Lecture | VVIK lecture
Tracing the Early History of Yoga
- Date
- Wednesday 11 June 2025
- Time
- Explanation
- The lecture will be followed by drinks in the LIAS common room of the same Herta Mohr Building (first floor).
- Location
-
Herta Mohr
Witte Singel 27A
2311 BG Leiden - Room
- 1.84
Abstract
This talk will trace the development of some of the key trends in the early history of yoga. In particular, it will address such topics as different beliefs about the nature of the soul and the various religious goals of ascent to heaven (svarga), the world of Brahmā (brahmaloka), ultimate liberation (mokṣa), and union with God. It will argue that general beliefs about sages who voluntarily ascend to heaven and early yogic meditation aimed at directly seeing the luminous soul (ātman, puruṣa) were used to create theistic forms of yoga in the early centuries of the common era. This argument will predominantly rely on textual evidence from the Sanskrit epics while also referencing the Upaniṣads and early Buddhist and Jaina literatures.
Valters Negribs
Valters Negribs is a Gonda Fellow at the IIAS, Leiden. His research concerns Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jaina ascetic and yogic literature in Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit. He obtained a DPhil in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford in 2022 with a thesis on “Ascetic Teachings for Householder Kings in the Mahābhārata”. He was then awarded the Leverhulme Study Abroad Fellowship to join the Groupe de Recherches en Études Indiennes in Paris to work on his project “Ascetic literature in early Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina traditions”. His work was also supported by the Post-doctoral research grant of the Colette Caillat Foundation of the Institut de France.