| This study centers on the life of Swami Kuvalayananda (1883--1966) and his scientific examination of the Indian tradition of yoga in the first half of the twentieth century. Kuvalayananda was the first person to submit the practices of asana, pran&dotbelow;ayama, and kriya of hat&dotbelow;ha yoga tradition to rigorous scientific study in a laboratory setting. He established a research institute, the Kaivalyadhama, in the early 1920s for that purpose. Building on his original scientific work, Kuvalayananda also adapted these practices for a modern therapeutic application and systematized the yogic practices for mass application.;A robust discussion of Kuvalayananda and his work in the "modern interpretation of Yoga," as Kuvalayananda himself stated in a June 1929 letter, requires an inquiry into the tremendous socio-political changes occurring in India in the late nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century---specifically in relationship to Indian nationalism. Such a discussion places Kuvalayananda directly within the historical mise en scene of this intense period, and provides a context not only for the development of Kuvalayananda the historical figure, but also for the historical development of the indigenous yoga tradition in light of modernity.;Written in a narrative style, this study draws upon extensive archival sources in the form of Kuvalayananda's unpublished personal letters and papers, and official documents from the Kaivalyadhama Institute in Lonavla, as well as other primary sources, publically available documents, and selected secondary sources.;The purpose of this study is to construct a new matrix of knowledge that connects Kuvalayananda with the social, political, religious, and scientific dramatis personae of this electrifying period in the history of India and in turn, shed new light on the academic exploration of yoga in modernity. |
