In this episode, we speak with return guest and teacher Dr. Daniela Bevilacqua to discuss the publication of her latest work, From Tapas to Modern Yoga: Sādhus’ Understanding of Embodied Practices (2024). We discuss the origins of the book as part of the research and output of the infamous SOAS Hatha Yoga Project (2015-2020), her methodology as an ethnographer working in India, the various sampradāyas, the role of yoga and the question of who are the yogis amongst sādhus today, and many stories and details from her years of conducting research in India.

Speaker Bio

Daniela Bevilacqua is an Indianist specialized in Hindu asceticism, investigated through an ethnographic and historical perspective. She received her PhD in Civilizations of Africa and Asia from Sapienza University of Rome and in Anthropology from the University of Paris Nanterre. She worked as a post-doc research fellow at SOAS, for the ERC- funded Haṭha Yoga Project (2015–2020). She is currently a researcher at CRIA (ISCTE-IUL) in Lisbon as PI of the project “Performing the Sacred: Ethnographies of Transgender Activism in the Kinnar Akhara”. She authored Modern Hindu Traditionalism in Contemporary India (Routledge 2018), From Tapas to Modern Yoga. Sādhus’ Understanding of Embodied Practices (Equinox 2024), edited volumes, and written several articles and book chapters on topics related to Hindu religious tradition, gender, and embodied practices.

Links

• From Tapas to Modern Yoga: Sādhus’ Understanding of Embodied Practices (2024)
• YS 103 | Yoga and Hindu Asceticsm, Past and Present
• YSP 2. Daniela Bevilacqua | Hindu Asceticism and Haṭha Yoga

In this episode we speak with Briana Dana Akers, who is a publisher, editor, and translator, best known for his translation of the Haṭhapradīpikā. We discuss his background discovering yoga at a young age, learning Sanskrit in Michigan and in India, and how he first began publishing Sanskrit works on yoga when he founded YogaVidya at just 23 years old. Brian shares with us insights into the world of independent publishing, Sanskrit translation, working with scholars like Dr. James Mallinson, and why the Kāmasūtra may not have sold as many copies as the Śivasaṃhitā. We conclude by discussing Brian's latest book, The Yoga Manifesto, a short 60-page tract that traces some of yoga's history and looks critically though optimistically at yoga's present and future in modern society.

Speaker Bio

Brian Dana Akers is a publisher, editor and translator (Sanskrit-English bilingual editions of the yoga classics), and also an author (science fiction and fantasy). He began practicing yoga at age twelve, learning Sanskrit at seventeen, and working in publishing at twenty-three. Brian grew up in Kalamazoo and spent his teenage years building telescopes, reading science fiction, and practicing Yoga. He started six years at the University of Michigan in 1975, with his senior year abroad in India. His studies included Sanskrit and Indian history. After graduate school, he left for the Bay Area and worked as a typographer and network manager. In 1991, he met his wife Loretta, moved to New York, wrote a little science fiction, and founded YogaVidya.com.

Links

• YogaVidya.com
• BrianDanaAkers.com

In this episode we speak with Zoë Slatoff about her background as an Ashtanga Yoga practitioner and teacher turned academic and Sanskrit professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. We discuss how her experiences within the Ashtanga Yoga community led her to the study of Sanskrit, and the eventual writing of her textbook called Yogāvatāraṇam. She details how her love for the study of yoga, Sanskrit, and philosophy led to her pursuing a PhD on the Aparokṣānubhūti, or "Direct Awareness of the Self." We discuss the history of the Aparokṣānubhūti, whether or not it is actually written by the great Advaita Vedānta philosopher Śaṅkara, the differences between the dualism of Sāṅkhya-Yoga and the non-dualism of Advaita Vedānta, how Vedānta views yoga philosophy and practice, and more. We conclude by previewing Zoë's upcoming online course, YS 215 | Yoga and Vedānta: The Aparokṣānubhūti.

Speaker Bio

Zoë Slatoff has a Ph.D. in Religion and Philosophy from Lancaster University in the U.K. and an M.A. and B.A. in Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University. She is the Clinical Professor of Sanskrit at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where she teaches Sanskrit and Yoga Philosophy courses in the Yoga Studies M.A. program, as well as undergraduate courses through the Theology department. Her Ph.D. dissertation—which she is working on turning into a book—was an exploration of the intersection of Yoga and Advaita over time, centering around a translation of the Aparokṣānubhūti and its commentaries. Zoë is also the author of Yogāvatāraṇam: The Translation of Yoga, a Sanskrit textbook based on classic yoga texts, which integrates traditional and academic methods of learning, from which she teaches.

Links

• https://www.yogicstudies.com/ys-215
• Yogāvatāraṇam: The Translation of Yoga, (North Point Press, 2015)