Jain reception of haṭhayoga: The case of Acharya Sushil Kumar's “Jain Yoga”

Studies of notable yoga teachers such as Swami Vivekananda, Paramahansa Yogananda, Krishnamacharya, Kuvalayananda, Sri Yogendra, BKS Iyengar, K. Pattabhi Jois, Sivananda, Indra Devi, and other figures have revealed the many ways haṭhayoga has been adapted into various Vedāntic frameworks globally. However, little attention has been given to the ways Jain Yoga disseminators have adapted haṭhayoga into their own contemporary Jain Yoga systems, where focus has been primarily placed on Acharya Mahaprajna's prekṣā dhyāna system. 

This presentation thus focuses our attention on a prominent Jain Yoga teacher, Acharya Sushil Kumar, who broke his monastic vow not to travel by any other means than by foot and came to the United States in 1975. Here, he established Siddhachalam in New Jersey where he taught what he called "Jain Yoga," though as we will see, he tenuously adapted a number of non-Jain influences including those from medieval haṭhayoga texts. In his magnum opus, Song of the Soul (SOS, 1987), Kumar at times appears to accept the various soteriological goals found in medieval haṭhayoga texts that were not of Jain provenance. As this presentation will show, these alternative soteriological goals are found side-by-side with Jain goals in SOS, suggesting that Kumar, who was born into a Brahmin family only later to be initiated as a Jain ascetic, still maintained a commitment to the practice and outcomes of non-Jain forms of haṭhayoga. Kumar's assemblage of Jain and non-Jain haṭhayoga influences thereby represents both continuities of Jain Yoga authorship from the past, but also discontinuities insofar as he, more than any other medieval or contemporary Jain Yoga author, explicitly admits alternative, non-Jain soteriological experiences into his yogic teachings.