Yoga History

Yoga history has traces in some Indian religions. In Hinduism, Shamanism, Jainism and Buddhism yoga means spiritual discipline. The earliest sign of a yoga practice can be seen in Shamanism. Both yoga and shamanism has similar goals that focus on the effort to improve the state of body and mind. Another similarity they both have is that they try to improve the overall health conditions of each member..

Yoga history has also left some solid clues or hints behind like artifacts and documents depicting yoga postures.In the oldest existing text, the Rig-veda, has evidences that it utilize some yoga principles. Rig-veda is the sacred scripture of Brahmanism that is the basis of present day Hinduism. It also contains the oldest known yogic teachings.

During the time of Brahmanism, the yoga practice is now widely used by Vedic people or Vedas followers. This is the clear part of the yoga history. Vedas followers rely on to dedicated Vedic Yogis to help them live in divine harmony.

The creation of the Yoga Sutra marks the classical period of yoga history. It defines and standardizes classical yoga. From this, we can find eight underlying principles of yoga and these are
Yama - Asanas - Samadhi - Niyama - Samadhi - Dhyana - Pratyahara - Pranayama

The writer of Yoga Sutra, Patanjali, focused on meditation setting aside asanas and so are his followers. It was later on that the balance between the body and mind has been rekindled.