How the Princely State of Aundh and its Raja Took Surya Namaskar to the World

Excerpt adapted from The Yoga of Power by Sunila S. Kalé and Christian Lee Novetzke, published by Columbia University Press and Penguin India.

A monumental sculpture greets those who arrive at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. Bronze figures arrayed in a spiral depict each position of the Surya Namaskar, a series of movements that is one of the signature sequences of modern yoga. This sculpture, completed in 2011 during the government led by Manmohan Singh of the Indian National Congress party, transmits to the visitor—especially the foreign one—a visual presentation of political soft power. It stands as a reminder to all who pass by that yoga traditions, and especially the Surya Namaskar, are of Indian origin, a point of pride for the Indian nation. The location of this sculpture, at the international gateway to India’s national capital, is apt because the Surya Namaskar has long existed within the worlds of politics and power…

We argue that the Surya Namaskar was understood by its chief proponent, Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi (1868–1951, hereafter “the Raja”), to be a physical practice within a discourse emerging from an elite martial tradition of yoga as both psychophysical technique and political strategy, a way to claim sovereignty through the governance of the self amid the liminal freedoms afforded by indirect rule. The importance of the Surya Namaskar as a practice of sovereignty began with the actual psychophysical exercise but radiated outward and ultimately reverberated through Aundh’s political, educational, economic, social, and penal domains.

Aundh and its Raja

It is known by some but not often noted that the place that played an important role in introducing the world to the Surya Namaskar was also one where there were early models of universal suffrage, a liberal democratic constitution, an independent judiciary, and the open-concept prison. Located 150 kilometers southeast of Pune in western India, the Princely State of Aundh was made up of a scant seventy-two villages, a small territory of roughly five hundred square miles that was dispersed in twenty-four discontinuous patches across the modern districts of Satara and Sangli in Maharashtra and Vijayapura in northern Karnataka…

[The Raja] was also the architect of a series of reforms that we suggest are emblematic of yoga as political practice. These included incorporating Surya Namaskar training throughout Aundh, reforms to the educational system, administrative and judicial devolution, initiatives to achieve economic self-sufficiency, and penal reform. The pinnacle of Aundh’s political reforms was the Raja’s abdication of his royal privileges in favor of a constitutional democracy in 1938–1939, eight years ahead of India’s declaration of independence from British rule and more than a decade before India’s own democratic constitution would come into effect in 1951. He also played a leading role in social, educational, political, and cultural reform movements outside Aundh. For example, he was the first major patron of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute’s project to compose a critical edition of the Mahābhārata, for which he also painted illustrations and commissioned art from other artists. Although he was a Brahman by birth, he was critical of religious and caste practices that discriminated against women and nonelite castes alike and that, in his view, were responsible for social decline; he did not strictly obey the norm common for men of his community of wearing the sacred thread, either. In many senses, he can be considered an example of a “Brahmin double,” someone who, by virtue of his caste and gender position, could afford to mount criticisms of the very structures that upheld his authority. These various political, social, and ethical stances informed how he deployed his practice of the Surya Namaskar to speak to and effect his political positions…

Yoga on Film

Around 1928, the Raja created a silent film of just under eleven minutes on the practice of the Surya Namaskar. He either showed the film himself or arranged screenings of the film throughout British and Princely India as well as during his travels abroad. The film, entitled Surya Namaskar in both English and Hindi, is attributed to the Raja and has bilingual placards in English and Hindi that are interspersed with moving images of people performing the Surya Namaskar sequence. Given the great importance the Raja placed on performing and converting others to the practice of Surya Namaskars and the high cost of making a film almost a century ago, we consider each element of the film to be a deliberate choice on the part of the Raja and those close to him.

