The project team, in particular Jason Birch, acquired scans of several hundred Sanskrit manuscripts on yoga from libraries in India. Workshops were held at various institutions around the world to read with experts working editions of the ten texts that have been edited as part of the project. These editions have been finalised and their texts translated. Four of the editions have been accepted for publication after peer review, the remaining six are all close to completion, as are the project team’s monographs. The critical editions are being published in a new Hatha Yoga Series by the Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient in Pondicherry, India.
The project team together with research assistants based in Pondicherry, India, made digital transcriptions of approximately 75 texts on yoga in a variety of Indian languages. These constitute a searchable e-text database which the team has been using for its research, and which will be uploaded to the project website for public access.
The project began in 2016 with a workshop to which twenty world-renowned specialists in historical yoga studies were invited to give presentations on the project’s theme, physical yoga practice. A series of workshops was held in the UK and at various international venues (Pondicherry (India), Portland (Oregon, USA), Procida (Italy)) from 2017–2019 to which specialists were invited to read with the team working editions of the ten texts to be edited. In 2019 a workshop was held at SOAS to which 15 international scholars were invited in order to examine the influence of other physical disciplines on the development of yoga.
In addition to trips to libraries in India to acquire scans of manuscripts, the team conducted ethnographic fieldwork and visits to historical sites to inspect artistic depictions of yoga practice. The primary ethnographer, Daniela Bevilacqua spent two years in India, during which she has interviewed more than 100 traditional practitioners of physical yoga.
The project team members have written several articles for journals and edited volumes. The ten critical editions are all either complete or almost so, with four accepted for publication. The team members' four monographs analysing the project’s data are nearing completion.
The project team made a film based on one of the texts to be edited, the Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati, which teaches 110 different yoga postures, using as models advanced practitioners based in the UK and India. This film was part of an exhibition of the project's work held in the Brunei Gallery at SOAS from January to June 2020.
The team has given numerous lectures in the UK, internationally, and online, in which they have disseminated the project’s findings.
