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This volume investigates contemporary bodily practices as a mode of transmitting and receiving South Asian religious and spiritual traditions. The collection’s chapters explore processes of adoption and adaptation and the ways in which somatic religious practices are transplanted into new contexts, acquiring new meanings, and generating dynamics of their own. Using the concept of “embodied reception” as a heuristic, the contributions address the dialectic between incorporating (religious) knowledge by performing bodily practices and opening new avenues for (religious) meaning-making through bodily experiences.

The collection presents a range of empirical cases: contemplative bodily techniques such as postural yoga, mindfulness, and meditation; ritual practices in modern advaitic satsang; South Indian martial arts; tantric goddess veneration; contemporary Sāṃkhyayoga practices. The empirical studies span devotional communities, yoga institutions, New Age milieus, and secularized contexts, providing a rich tapestry of contemporary embodied reception in and outside South Asia.

Assembling research on embodied forms of reception both in South Asia and in Western countries, the volume advocates for paying close attention to entangled histories of knowledge. Grounded in this empirical outlook, the volume also speaks to theoretical and methodological debates on travelling bodily practices. The contributions suggest theoretical and methodological frameworks ranging from aesthetics of religion to sociology of knowledge, from ethnographic to cognitive approaches.

Published: Nov 20, 2024

Book Contributors

• Editor - Henriette Hanky ([email protected] - hhanky7991) 'University of Bergen'
• Editor - Knut A. Jacobsen ([email protected] - knutjacobsen) 'University of Bergen'
• Editor - István Keul ([email protected] - ikeul) 'University of Bergen'
• Author - Anne Koch ([email protected] - akoch) 'University of Freiburg'
• Author - Theodora Wildcroft ([email protected] - theowildcroft) 'The Open University'
• Author - Laura von Ostrowski ([email protected] - lvonostrowski1438)
• Author - Suzanne Newcombe ([email protected] - shn44) 'Open University and Inform, King's College London'
• Author - Margrethe Løøv ([email protected] - MLøøv) 'NLA University College, Oslo'
• Author - Lucy May Constantini ([email protected] - lconstantini4286) 'Open University'
• Author - Elin Thorsén ([email protected] - elint) 'University of Gothenburg'
• Author - Amanda Lucia ([email protected] - alucia5469) 'University of California, Riverside'
• Author - Alan Schink ([email protected] - aschink) 'Ulm University '

Series

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Section	Chapter	Authors
Prelims
	List of Figures	Henriette Hanky, Knut Jacobsen, István Keul
	Editors’ Preface	Henriette Hanky, Knut Jacobsen, István Keul
Introduction
	1. Introduction	Henriette Hanky
I. Theoretical and Methodological Considerations
	2. Training—Sensing—Predicting: Towards a Theory of the Reception of Practices as Embodied	Anne Koch
	3. The Search for Rigour in Ethnographies of Bodily Practice	Theodora Wildcroft
II. Performing Textual Traditions
	4. Transpersonal Therapy and a Tantric Temple: The Parātrīśikā in Western Practice	István Keul
	5. Practicing the Yogasūtra? An Approach to the Analysis of Contemporary Yoga Philosophy’s Somatic Aspects	Laura von Ostrowski
	6. Lay Sāṃkhyayoga Practices in Contemporary India	Knut Jacobsen
III. Bodily Practices on the Move
	7. Embodied Receptions and the Creation of B.K.S. Iyengar's Light on Prāṇāyāma	Suzanne Newcombe
	8. Between Patañjali and Psychology: Acem’s "Classical, Meditative Yoga"	Margrethe Løøv
	9. Kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ in Performance: Adoptions and Adaptations of a South Indian Martial Art	Lucy May Constantini
IV. Embodied Meaning-making
	10. Osho in a Nutshell? Dynamic Meditation and the Relationship of Bodily Performance and Meaning-Making	Henriette Hanky
	11. “Being Here Fully”: Autoethnographic Approaches to Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction as an Embodied Group Interaction of an Authentic Self	Alan Schink
	12. Moving Beyond the Mind Through “Listening by Heart”: The Role of Experience in Modern Advaitic Satsangs	Elin Thorsén
	13. Aligning the Good and the Beautiful: Yogic Aesthetics in a Globalized World	Amanda Lucia
End Matter
	Index	Henriette Hanky, Knut Jacobsen, István Keul