After a few introductory placards, the first images of the film show the Raja emerging from his palace in full regalia, with a turban on his head and a sword hanging at his side. In the next scenes, the Raja is shorn of all regalia, wears shorts with a bare chest, and performs several rounds of the Surya Namaskar sequence of movements. Although the Raja was a Brahmin, as were so many of the princes of the fragmented Maratha Confederacy throughout western India, he does not wear a sacred thread, nor does his son, who appears in subsequent frames. Neither wears any other marker of religion or caste, in keeping with the Raja’s broader social reform commitments. This contrasts with other photographs of the Raja from this time, in which he does wear a sacred thread, and is also a notable difference from the yoga teacher Krishnamacharya in Mysore, who first appears in a film performing yoga in 1938, with a prominent sacred thread across his chest and a vertical Hindu Vaishnava mark (ṭiḷak) on his forehead.

The form of the Surya Namaskar depicted in the 1928 film is a swift, flowing movement with a pause only at the first and last positions (which are the same), with the downward dog position occurring in the middle. While the term vinyāsa is not used by the Raja, as far as we can tell, the idea of a flowing set of movements or steps is clearly evident in the way the Raja and others demonstrate the Surya Namaskar in this film. Alongside the Surya Namaskar, the Raja’s son, Apa Pant, also demonstrates the classic haṭha yoga technique of naulī, which involves manipulating the stomach and intestines through a dynamic movement of the abdominal muscles. In addition, the Raja and everyone else who performs the Surya Namaskar in the film can be seen speaking before beginning each new sequence. They are likely chanting the mantras that the Raja felt were integral to the practice and about which he writes in all his books, another key aspect of many forms of psychophysical yoga.

The word “yoga” does not appear in English or Hindi in the film; instead, the Surya Namaskar is described as an “exercise” in English and vyāyām in Hindi. As we will see, however, the Raja makes no distinction between yoga and exercise/vyāyām in his writing in English, Marathi, or Hindi, and yoga is described as both exercise and vyāyām in these languages in India as well. Likewise, the placards for the Surya Namaskar sculpture in the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi that we mention at the start of the chapter describe the Surya Namaskar in Hindi as both yoga and vyāyām. There is here perhaps an echo of the association between yoga and vyāyāma that we explore in the Arthaśāstra in chapter 2. Later in this chapter, we dwell extensively on the Raja’s choice of words to describe his practice, especially when addressing an English audience.

A gender balance appears important in the film. Following the demonstration of Surya Namaskar and naulī by the Raja’s son, the Raja’s wife, the Ranisaheb, performs the Surya Namaskar in a nine-yard sari (the men are in shorts). This way of draping a sari was common throughout western India at the time (and still is in many parts of the region) and, unlike the five-yard draping method, makes it possible for a woman to perform the Surya Namaskar properly, with legs spread apart rather than always kept together. After the Ranisaheb’s demonstration, the film shows the five princesses of Aundh performing the Surya Namaskar in synchronized sequence, following which the youngest members of the Raja’s household are shown making a brave and disorderly attempt to perform the sequence under the watchful tutelage of the Raja and later the Rani, who enters the scene to assist.

The next two scenes capture groups of schoolchildren performing Surya Namaskar. The film notes that requiring students to practice the Surya Namaskar is “one of many reforms introduced by the Chiefsahib in his State,” suggesting again that the Surya Namaskar was a component of other social and political reforms undertaken by the Raja. It appears that boys and girls practiced separately because they were likely divided by gender in schools generally; one last placard emphasizes that “school girls are taught” the Surya Namaskar as well.

The film ends with a rather chaotic family montage as the Raja tries to arrange his children and grandchildren for a family photo. This final scene emphasizes the very personal nature of the Surya Namaskar practice for the Raja and his family and its rootedness in the genealogy of his own political lineage, and the opening of this lineage to the general public.

Sunila S. Kalé is a professor in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her books include Electrifying India: Regional Political Economies of Development (2014).

Christian Lee Novetzke is a professor in the Jackson School of International Studies and the Comparative History of Ideas Department at the University of Washington, Seattle. His books include The Quotidian Revolution: Vernacularization, Religion, and the Premodern Public Sphere in India (Columbia, 2016).