Where did yoga begin?
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In 2021 Nepal's then Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli said yoga began in Nepal, not India. The texts that founded yoga come from the ancient Indian subcontinent.
India first (well documented)Culture, games, language & ideas
Indian claim
Yoga is part of India's heritage: it grew out of Vedic, Upanishadic, Buddhist and Jain traditions and was systematised in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. India proposed International Day of Yoga at the UN in 2014.
Evidence for the Indian claim
- Early descriptions of yoga appear in the Upanishads, such as the Katha Upanishad, composed in northern India.
- Britannica dates Patanjali's Yoga Sutras to between about the 2nd century BCE and the 5th century CE; the classic later texts of hatha yoga are also Indian.
- The Ministry of Ayush promotes yoga as Indian heritage, and the UN adopted International Day of Yoga on India's proposal in 2014.
Commonly credited to
On 21 June 2021, K. P. Sharma Oli said that yoga originated in Nepal, when India did not exist as a country, crediting Shiva and Patanjali.
Evidence for the other claim
- The ancient culture in which yoga grew covered the whole region, including parts of present-day Nepal; modern borders did not exist.
- Oli did not cite texts or archaeological finds pointing to a specifically Nepali origin; the claim was widely criticised, including in Nepal.
- The often-cited 'proto-yogi' Pashupati seal from the Indus civilisation is open to other readings and does not prove yoga existed then.
What historians and scientists say
Yoga developed in the ancient Indian subcontinent, in a shared culture that also included the lands of today's Nepal. There is no evidence that it began in Nepal rather than in the wider region whose texts created it.