This volume examines the roots and early development of modern hatha (postural) yoga. The author concentrates on the transition from the classical conception of yoga as a philosophical system to the version we recognize today. He argues that the popularly practiced yoga of today owes a greater debt to modern Indian nationalism and, even more surprisingly, to the spiritual aspirations of European bodybuilding and early 20th-century women's gymnastics movements of Europe and America, than it does to any ancient Indian yoga tradition.