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Ever since the emergence of yoga-related practices and teachings in South Asia around 500 BCE, yoga has shown a protean flexibility and creativity, constantly reproducing itself in dependence on changing social, cultural and religious contexts. Thus, the history of yoga is a complex and multifaceted one, and still remains far from having been exhaustively investigated. Furthermore, the roughly two decades of academic research on yoga since the late 1990’s have brought new insights, methodological approaches and questions concerning the history of premodern yoga, the interpretation of yoga-related literature, and the early impact of the phenomenon on other Asian cultures. What is more, the investigation of modern transnational yoga has established itself as a multidisciplinary field of study in its own right. Studies on the history and contemporary state of modern yoga have caused ongoing public and academic debates about the relation between so-called traditional and modern yoga and about issues like authenticity, authority and ownership. Moreover, the motives and experiences of contemporary practitioners and their global networks are being investigated with methods of the social sciences and cultural anthropology.

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