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Masters and Servants

其他書名	A Study of Gurus and Teachers in Hathayoga Traditions
出版	University of Regina, 2010
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=CvJDngEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋In this thesis I make use of a selection of yoga literature as well as interviews with gurus and teachers in order to discuss the above problem. A summary of the thesis is as follows: 1. I argue that yoga is a multivalent tradition that has no single historical narrative in which yogic authority has flown uninterruptedly from an ancient source to contemporary teachers and traditions. 2. I argue that there are numerous, often divergent, mythologies concern the origin of yoga. These competing mythologies indicate an internal tension in terms of the nexus of authority and authenticity of yoga traditions. 3. Through a study of the Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (approx. 150CE) I attempt to demonstrate that what many scholars refer to as "classical yoga" is representative of a shared yogic sub-culture in which yoga techniques were employed among a diverse group of practitioners with varying pedagogical orientations regarding the need for a guru. 4. The Yoga Sutras, in spite of numerous translations and commentaries that argue otherwise, are themselves ambivalent about the need for an embodied, human guru. 5. A convenient explanation for de-emphasis of gurus in hathayoga traditions is the westernization (and commercialization) of yoga. I demonstrate that this is emphatically not the case and is actually an indication of an intrinsically Orientalist approach. 6. I argue that contemporary hathayoga traditions, exemplified by the Krishnamacharya lineage, have de-emphasized the importance of the guru on the basis of political and economic factors and that these factors have, over the course of yoga history, played a significant role in determining the role of the guru.