Post by Dr. Jai MaharajIn article
International Day of Yoga
21 June
http://www.un.org/en/events/yogaday/index.shtml?org=817&lvl=100&ite=1982&lea=586884&ctr=0&par=1&trk=
Dhanyavaad for your post, fanabba jee!
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi Om Shanti
A post from 2013:
[ Subject: U.S. museum opens first exhibit on art [and science] of yog
[ From: Dr. Jai Maharaj
[ Date: October 24, 2013
U.S. museum opens first exhibit on art of yog
By Brett Zongker
The Daily Star
dailystar.com.lb
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Debra Diamond, exhibition curator and Curator of South
and Southeast Asian art, gives a tour during a press
preview of Yog: The Art of Transformation at the
Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery in Washington, Tuesday,
Oct. 22, 2013. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Washington: Yog is moving from the studio mat to a U.S.
museum gallery. The Smithsonian Institution has organized
what curators believe is the first exhibition about the
visual history and art of yog, its origins and evolution
over time.
The Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery will showcase the
exhibit entitled, "Yoga: The Art of Transformation,"
through January.
Curators brought together Indian sculptures, manuscripts
and paintings, as well as posters, illustrations,
photographs and films to showcase yoga's history over
2,000 years.
Museum director Julian Raby said years of research behind
the exhibit shed new light on yoga's meanings and
histories.
"It examines for the first time a spectacular, but until
now largely ignored, archive," he said. "That archive is
India's visual culture of extraordinary yog-related
artworks created, as you will see, over some two
millennia."
The museum also will host a symposium for scholars and
enthusiasts on yoga's visual culture.
Curator Debra Diamond said the Smithsonian borrowed some
of the greatest masterpieces in Indian art as well as
pieces that have never been shown before.
First the exhibit examines the concepts and practices of
yog traditions, including meditation and postures found
in Indian art dating back hundreds of years. The first
piece is an 11th-century sculpture representing a yog
teacher, seated in the lotus posture with legs crossed to
signify enlightenment.
Such sculptures were displayed in Hindu temples so people
could see the teacher and "understand yoga's
transformative potential," Diamond said.
Three life-size sculptures of yogini goddesses from Hindu
temples illustrate the belief that female powers could be
used to allow practitioners to achieve divine powers and
enlightenment.
Later galleries examine how the idea of yog was
circulated worldwide, Diamond said. Early American
posters depict yogis as magicians or "fakirs" performing
acts, along with a 1902 film by Thomas Edison.
Perceptions of yog helped determine how the tradition
developed, and knowing that background is important for
how Americans think about yog today, Diamond said.
"There are so many debates and contestations about what
yog is in America," she said. "Is it a profound
individual embodied system of transformation? Or is it
the thing that spawned a $5 billion industry in which yog
is used to sell cars?"
The exhibit is funded in part by the Smithsonian's first
major crowd-funding campaign, which raised $174,000 in
six weeks. The Alec Baldwin Foundation also is a notable
sponsor. Last year, Baldwin, an actor, married a yog
instructor.
John Schumacher, a 40-year yog practitioner and teacher
in Washington who advised on the exhibit, said visitors
would see there is much more to yog than postures and
breathing.
"It teaches where yog comes from," he said. "You see
there is a deep, philosophical underpinning to all of
these practices and a variety of different philosophies."
Smithsonian Sackler Gallery: http://www.asia.si.edu/
A version of this article appeared in the print edition
of The Daily Star on October 24, 2013, on page 16.
More at:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Culture/Art/2013/Oct-24/235540-us-museum-opens-first-exhibit-on-art-of-yog.ashx#ixzz2ifp2v1Q4
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
https://tinyurl.com/jaimaharaj