything, but a brief introduction to a large subject, which is not (in large part) an academic matter at all, but an activity (indeed, almost a sport in one sense) practised by millions under the name of "yoga", and when they visit Wikipedia and search for "yoga" they are in their thousands surprised to find an article on something else altogether, but I digress. On "Let us focus on the De Mechelis' definition above", other scholars such as Singleton have criticised her typology; and I had mentioned EDM in the article. I had also included dictionary definitions as these reflect popular as well as academic understanding of what the subject is; I note that some of these citations are among those recently broken. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 21:23, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
Chiswick Chap: After going through the sources, I have removed the table, per WP:Synth which states, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources". If you can find a peer-reviewed scholarly source or sources that discuss Hatha yoga and Modern yoga, wherein there is such a comparison, we can certainly summarize it either in a tabular format or text format. Otherwise, you are creating a table that you believe is true from on your own wisdom/prejudices/opinions/feelings, but is OR:Synthesis. Yes, there are a few sentences in the table that can go elsewhere in the article, and are already elsewhere in the article. FWIW, this is not my only objection in this article. There a lot of additional sections that need a close review and cleanup. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 01:43, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
The following refs are missing their corresponding citations: Chiswick Chap ( talk) 14:11, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
* Whiteman 1993
* Maas 2014
The article uses the format "Doe, John" by the way. – Chiswick Chap
Chiswick Chap: There is a lot of populist literature on yoga out there which would not meet our MEDRS, HISTRS and RS guidelines. Syman is a literature graduate, feedmag web magazine publisher, mobile publishing tools career background person and a yoga practitioner. Syman is a questionable non-academic source. If you can find a scholarly source for the table you just added or one that provides a comparison, I would welcome such a table/comparison with that source. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 18:51, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Stefanie Syman describes some of the differences between hatha yoga and modern yoga in her book The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America, as summarized in the table.
Attribute | Hatha yoga | Modern yoga |
---|---|---|
Objectives | Raise
Kundalini
[1]
[2]
[3] Conquer death [4] [5] Reach indescribable states of bliss [4] [6] |
Exercise
[4]
[7] Health, relaxation [4] [8] [9] Reduce depression and anxiety [10] [11] |
Practices | Internal cleansings (
Satkarmas),
[1]
[12] postures ( Asanas), [1] [12] breathing exercises ( Pranayama) [1] [12] |
Mainly Asanas,
[13]
[14] sometimes Pranayama [13] [14] |
Religion | Hinduism [1] [15] | Any or none [10] [16] [17] |
Instruction | Intimate relationship of Guru to individual pupil ( shishya) [18] [19] | Public [18] [9] |
Diet | Sattvic vegetarian (rice, milk, vegetables) [4] [20] | Any, sometimes vegetarian [21] [9] |
Commercialisation | None, anti-consumerist [22] | Multi-billion dollar business [22] [23] |
(All the sources are already in the article)
References
Feuerstein 2003
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Ipsos 2016
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Davis 2016
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Chopra 2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Delaney 2017
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).{{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help); Unknown parameter |last-author-amp=
ignored (|name-list-style=
suggested) (
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help)Once again, please see OR:Synthesis guidelines. We cannot combine different sources or different parts of the same source to make or imply new conclusions ( WP:Synthesis). James Mallinson and other scholars who specialize in Sanskrit literature/pre-modern yoga/philology have shown that Hatha yoga has been much more than what you are implying through that table. Tantric influences were added later, etc. A non-specialist generic author such as Syman's opinions are not of the same quality or reliability as a academic scholar on this topic. Similarly, De Mechelis includes much more under the "modern yoga" typology than what you are implying through that table. A better way to include the same information and more would be to improve and expand on "what modern yoga is", its various subtypes in different countries. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 12:40, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
