Brief History of Yog

The History of Yog cannot fairly be condensed to one page. Here is an humble attempt to briefly cover the history of the wonderful art of Yog.

• With the God given gift of intelligence, human beings engaged themselves in the search of understanding the Creation around them (Prakruti) and the Creator (Purusha). This search was started in India by Rishis / Yogis some 5000 years ago. This search, in spiritual terms, is referred to as Self-Realisation. It is the central theme of Yogic movement.

• The oldest known record about the history of Yog is the seal from ′Mohan-Jo-Dero′ depicting a Yogi siting in a meditative pose. (Period about 3000 BC). Thereafter, there have been references about Yog in various Hindu scriptures such as four Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads and Bhagwat Gita.(200 BC to 200 AD).

• As the writing medium was not developed during the above period and there was a large volume of data accumulated related to Yog, it was increasingly becoming difficult to memorise the available knowledge. The need was therefore felt to codify and systemise the available data in the form of ′Sutras′ (Small sentences) to facilitate memorisation.

• Sutras related to Yog were compiled by Maharshi Patanjali around 500 BC, though exact timing is not known. Keeping in view the utility of such a vast bank of knowledge acquired by thousands of Rishis / Yogis over thousands of yeas, Maharshi Patanjali, a great scholar of Sanskrit literature, took upon the task of condensing the knowledge in the form of 196 small sentences in Sanskrit which are popularly known as "Patanjali Yog Sutras." Present generation and generations to come owe a grateful thanks to Maharshi Patanjali for his foresight of preserving such a valuable knowledge about Yog.

• Many Indian Yogis took upon the task of spreading this valuable knowledge beyond the shores of India. Pioneer being Swami Vivekananda followed by others like Paramhansa Yogananda, Swami Sivananda and many more. Currently Poojya Sri Sri Ravishankar and Swami Ramdevji are doing remarkable job of reaching the benefits of Yog to common house holders not only in India but also to people all around the world.