Yoga has been practiced by many people over the centuries. Yoga is believed to instill a man with peace, self perseverance, patience and concentration. Yoga is an art and has a history which can be traced back to a long time. Since early writings were in palm leaves they were easily destroyed with time. Hence tracing back the specific history of yoga is very difficult. The Indus valley civilization and the Vedic civilization give hints of the practice of yoga at those times. Some of the Mohenjo-daro seals depict yoga almost 8000 years back. Some of the sculptures of the Indus valley civilization depict a man in a position meditation posture. Some of the scholars believe that the history of yoga can be traced back in the Rig Veda the oldest literature of the Hindus.
In all the traced back history of yoga it aims at uniting the body, soul and mind into a cosmic one. Some of the Upanishads shows certain description regarding the positions in yoga. Yoga is different from exercises and meditation. Different science gives different history of yoga, Nobody clearly knows from where this science originated. Hatha Yoga is the part of yoga which is being practiced by the westerners nowadays. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is a text based on yoga which is being used by most of the yoga teachers even today.
Even when a person is studying yoga it is of utmost importance that the person understands the history of yoga. Understanding the history of yoga can give better results to the yoga practices. No one can clearly give a date as to when yoga originated correctly, but over the years the aim of yoga has remained the same, to unite the body, mind and soul. Yoga has been modified by people over the years to adjust the culture and lifestyle but basically it still remains the same.
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