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संसकृत 
saṃskṛta
“refined, ornamented, perfected”

देववाणी
devavāṇī
“language of the gods”

Sanskrit is one of the most ancient continuously used languages in the world. Known by tradition as the language spoken by the gods (devavāṇī), it is understood as the “perfected” language (samskrta). For many, Sanskrit is revered as the language and voice (vac) of the entire cosmos—the vibratory ground of reality itself (śabda-brahman). In the Ṛg Veda, Vāc is personified as a Goddess, from whom the entire world assumes its multitude of forms. In later...

Part 4/4 of Seth Powell's interview with Patrice Priya Wagner from Accessible Yoga. Reposted with permission. The original post can be found here. 

Priya: Regarding access to yoga practice throughout India’s history, or more recently in the West, what misconception would you most like to see teachers revise for their students, and why?

Seth: The first big misconception that still needs to be addressed is the notion that there is one single, unchanging, “original” or “authentic” yoga tradition that existed in premodern India, and that we...

The Great Stupa at Sanchi. Madhya Pradesh, Stone Relief, (c. 50 BCE- 50 CE).
Image from Diamond (2013, 28).

Part 3/4 of Seth Powell's interview with Patrice Priya Wagner from Accessible Yoga. Reposted with permission. The original post can be found here. 

[Priya]

While taking an online course “An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Yoga” with Seth Powell, I became very curious about the origins of yoga instruction for people who weren’t male and from an upper caste in India—the primary demographic we had studied. When, for example, did...

Part 2/4 of Seth Powell's interview with Patrice Priya Wagner from Accessible Yoga. Reposted with permission. The original post can be found here. 

[Priya]

While taking an online course “An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Yoga” with Seth Powell, I became very curious about the origins of yoga instruction for people who weren’t male and from an upper caste in India—the primary demographic we had studied. When, for example, did people with disabilities gain access to the teachings of yoga in India? What about women or other...

 "Ascetics Performing Tapas," South India c. 1820, Opaque watercolor on paper, 23.5 x 29 cm., The British Museum.

Part 1/4 of Seth Powell's interview with Patrice Priya Wagner from Accessible Yoga. Reposted with permission. The original post can be found here. 

[Priya]

Guest blogpost for The Luminescent. Original post can be found here: http://www.theluminescent.org/2018/06/the-ancient-yoga-strap-yogapatta.html

Download as a PDF. 

Abstract

This article will provide a small window onto the longue duree of the yogapatta, or “yoga strap,” and introduce a brief selection of the textual, visual, and material sources available for constructing its history. It will demonstrate that although the use of a yoga strap in postural yoga is typically credited as an “invention” of BKS Iyengar in the 1960s, the notion of a cloth...

In Seth's first-ever Podcast interview, he sits down with Nate Hanks at The Humboldt Lighthouse. Recorded live in McKinleyville, California. In this conversation, Seth and Nate discuss Seth’s journey into yoga and academia, yoga philosophy and meditation practice, the Yogasūtras, travels and fieldwork in India, the PhD at Harvard, the dissertation project on the Śivayogapradīpikā, controversies over the teaching of yoga in public schools, and much more!

Listen to the episode here: ...

My article, "Etched in Stone: Sixteenth-century Visual and Material Evidence of Śaiva Ascetics and Yogis in Complex Non-seated Āsanas at Vijayanagara" has been published in the inaugural issue of the new peer-reviewed Journal of Yoga Studies (JoYS).

Click here to download a PDF of the article. 

Abstract 

This article reassesses the history of postural yoga in precolonial India by drawing attention to recently discovered visual material evidence of non-seated postures carved onto the pillars of Vijayanagara temples at Hampi in Karnataka. Based on...

Online interview with Benedetta Panisson at Impossible Yoga. Bilingual transcript available in Italian and English.

http://www.impossibleyoga.com/2018/01/24/seth-powell-yogic-studies/

Guest blogpost for The Luminescent.

Original post can be found here: http://theluminescent.blogspot.ca/2017/06/advice-on-asana-in-sivayogapradipika.html 

Download as a PDF. 

"The Śivayogapradīpikā (c. 15th century), or “Lamp on Śiva’s Yoga” is an important and overlooked late-medieval yoga text from south India that uniquely integrates the theory and praxis of yoga within the devotional framework (bhakti) of ritual worship (pūjā). Little scholarly attention has yet been brought to bear on this text, although its prominence...