This volume consists of a collection of studies which are based on papers presented at the symposium «Erlöst leben – oder sterben, um befreit zu werden?» (Zurich, May 2008), organized in honour of Peter Schreiner. It offers a selective overview of individual liberation as dealt with in Indian texts and rituals at different times. Starting from the two prominent approaches to this problem, namely, that of jīvanmukti (‘liberation in one’s lifetime’) and that of videhamukti (‘liberation beyond the body’), some important questions have to be considered: How has life been thought compatible with mokṣa? How have ‘life’ in the concept of the ‘liberated living’ and ‘death’ in the concept of the ‘disembodied liberated’ been conceived by philosophers, poets, religious thinkers, ritual practitioners and social activists?Coming from various disciplinary backgrounds – Indology, Religious Studies, Social Anthropology – the contributors explore these questions in the context of their particular fields of research. Through this multi-faceted approach, the volume presents an original and substantial analysis of an intriguing topic touching on many aspects of religious and secular life. The careful interpretation of the sources by a group of internationally renowned scholars leads to critical perspectives on some crucial developments in the history of Indian religion.
Andreas Bigger
Andreas Bigger (PhD) is a librarian at the University Library of Basel.
Rita Krajnc
Rita Krajnc is a doctoral student at the URPP Asia and Europe at the University of Zurich and reader in Hindi at the Department of Indology. She is writing a dissertation on the contemporary Hindi author Mṛdulā Garg and her novels.
Annemarie Mertens
Annemarie Mertens (PhD) is a research assistant and reader in Sanskrit, other Indian languages and classical Indian studies at the Department of Indology at the University of Zurich. Her research focuses on Sanskrit Purāṇas and the correlation of group identities and religious conflicts in Indian society.
Markus Schupbach
Markus Schüpbach is a doctoral student at the Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics (Indology) at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on the Sanskrit epics and the history of philosophical concepts.
Heinz Werner Wessler
Heinz Werner Wessler (PhD) is senior lecturer of Indology at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies at the University of Bonn. His fields of research cover Purāṇa studies, modern religion and politics in South Asia and Hindi literature.
Editorial Reviews
 | “This is a riveting account of the early history of yoga and yogis in India that weighs the perspectives of both the yogis and the public culture of yoga. The history of yoga practice, and of yogis, is finally receiving the critical attention from scholars that will alter the views made popular by modern yoga teachers who believe their doctrines of mental and physical culture constitutes ‘classical yoga’. David White’s entertaining and intelligent account of yogis drawn largely from Hindi and Sanskrit sources will contribute enormously to this corrective project. White has a real gift for making difficult, opaque material comprehensible, and he does so in writing that is bright and lucid.”
—Frederick M. Smith, University of Iowa
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| “White swept us up with The Alchemical Body and blew us away with Kiss of the Yogini. Now along comes Sinister Yogis. Prepare to be taken over completely by this final installment of White’s ‘siddha’ trilogy. These are no ordinary yogis, at least not in the way yogis have been conceived for many a generation, and not simply by Western scholars and spiritual entrepreneurs. And they are not figures of a literary imagination. They are flesh and bone—when they want to be—and they have walked among us, making and remaking the world. White unravels a vast and interlacing literature on the theory and practice— and especially practitioners—of yoga, ranging from Harappa to the British Raj, and all points in between, and he demonstrates time and again that self projection and body possession, what he calls ‘omni-presencing’, are the keys to South Asian religion.”
—William R. Pinch, Wesleyan University
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| “David Gordon White’s Sinister Yogis is brilliant, digressive, non-linear, and likely to be criticized by readers who find fault with specific interpretive and translational choices that he makes. Writing a book such as this one takes courage. It is safest in the modern academy to burrow into the minutiae of a single era or philosophical school and to write only for a small group of initiates. Sinister Yogis is the most comprehensive work to date in a movement that is fundamentally re-shaping our understanding of what yoga is.”
—Andrew J. Nicholson, Journal of the American Oriental Society
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| “Sinister Yogis...successfully provides a fuller, more contextualized history of yoga, opening up some of the elisions that come when a tradition goes cross-cultural.”
—Times Literary Supplement
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| “Huge fun, fascinating and beautifully written.”
—Fortean Times
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| “This wondrously captivating, richly detailed book is a must for anyone interested in conceptions of the Indian yogi and of yogic practice.”
—Choice
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| “White offers a surprising, counterintuitive take on the roots of an extraordinary, sometimes mystical discipline.”
—Barnes & Noble Review
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