‘The Delights of Samādhi:’ Alexandra David-Neel, Haṭha Yoga and Occult South Asia

Presenter:

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Abstract

In the 1930s, Alexandra David-Neel (1868–1969) became famous worldwide for expounding the ‘secret teachings’ and ‘psychical training’ of Tibetan Tantric practitioners. Yet David-Neel’s interest in Eastern techniques of liberation dates back from her early contact with occult South Asia in the 1890s in the circles of the Theosophical Society in Europe and India. David-Neel developed a personal interest in meditation probably through Annie Besant, and remained overly wary of bodily practices as a declared Buddhist herself. Nevertheless, in 1893 in her very first published article in Le Lotus bleu, while polemically discussing the Secret Doctrine and Esoteric Buddhism, David-Neel made significant reference to the commented edition and translation of Svātmārāma’s Haṭhayogapradīpikā (HYP) published that same year by the Bombay Theosophical Publication Fund. David-Neel’s early reading of the HYP then developed into scholarly studies on ‘physical training,’ motivated her extensive field surveys, and sustained her vision of yoga up to her latest books. In focusing on the South Asian prequel of David-Neel’s engagement with occult Asia, the aim of this paper is threefold: 1) to clarify David-Neel’s ties with the esotericist milieus in Europe and their lasting impact on her later works; 2) to highlight David-Neel’s rendition of the HYP and its pivotal role in her trajectory as a para-scholarly influential authority on occult phenomena in South Asia; 3) to reassess the key function of David-Neel’s early discovery of ‘physical yoga’ from a transcultural perspective, in particular in view of her assimilation of Indian concepts such as samādhi in her ethics and poetics in the long run.