The "Pre-modern yoga" section (and some others) have "main" links, indicating that these sections are intended (rightly, I believe) to contain brief summaries of the contents of the articles named. Policy is for such summaries to be as brief as possible, typically just one or two paragraphs, and to be written in summary style, condensing the other article down to its main points without elaboration. The current "Pre-modern yoga" section goes beyond this, and should be condensed to the minimum needed to make the point (yoga existed with asanas and other practices, many centuries ago). The boxed quotations and triple image are similarly out of scope of this article, for the same reason; perhaps one of the images could be used. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 09:29, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
Chiswick Chap: The mainstream scholarly articles should help decide the best title and content organization. As I mentioned in another section above, we have WP:Cfork issues here and in our yoga-related wikipedia articles. We should not be forking similar content and creating conflicting articles. It is confusing to the reader, is difficult to maintain and raises other issues. Someone created a Yoga as exercise article 10+ years ago, which you re-titled as Yoga for therapeutic purposes about 6 months ago. Why not stick-to-the-scholarly-sources and keep all Modern yoga content here, while concentrating on yoga-as-exercise in that Yoga (exercise) article, as Kautilya3 suggests as a compromise? Such an approach would be consistent with De Michelis, Singleton, White, Jain, Alter, systematic subject review article links I provide above, etc. We can certainly add a summary-style section with appropriate links in the related articles. BTW, that Yoga (exercise) article too needs some cleanup. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 16:42, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
@ Chiswick Chap: does this mean that you want to remove the focus on Yoga exercise and broaden it to all forms of modern Yoga.? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:31, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||
|
This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
I propose to merge Yoga (postural) into Hatha_yoga. The content in the Prostural Yoga article is IMO a series of insinuations by Western scholars disassociating yogic asanas from Hinduism which can easily be incorporated in the context of Hatha Yoga. Moreover, most of the things are being repeated in Postural Yoga from Hatha Yoga. Rioter 1 ( talk) 04:52, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Oppose. Modern postural yoga is a worldwide non-religious activity carried out by millions of people from the mid-20th century onwards for fitness, relaxation and well-being. Hatha yoga was a minor branch of medieval Hinduism carried out by Nath yogins from around 1100 to around 1800 AD, despised by Brahmins and other high-caste Hindus, after which its practice declined. Hatha yoga consisted of Shatkarmas (Kriyas), Bandhas, a limited number of mainly seated Asanas, Drishti, Pranayama and Mudras and was performed to purify the supposed Nadi channels in the yoga body, so as to enable the serpent Kundalini to rise through the Sushumna channel and enable Samadhi and ultimately Moksha, spiritual liberation. Modern postural yoga consists of many hundreds of Asanas, mostly created or adopted from gymnastics in the 20th century, and occasionally a little Pranayama: all the other components of Hatha yoga are much reduced or absent. The reuse of the name "yoga" was political, to do with early 20th century Hindu nationalism, creating a distinctively Indian method of exercise. Hatha yoga was never performed for exercise; it was always private; it was entirely uncommercial. Modern postural yoga always involves exercise, often as its dominant component; it is largely public, and now involves fashionable clothing, contributing to an image of urban cool: it could scarcely be more distant from private Hindu ritual practice. The article makes clear that there is some historical connection, but it is one of sharp difference in content and even sharper difference in objectives.
