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" Sinister yogis / "
David Gordon White
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BL
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| Record Number
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625421
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| Doc. No
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dltt
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| Main Entry
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White, David Gordon
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| Title & Author
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Sinister yogis /\ David Gordon White
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| Edition Statement
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Pbk. ed
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| Publication Statement
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Chicago, Illinois :: University of Chicago Press,, 2011, c2009
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| Page. NO
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xxii, 352 p. :: ill. ;; 23 cm
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| ISBN
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0226895149
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: 9780226895147
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9780226895130
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0226895130
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| Bibliographies/Indexes
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Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-335) and index
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| Contents
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Tales of sinister yogis -- Ceci n'est pas un yogi -- Embodied ascent, meditation, and yogic suicide -- The science of entering another body -- Yogi gods -- Mughal, modern, and postmodern yogis
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| Abstract
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Since the 1960's, yoga has become a billion-dollar industry in the West, attracting housewives and hipsters. New Agers and the old aged. But our modern conception of yoga derives much from nineteenth-century spirituality, and the true story of yoga's true origins in South Asia is far richer, stranger, and more entertaining than most of us realize. To uncover this history, David Gordon White focuses on practitioners. Combing through millennia of South Asia's vast and diverse literature, he discovers that yogis are usually portrayed as wonder-workers or sorcerers who use their dangerous supernatural abilities--which include raising the dead, possession, and levitation--to acquire power, wealth, and sexual gratification. As White shows, even those yogis who aren't downright villainous bear little resemblance to the Western stereotypes about them.--From publisher description
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| Subject
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Yogis-- India-- History
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