NEW DELHI (RNS) The Supreme Court of India is weighing whether yoga has a religious element, as it decides if public schools may teach the ancient discipline in the country where it originated.


India’s school policy considers yoga an integral component of physical education. But the court has expressed caution, and is considering arguments that yoga has a religious component. The issue is complicated because India is a secular democracy but has pockets of Hindu nationals who would like to force their way of life on others.


“Can we be asking all the schools to have one period for yoga classes every day when certain minority institutions may have reservations against it?” the court asked Oct. 18, referring to Christian and Muslim groups.


The issue is affecting other countries too. In July, a California judge ruled that the teaching of yoga in public schools does not establish a government interest in religion. The decision came after parents sued the Encinitas Union School District to stop yoga classes introduced to elementary schoolchildren in the upscale suburb just north of San Diego.


India’s two petitioners want the court to direct all schools run or funded by the federal government to include yoga as a subject in the first through eighth grades. They cite the 2005 National Curriculum Framework, which says yoga is vital for health and physical education.


“Yoga is man-making and character building education, which is so essential in modern materialistic age,” said Jagdish Chander Seth, a lawyer who is one of the petitioners.


Seth explained that the word “yoga” literally means “union with God,” and the discipline was developed “with intense effort of Great Rishis (spiritual leaders) since time immemorial.”



But he added that yoga had no connection with any particular religion. “(Yoga) is a path for spiritualism through healthy body and mind,” and schools should teach it as “science of breathing and physical postures,” he said.


Sanskrit words like “pranayama” and “Om” could be substituted with other words, he suggested.


Pranayama are breathing exercises, some of which involve chanting of “Om,” a mystical Sanskrit sound considered sacred in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.


But some Christian and Muslim leaders oppose the move.


“Yoga, as it is currently practiced in India, is not merely a physical exercise. It has a strong component of faith to it,” said John Dayal, a Christian leader and member of the National Monitoring Committee for Minority Education.


“Some of the exercises, such as surya namaskar (sun salutation), have a strong religious overtone. … It is not possible to purge religious tones from yoga,” he said.


Mohammad Salim, national secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a Sunni Muslim organization in India, said most Muslims will not accept yoga as a compulsory subject.


“Some forces are using yoga to strengthen their agenda of cultural nationalism,” he said. “Yoga can’t be made compulsory in India, which is a secular democracy.”


However, Umer Ahmed Iyasi, the chief imam of the All India Organization of Imams of Mosques, believes yoga is just physical exercise, and part of India’s rich heritage and culture.


India’s most popular yoga guru Baba Ramdev is accused of promoting Hindu nationalism alongside yoga.


Of India’s 1.2 billion people, 80 percent are Hindu, 13 percent are Muslim and 2 percent are Christian. The Indian Constitution guarantees a certain autonomy to minorities to administer their institutions. Many students from minority communities go to schools run or aided by the government, which account for about 80 percent of all schools in the country.


Look at these images from 'Yoga: The Art Of Transformation'[1]



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  • Three Aspects of the Absolute


    Folio 1 from the Nath Charit By Bulaki India, Rajasthan, Jodhpur, 1823 (Samvat 1880) Opaque watercolor, gold, and tin alloy on paper, 47 x 123 cm Mehrangarh Museum Trust, RJS2399 This monumental manuscript folio depicts creation according to the Naths, a sectarian order closely associated with hatha yoga. Creation begins with a formless transcendent Nath (represented by the shimmering gold square on the right) who emanates into increasingly more material yogic beings (center and right).




  • Yogini


    India, Tamil Nadu, Kanchipuram or Kaveripakkam, ca. 900– 975 Metagabbro, 116 x 76 x 43.2 cm Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Gift of Arthur M. Sackler, S1987.905 When properly placated, fierce Yogini goddesses bestowed worldly powers on tantric yogis and royal devotees. This is one of three life-size yoginis, from a temple that was destroyed at an unknown point in the past, tha




  • The Chakras Of The Subtle Body


    folio 4 from the Siddha Siddhanta Paddhati By Bulaki India, Rajasthan, Jodhpur, 1824 (Samvat 1881) Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 122 x 46 cm Mehrangarh Museum Trust, RJS 2376 Chakras are located along the central channel of the body of an adept whose eyes are crossed in inward meditation.




  • Yogini With Mynah


    India, Karnataka, Bijapur, ca. 1603–4 Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; 39.2 x 27.6 cm (folio with borders), 19.3 x 11.6 cm (painting without borders) The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, 11a.31 For the Indo-Islamic rulers of Bijapur at the turn of the seventeenth century, yoginis were agents of otherworldly powers who could help them win battles. Renowned as one of India’s greatest court paintings, this elegantly elongated yogini is theatrically backlit and surrounded by hugely blooming flowers.




  • Siddha Pratima Yantra


    Western India, dated 1333 (Samvat 1390) Bronze , 21.9 x 13.1 x 8.9 cm Freer Gallery of Art, F1997.33 Yoga transforms body and mind. The negative space cut from a sheet of copper represents an advanced Jain practitioner (siddha) who has achieved disembodied enlightenment.




  • Vishnu Vishvarupa


    India, Rajasthan, Jaipur, ca. 1800–1820 Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 38.5 x 28 cm Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Given by Mrs. Gerald Clark, IS.33-2006 Mortal and divine masters of yoga realize the equivalence of their bodies with the cosmos.




  • Bifolio From The Gulshan Album


    India, Mughal dynasty, first quarter of the 17th century Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 53.5 x 40 cm Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin–Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Orientabteilung, Libri pict. A 117, ff.6b, 13a Dazzling in its jewel-like colors, palpably present yogis and atmospheric landscapes, this opening from the great Gulshan album of the Mughal emperor Jahangir represents Nath, Ramanandi, and Sannyasi yogis as members of an amiable collective.




  • Bifolio from the Gulshan Album


    India, Mughal dynasty, first quarter of the 17th century Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 53.5 x 40 cm Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin–Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Orientabteilung, Libri pict. A 117, ff.6b, 13a Dazzling in its jewel-like colors, palpably present yogis and atmospheric landscapes, this opening from the great Gulshan album of the Mughal emperor Jahangir represents Nath, Ramanandi, and Sannyasi yogis as members of an amiable collective.




  • Group Of Yogis


    Group of Yogis Colin Murray for Bourne & Shepherd, ca. 1880s Albumen print, 22.2 x 29.2 cm Collection of Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck, 2011.02.02.0004 In the 19th century, photographs circulated exoticized images of yogis across the globe. The horizontal body markings on the bald “yogi” seated at right is studio make-up that bears no relationship to any Hindu tradition; the painted jungle backdrop, potted plants, and grass mats are equally props assembled to satisfy a transnational fascination with views of foreign lands and people.




  • Shiva Bhairava


    India, Karnataka, Mysore, 13th century Chloritic schist, 116.6 x 49.23 cm The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1964.369 For tantric yogis, the Hindu deity Bhairava was both transcendent guru and the god they became through initiation and practice. Like Bhairava, they haunted cremation grounds, which provided the ashes they smeared on their bodies and the skull cups that they carried.




  • T. Krishnamacharya Asanas


    India, Mysore, 1938 Sponsored by Maharaja Krishnaraja Wodiyar Digital copy of a lost black-and-white, 57 min. Courtesy of Dan McGuire Film popularized the dynamic potential of yoga as sequential movements. One of the earliest films features T. Krishnamacharya, the grandfather of modern yoga.