To reply directly to your unfounded allegations:
I should make one more thing clear for other readers, which is that "hatha yoga" is in use (e.g. in England) to mean "non-denominational postural yoga", as distinct from brands like Bikram Yoga and Iyengar Yoga. "Hatha yoga" classes do not however teach haṭha yoga with its kriyas, bandhas, and so on, but a gentle variety of postural yoga, often mainly for women. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 10:30, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Oppose. SHORT ANSWER: According to WP:N the term 'modern postural yoga' or 'modern yoga' is eligible for a standalone page. LONGER ANSWER: 'Modern Yoga' isn't a useful distinction to make (because of the problems with periodization). It is an invented term that is used inconsistently. If we were to follow normative periodizations we would have to include Vivekananda with say 'Bikram Yoga' which doesn't really help anyone understand what is actually going on today any better. Whatever we think of the scholarship (and personally I think: 'not much') the point is Wikipedia has clear rules on this. EVEN LONGER ANSWER: Hatha Yoga has also developed into a catch-all for a variety of activities that may or may not resemble earlier forms. We are dealing with highly polysemous terms which evade reliable analysis. Modern postural yoga may have borrowed from 20th century gymnastics but it is nevertheless symbolically comparable to earlier forms in the hearts/minds of people that practice it. The reuse of the name "yoga" still is political, today it is used to sell consumer goods, keep-fit regimes and 'spiritual but not religious' sentiments. It is linked with the political economy of neoliberalism, American exceptionalism, Victorian (British) feminized patriarchal respectability, gothic imaginaries, globalization, beatnik counter culture and much more besides. It is naive to suggest we can even talk from a post-political position about yoga today. There is evidence of yoga as far back as the 15th C being performed at trade fairs and at different places along the Silk route. Yoga has always had a mercantile element too with links to Banyan merchants and so forth. Modern postural yoga may involve exercise, but then so has ancient forms, the point is that 'exercise' means a great deal more than just an aerobic workout. Some exercises attenuated the cardiovascular system for longevity and for psychological affects while contemporary tastes often aim to raise the heart rate to lose weight and so forth. The point is that 'exercises' can take many forms too and does not create any meaningful distinction between contemporary or medieval / ancient formats. Buddhist sanghas and Hindu wandering ascetic were public figures especially at festivals and fairs again blurring the alleged distinctions between 'postural' and 'other' yoga. The consequences of adopting this taxonomy are truly bizarre because it suggests there is a counterpart to postural yoga - 'non-postural' which is of course totally absurd. The differences in content and objectives are not crisp but very soggy based on NOTABLY unreliable scholarship and puffed up claims in time-sensitive periodicals but they are nevertheless good enough for Wikipedia. 'Postural yoga' is probably no more and no less than shorthand for 'keep fit', but then so is almost any yoga with adjectives, including 'Hatha Yoga' and that of course is a sociological phenomenon that is very difficult to fix, and certainly not something Wikipedia is designed to solve. Thanks. Yoga Mat ( talk) 13:04, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
The name of this page was Yoga (postural) up until an undiscussed move after the above merge discussion, and moved without an RM. As Hatha Yoga is the recognized name of a yoga which uses asana, and the merge discussion had little participation, a wider discussion of the topic which would be gained by an RM seems appropriate. Randy Kryn ( talk) 12:28, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
I like the current title: Modern yoga. Also the comparison table is very useful. Ta! Zezen ( talk) 14:21, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
@ Joshua Jonathan, Kautilya3, and Ronz: when you have time, can you read this article and share your thoughts? We need to check the sources and the content of this 6-month old Modern yoga article. I just did a limited check and find serious issues. The first efn note "[a]" of the current article reads "Perhaps the first use of the term "Modern yoga" was in the title of Ernest Wood's 1948 book.[1]" is OR, something we would expect a source should conclude rather than an editor. The next cited source is Singleton, who actually questions the premise of modern yoga being really different than traditional yoga in that chapter and elsewhere. And on and on it goes. There was a merge discussion above, closed by a voter and the primary editor who has contributed 99%+ content of this article. There is a case for a separate article on modern yoga given the work of Elizabeth De Michelis, Andrea Jain and a few others, there is also the reverse case that Mark Singleton, Ellen Goldberg and many scholars make. The current article reads, in some parts, like a fork of what used be a good sized section of our main Yoga article. The history section discussion has WP:CFork issues with the Yoga and Hatha yoga article. See this note as well. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 21:43, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
For purposes of this paper, the expression ‘modern yoga’ will be used to signify those disciplines and schools which are, to a greater or lesser extent, rooted in South Asian cultural contexts, and which more specifically draw inspiration from certain philosophies, teachings and practices of Hinduism.
