Extending back over 1000 years, the exhibition Embodied Liberation: The History of Physical Yoga explores the origins and development of physical yoga within the religious traditions of India and its relationship with globalised forms of yoga that are popular beyond the subcontinent. The exhibition showcases the philological and ethnographic research findings of the SOAS University of London, Hatha Yoga Project (2015–2020). Curated by Jacqueline Hargreaves and Ulrich Pagel of the SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies, the exhibition is the first of its kind in China.
Positioned on the banks of the Pearl River in Guangzhou, China, the colourful and multi-sensory exhibition spans two floors of the Iyengar Yoga Institute (Véda). Since 2022, SOAS has partnered with Véda to deliver the innovative "Yoga and Meditation Education Certificate", which is offered annually and taught in Chinese Mandarin.
The compelling display invites the viewer to engage with the evolution of physical yoga through time and medium. It aims to challenge narrow views of yoga's history and provide evidence of yoga's multi-faith and trans-sectarian attributes. Early images of postural practice in stone temple iconography are presented on a grand scale. Illustrated manuscript folios with translations from Persian, Sanskrit and vernacular languages offer insights into the diverse and widespread adoption of physical yoga techniques across the subcontinent. Understandings of yoga amongst contemporary Sādhus is captured on film, giving a voice to living religious traditions.
To tell this story, from antiquity to modernity, the exhibition employs a multitude of visual mediums. The audience's first encounter is with a striking 19th-century painting of a yogi seated in meditation. With his eyes half-opened and half-closed, his gaze is outward but awareness is inwardly focused. With visualised cakras aligned along his spine, he is symbolic of one who has accomplished the goal and highest state of yoga.
This beautifully peaceful image is accompanied by the earliest definition of haṭha (the method of yoga in which physical practices predominate) from the beginning of the second millennium CE. Depictions of complex postures, that are more familiar to practitioners who attend yoga classes in any city around the world today, are seen in various premodern contexts. Photography is used to juxtapose contemporary practitioners with premodern interpretations from textual sources.
Haṭha is the [yoga] which is accomplished by the breath and internal resonance.
Amaraugha 3b (12th century).
Translation by Jason Birch.
The opening of the exhibition was live-streamed on WeChat to an online audience of over 2000 people across China and an enthusiastic in person audience of over 100 dedicated students. The exhibition runs until the end of July 2025.
The SOAS MA Yoga Studies sets out to introduce the student to the roles of yoga and yoga practice in modern society.
