49. Daniela Bevilacqua | From Tapas to Modern Yoga

In this episode, we speak with return guest and teacher Dr.
Daniela Bevilacqua to discuss the publication of her latest work,
From Tapas to Modern Yoga: Sādhus’ Understanding of Embodied
Practices (2024). We discuss the origins of the book as part of
the research and output of the infamous SOAS Hatha Yoga Project
(2015-2020), her methodology as an ethnographer working in India,
the various sampradāyas, the role of yoga and the question of who
are the yogis amongst sādhus today, and many stories and details
from her years of conducting research in India. 

Speaker Bio
Daniela Bevilacqua is an Indianist specialized in
Hindu asceticism, investigated through an ethnographic and
historical perspective. She received her PhD in Civilizations of
Africa and Asia from Sapienza University of Rome and in
Anthropology from the University of Paris Nanterre. She worked as
a post-doc research fellow at SOAS, for the ERC- funded Haṭha
Yoga Project (2015–2020). She is currently a researcher at CRIA
(ISCTE-IUL) in Lisbon as PI of the project “Performing the
Sacred: Ethnographies of Transgender Activism in the Kinnar
Akhara”. She authored Modern Hindu Traditionalism in Contemporary
India (Routledge 2018), From Tapas to Modern Yoga. Sādhus’
Understanding of Embodied Practices (Equinox 2024), edited
volumes, and written several articles and book chapters on topics
related to Hindu religious tradition, gender, and embodied
practices.

Links


From Tapas to Modern Yoga: Sādhus’ Understanding of Embodied
Practices (2024)

YS 103 | Yoga and Hindu Asceticsm, Past and Present

YSP 2. Daniela Bevilacqua | Hindu Asceticism and Haṭha Yoga