Buddhism and Jainism, however, are very important with regard to both the pre-modern and the modern history of yoga, but while elements of other religions are also to be found (the founder of the 3HO movement, [...]; and Sahaja Yoga, whose founder was brought up as a Christian, [...]), it may safely be said that most of what is called ‘yoga’ in everyday English stems broadly from a Hindu background (or Neo-Hindu and New Age to be more precise; see De Michelis 2004)."
That is to say, as a “way in” to thinking about expressions of yoga in the modern age, these [Modern Yoga etc] are extremely useful categorizations. But typology is not a good starting point for history insofar as it subsumes detail, variation, and exception. Can we really refer to an entity called Modern Yoga and assume that we are talking about a discrete and identifiable category of beliefs and practices? Does Modern Yoga, as some seem to assume, differ in ontological status (and hence intrinsic value) from “traditional yoga”? Does it represent a rupture in terms of tradition rather than a continuity? And in the plethora of experiments, adaptations, and innovations that make up the field of transnational yoga today, should we be thinking of all these manifestations as belonging to Modern Yoga in any typological sense? [...] Though such readings should not be attributed to De Michelis herself, who explicitly acknowledges her typology’s provisional, heuristic status, they are a common consequence of adopting it as if it were more than a working construct. I have therefore sought to avoid using the term Modern Yoga (or “modern yoga”) in any rigidly typological sense. When I do refer to “modern yoga” it is intended to designate yoga in the modern age (or, more often than not, transnational anglophone yogas of the period) rather than De Michelis’s 2004 interpretive framework.
These included, most notably, Swami Vivekananda, the Indian founder of 'modern yoga' (De Mechelis 2004)[...] (p. 20) [...] More than any other text, it was this work, the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, that Swami Vivekananda – the late-nineteenth-century reformer, nationalist, and father of modern yoga – championed as the theoretical foundation for all authentic yoga practice. (p. 27)
Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 23:23, 22 June 2019 (UTC)
On content forking, I believe you are simply mistaken (unless you are speaking of something specific that I have not grasped), and I am upset by your choice of language ("one of the more serious cases of WP:CFork I have seen"): modern yoga (not only in De Michelis's sense, and she did not create the term) is a major subject and easily worthy of its own article. The limited copying of materials from other articles is acknowledged in edit comments and is more than justified by the fact that although modern yoga is in many ways new, it also owes much to hatha yoga and other traditions, so the history is naturally a summary of what the articles on the historical topics state, and I made that apparent with "main" and "further" links as is usual. The article is not a content fork of anything, but a brief introduction to a large subject, which is not (in large part) an academic matter at all, but an activity (indeed, almost a sport in one sense) practised by millions under the name of "yoga", and when they visit Wikipedia and search for "yoga" they are in their thousands surprised to find an article on something else altogether, but I digress. On "Let us focus on the De Mechelis' definition above", other scholars such as Singleton have criticised her typology; and I had mentioned EDM in the article. I had also included dictionary definitions as these reflect popular as well as academic understanding of what the subject is; I note that some of these citations are among those recently broken. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 21:23, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
Chiswick Chap: After going through the sources, I have removed the table, per WP:Synth which states, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources". If you can find a peer-reviewed scholarly source or sources that discuss Hatha yoga and Modern yoga, wherein there is such a comparison, we can certainly summarize it either in a tabular format or text format. Otherwise, you are creating a table that you believe is true from on your own wisdom/prejudices/opinions/feelings, but is OR:Synthesis. Yes, there are a few sentences in the table that can go elsewhere in the article, and are already elsewhere in the article. FWIW, this is not my only objection in this article. There a lot of additional sections that need a close review and cleanup. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 01:43, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
The following refs are missing their corresponding citations: Chiswick Chap ( talk) 14:11, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
* Whiteman 1993
* Maas 2014
The article uses the format "Doe, John" by the way. – Chiswick Chap
Chiswick Chap: There is a lot of populist literature on yoga out there which would not meet our MEDRS, HISTRS and RS guidelines. Syman is a literature graduate, feedmag web magazine publisher, mobile publishing tools career background person and a yoga practitioner. Syman is a questionable non-academic source. If you can find a scholarly source for the table you just added or one that provides a comparison, I would welcome such a table/comparison with that source. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 18:51, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Stefanie Syman describes some of the differences between hatha yoga and modern yoga in her book The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America, as summarized in the table.
