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Authors: William J Broad
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training, he repeatedly displayed a love of rigor. He even managed to disprove one of yoga’s central tenets.
Yogis of his day (and ours) were happy to appear scientific by declaring that deep breathing had hidden powers of rejuvenation because it flooded the lungs and bloodstream with oxygen, refreshing body, mind, and spirit. They taught that students who did intense yoga breathing could feel the body tingle and vibrate with waves of healthful oxygen.
Not so, Gune countered after doing a pioneering set of measurements. Instead, he found that fast breathing did little to change the amount of oxygen that the bloodstream would absorb and determined that such vigorous efforts actually made their biggest impact by blowing off clouds of carbon dioxide.
“The idea that an individual absorbs larger quantities of oxygen during Pranayama is a myth,” he wrote, referring to the yogic name for breathing exercises. Gune’s finding might have been counterintuitive and contrary to the wisdom of the day. But it was stubbornly honest—and, as it turns out, scientifically correct.
A smart fund-raiser, Gune sent free copies of Yoga Mimansa to the maharajahs of India. These rich men presided over a patchwork of princely states exempt from direct British rule. Many patronized the indigenous arts and cultureas part of the Hindu revival, and some had a lively interest in yoga.
His influence rose so fast and to such a degree that he quickly became a hero of the nationalist intelligentsia. By 1927—just three years after the ashram’s founding—the former unemployed schoolteacher was advising Gandhi, arguably the most famous Indian since the Buddha and the most visible leader of India’s fight for independence.
The issue was the pandit’s health. Gandhi had had serious bouts of illness and fatigue often aggravated by his long fasts, as well as a fascination with natural cures and a disdain for Western medicine. He complained of high blood pressure. Gune recommended the calming effect of the Shoulder Stand. “In your case,” he wrote in one letter, the pose “should certainly help.” Gune noted that his own practice of the inversion left his blood pressure at a relaxed 120 millimeters of mercury.
Gune often promoted specific poses for particular ills and health benefits, pioneering an approach that many yogis would adopt over the decades. And he promulgated other innovations. Soon after founding the ashram, Gune, drawing on the inspiration of a martial arts mentor, established a policy of teaching yoga in classes of mass instruction. The lessons, moreover, were free.
Another novelty centered on women. At first, the ashram took in only male students. But that policy soon changed. By 1926, Gune was calling his reformulated yoga “peculiarly fitted for the females.” His observation was farsighted, given the traditional male chauvinism of Hindu society and yoga’s eventual popularity with women.
To say that Gune was pivotal understates the case. Even so, he remains virtually unknown in the West except among scholars. Joseph S. Alter, a medical anthropologist at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Yoga in Modern India , argues that he “probably had a more profound impact on the practice of modern yoga than anyone else.”
Of Gune’s many admirers, one of the most politically astute was the Wodeyar clan of Mysore, a city and state of southern India rich in silk and incense, coffee and sandalwood. The benevolent rajahs ruled over a realm about the size of Scotland, their ornate palace dominating the capital. Mysore was the most progressive of India’s princely states, and historians say the ruling family played a skillful role in the politics of Hindu nationalism, including thepromotion of yoga as a way to build an Indian national identity.
Like Gune at his ashram, the Mysore palace sponsored a version of the ancient discipline that was far removed from the world of Tantra and eroticism. It was quite unmystical. For
Yogis of his day (and ours) were happy to appear scientific by declaring that deep breathing had hidden powers of rejuvenation because it flooded the lungs and bloodstream with oxygen, refreshing body, mind, and spirit. They taught that students who did intense yoga breathing could feel the body tingle and vibrate with waves of healthful oxygen.
Not so, Gune countered after doing a pioneering set of measurements. Instead, he found that fast breathing did little to change the amount of oxygen that the bloodstream would absorb and determined that such vigorous efforts actually made their biggest impact by blowing off clouds of carbon dioxide.
“The idea that an individual absorbs larger quantities of oxygen during Pranayama is a myth,” he wrote, referring to the yogic name for breathing exercises. Gune’s finding might have been counterintuitive and contrary to the wisdom of the day. But it was stubbornly honest—and, as it turns out, scientifically correct.
A smart fund-raiser, Gune sent free copies of Yoga Mimansa to the maharajahs of India. These rich men presided over a patchwork of princely states exempt from direct British rule. Many patronized the indigenous arts and cultureas part of the Hindu revival, and some had a lively interest in yoga.
His influence rose so fast and to such a degree that he quickly became a hero of the nationalist intelligentsia. By 1927—just three years after the ashram’s founding—the former unemployed schoolteacher was advising Gandhi, arguably the most famous Indian since the Buddha and the most visible leader of India’s fight for independence.
The issue was the pandit’s health. Gandhi had had serious bouts of illness and fatigue often aggravated by his long fasts, as well as a fascination with natural cures and a disdain for Western medicine. He complained of high blood pressure. Gune recommended the calming effect of the Shoulder Stand. “In your case,” he wrote in one letter, the pose “should certainly help.” Gune noted that his own practice of the inversion left his blood pressure at a relaxed 120 millimeters of mercury.
Gune often promoted specific poses for particular ills and health benefits, pioneering an approach that many yogis would adopt over the decades. And he promulgated other innovations. Soon after founding the ashram, Gune, drawing on the inspiration of a martial arts mentor, established a policy of teaching yoga in classes of mass instruction. The lessons, moreover, were free.
Another novelty centered on women. At first, the ashram took in only male students. But that policy soon changed. By 1926, Gune was calling his reformulated yoga “peculiarly fitted for the females.” His observation was farsighted, given the traditional male chauvinism of Hindu society and yoga’s eventual popularity with women.
To say that Gune was pivotal understates the case. Even so, he remains virtually unknown in the West except among scholars. Joseph S. Alter, a medical anthropologist at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Yoga in Modern India , argues that he “probably had a more profound impact on the practice of modern yoga than anyone else.”
Of Gune’s many admirers, one of the most politically astute was the Wodeyar clan of Mysore, a city and state of southern India rich in silk and incense, coffee and sandalwood. The benevolent rajahs ruled over a realm about the size of Scotland, their ornate palace dominating the capital. Mysore was the most progressive of India’s princely states, and historians say the ruling family played a skillful role in the politics of Hindu nationalism, including thepromotion of yoga as a way to build an Indian national identity.
Like Gune at his ashram, the Mysore palace sponsored a version of the ancient discipline that was far removed from the world of Tantra and eroticism. It was quite unmystical. For
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