Hindu Ascetics and the Political in Contemporary India

Raphaël Voix (1, 2)

1 CEIAS - Centre d'Études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud
2 IFP - Institut Français de Pondichéry

This chapter examines the social and political implications of ‘ascetic practice’ in modern and contemporary India. For the purposes of this analysis, I will consider Indian ascetics who have a meditative and/or yoga practice and who refer to it as a ‘sādhana’. Starting with the assumption that no form of asceticism proposes unambiguous social principles applied to specific contexts, I will examine the way that those who claim to practise ascetic disciplines – most notably, those who have renounced their social role as a member of a specific caste and family – relate to and act in the society around them (Barnard and Kripal 2002; Godrej 2016, 2017). Considering the late colonial period up until the beginning of the twenty-first century from an ethnohistorical perspective, I intend to outline various ways in which these individuals render their social conduct compatible or coherent with their ascetic practices.

Mots clés: Yoga; Hinduism; India

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie

Raphaël Voix. Hindu Ascetics and the Political in Contemporary India. Karen O’Brien-Kop; Suzanne Newcombe. Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies, Routledge, pp.146-155, 2020, 9781138484863. ⟨halshs-03099762⟩