Attribute | Hatha yoga | Modern yoga |
---|---|---|
Objectives | Raise
Kundalini
[1]
[2]
[3] Conquer death [4] [5] Reach indescribable states of bliss [4] [6] |
Exercise
[4]
[7] Health, relaxation [4] [8] [9] Reduce depression and anxiety [10] [11] |
Practices | Internal cleansings (
Satkarmas),
[1]
[12] postures ( Asanas), [1] [12] breathing exercises ( Pranayama) [1] [12] |
Mainly Asanas,
[13]
[14] sometimes Pranayama [13] [14] |
Religion | Hinduism [1] [15] | Any or none [10] [16] [17] |
Instruction | Intimate relationship of Guru to individual pupil ( shishya) [18] [19] | Public [18] [9] |
Diet | Sattvic vegetarian (rice, milk, vegetables) [4] [20] | Any, sometimes vegetarian [21] [9] |
Commercialisation | None, anti-consumerist [22] | Multi-billion dollar business [22] [23] |
(All the sources are already in the article)
References
Feuerstein 2003
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Ipsos 2016
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Davis 2016
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Chopra 2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Delaney 2017
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).{{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help); Unknown parameter |last-author-amp=
ignored (|name-list-style=
suggested) (
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help){{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help)Once again, please see OR:Synthesis guidelines. We cannot combine different sources or different parts of the same source to make or imply new conclusions ( WP:Synthesis). James Mallinson and other scholars who specialize in Sanskrit literature/pre-modern yoga/philology have shown that Hatha yoga has been much more than what you are implying through that table. Tantric influences were added later, etc. A non-specialist generic author such as Syman's opinions are not of the same quality or reliability as a academic scholar on this topic. Similarly, De Mechelis includes much more under the "modern yoga" typology than what you are implying through that table. A better way to include the same information and more would be to improve and expand on "what modern yoga is", its various subtypes in different countries. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 12:40, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
The "Pre-modern yoga" section (and some others) have "main" links, indicating that these sections are intended (rightly, I believe) to contain brief summaries of the contents of the articles named. Policy is for such summaries to be as brief as possible, typically just one or two paragraphs, and to be written in summary style, condensing the other article down to its main points without elaboration. The current "Pre-modern yoga" section goes beyond this, and should be condensed to the minimum needed to make the point (yoga existed with asanas and other practices, many centuries ago). The boxed quotations and triple image are similarly out of scope of this article, for the same reason; perhaps one of the images could be used. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 09:29, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
Chiswick Chap: The mainstream scholarly articles should help decide the best title and content organization. As I mentioned in another section above, we have WP:Cfork issues here and in our yoga-related wikipedia articles. We should not be forking similar content and creating conflicting articles. It is confusing to the reader, is difficult to maintain and raises other issues. Someone created a Yoga as exercise article 10+ years ago, which you re-titled as Yoga for therapeutic purposes about 6 months ago. Why not stick-to-the-scholarly-sources and keep all Modern yoga content here, while concentrating on yoga-as-exercise in that Yoga (exercise) article, as Kautilya3 suggests as a compromise? Such an approach would be consistent with De Michelis, Singleton, White, Jain, Alter, systematic subject review article links I provide above, etc. We can certainly add a summary-style section with appropriate links in the related articles. BTW, that Yoga (exercise) article too needs some cleanup. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 16:42, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
@ Chiswick Chap: does this mean that you want to remove the focus on Yoga exercise and broaden it to all forms of modern Yoga.? -- Kautilya3 ( talk) 16:31, 5 July 2019 (UTC)