The Yoga of the Amṛtasiddhi, James Mallinson | SOAS University of London by SOAS Podcasts

"The Yoga of the Amṛtasiddhi" was a talk given by Dr James Mallinson, SOAS, at the Centre of Yoga Studies, SOAS University of London on 14th January 2019. Find out more at https://www.soas.ac.uk/yoga-studies/events/14jan2019-the-yoga-of-the-amtasiddhi-with-james-mallinson.html. Audience questions have been edited out.

The Amṛtasiddhi was the first text to teach many of the principles and practices that came to be classified as haṭha yoga. It was written in Sanskrit in around the 11th century CE. James Mallinson has been working on this unpublished foundational yoga text for nearly twenty years, but it is only recently, after studying the oldest of its ten available manuscripts and working with a diverse range of other experts, that its yoga method has become clear.

It is grounded in a yogic physiology with three physical techniques used to make the breath enter the central channel and move upwards, thereby returning the vital energies to the head and keeping them there. This in turn leads to jīvanmukti, liberation while living, and immortality.

**Speakers Biography**

Dr James Mallinson is Principal Investigator and Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit and Classical Indian Studies at SOAS and Principle Investigator on the Haṭha Yoga Project. His primary research method is philology, in particular the study of manuscripts of Sanskrit texts on yoga, which he complements with ethnographic data drawn from extensive fieldwork with Indian ascetics and the study of art historical sources.