Reply #29: A slight correction, if I may

[Vehl]

"There is only one problem with this purist history of yoga: it is false. Yogic asanas were never ‘Vedic’ to begin with. Far from being considered the crown jewel of Hinduism, yogic asanas were in fact looked down upon by Hindu intellectuals and reformers—including the great Swami Vivekananda—as fit only for sorcerers, fakirs and jogis."

The historian seems to be confusing the reaction of colonial era "Hindu intellectuals" (not all, I hasten to add, cos some prominent ones did advocate learning Yoga) with that of pre-colonial Hindu Intellectuals on Yoga. For starters, many colonial era "intellectuals" and "reformers" were people who were thoroughly confused about their identity. On one hand they were brought up in a very Christian manner thanks to the schools they attended(most often they were missionary schools), thus were somewhat lacking in a historical perspective/knowledge, and tried to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Some did resist this trend, Ananda Coomaraswamy and Vivekananda come to mind.You would be surprised to know the amount of Stuff they tried to get rid of (but are valued as "pearls of wisdom" by contemporary Hindu intellectuals and reformers today. The positive health benefits of Yoga, amongst other things were once sneered upon by these very "intellectuals' the historian seems to be quoting.

Furthermore she is patently wrong when she claims that Swami Vivekananda made a similar claim! It's rather shocking given that Vivekananda wrote volumes on Yoga. His collected works are online for everyone to access for free.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda

I'll post a quote of his here

"What you others call a dream is for us the only reality. Cities,
luxuries, the marvels of consumer life, we have awakened
from that brutal dream by which you are still enthralled. We
close our eyes, we hold our breath, we sit under the kindly shade
of a tree before the primitive fire, and the Infinite opens its doors
to us and we enter into the inner world which is the real one"


The "historian" seems to have quite a proclivity to state only half truths..omitting the most important parts.

Cheers