Embodied Reception: South Asian Spiritualities in Contemporary Contexts(The Study of Religion in a Global Context)

This volume investigates contemporary bodily practices as a mode of transmitting and receiving South Asian religious and spiritual traditions. The collection’s chapters explore processes of adoption and adaptation and the ways in which somatic religious practices are transplanted into new contexts, acquiring new meanings, and generating dynamics of their own. Using the concept of “embodied reception” as a heuristic, the contributions address the dialectic between incorporating (religious) knowledge by performing bodily practices and opening new avenues for (religious) meaning-making through bodily experiences. The collection presents a range of empirical cases: contemplative bodily techniques such as postural yoga, mindfulness, and meditation; ritual practices in modern advaitic satsang; South Indian martial arts; tantric goddess veneration; contemporary Sāṃkhyayoga practices. The empirical studies span devotional communities, yoga institutions, New Age milieus, and secularized contexts, providing a rich tapestry of contemporary embodied reception in and outside South Asia. Assembling research on embodied forms of reception both in South Asia and in Western countries, the volume advocates for paying close attention to entangled histories of knowledge. Grounded in this empirical outlook, the volume also speaks to theoretical and methodological debates on travelling bodily practices. The contributions suggest theoretical and methodological frameworks ranging from aesthetics of religion to sociology of knowledge, from ethnographic to cognitive approaches.

Table of Contents:
Editors’ Preface Henriette Hanky, Knut A. Jacobsen and István Keul I THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 1. Introduction Embodied Reception: South Asian Spiritualities in Contemporary Contexts Henriette Hanky 2. Training—Sensing—Predicting: Towards a Theory of the Reception of Practices as Embodied Anne Koch, University of Freiburg 3. The Search for Rigour in Ethnographies of Bodily Practice Theo Wildcroft, The Open University II PERFORMING TEXTUAL TRADITIONS 4. Transpersonal Therapy and a Tantric Temple: The Parātrīśikā in Western Practice István Keul 5. Practicing the Yogasūtra? An Approach to the Analysis of Contemporary Yoga Philosophy’s Somatic Aspects Laura von Ostrowski, University of Hamburg 6. Lay Sāṃkhyayoga Practices in Contemporary India Knut A. Jacobsen III BODILY PRACTICES ON THE MOVE 7. Embodied Receptions and the Creation of B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Prāṇāyāma Suzanne Newcombe, The Open University and Inform, King's College London 8. Between Patañjali and Psychology: Acem’s ‘Classical, Meditative Yoga’ Margrethe Løøv, NLA University College, Oslo 9. Kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ in Performance: Adoptions and Adaptations of a South Indian Martial Art Lucy May Constantini, The Open University IV EMBODIED MEANING-MAKING 10. Osho in a Nutshell? Dynamic Meditation and the Relationship Between Bodily Performance and Meaning-Making Henriette Hanky 11. “Being here fully”: Autoethnographic Approaches to Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction as an Embodied Group Interaction of an Authentic Self Alan Schink, Ulm University 12. Moving Beyond the Mind Through “Listening by Heart”: The Role of Experience in Modern Advaitic Satsangs Elin Thorsén, University of Gothenburg 13. Aligning the Good and the Beautiful: Yogic Aesthetics in a Globalized World Amanda Lucia, University of California, Riverside

About the Author :
Henriette Hanky is University Lecturer in the Study of Religions at the University of Stavanger and a doctoral candidate at the University of Bergen. Knut A. Jacobsen is Professor in the Study of Religions at the University of Bergen. István Keul is Professor in the Study of Religions at the University of Bergen.