From Superman to Shaktiman:

th
Yoga, Eugenics and Spiritual Darwinism in the early 20 Century

Mark Singleton (University of Cambridge) Mark Singleton <mhs23@cam.ac.uk>

Abstract: A recurrent theme in popular yoga of the early twentieth century is the regeneration of
the physical body, and thereby the spiritual self, through yoga practice. This regeneration is often
conceived as a manipulation of the spiritual and 'cellular' destiny not only of the individual, but of
the race itself. In turn of the century Europe and America, the paradigm of Darwinism quickly
exceeded its biological mandate and was adopted as a social doctrine concerned with individual
(and societal) betterment. At the same time, a bowlderised Nietzscheanism took hold of the popular
psyche, and the figure of the racially superior superman gained prominence. These trends paralleled
the rise in popularity of yoga, and often yoga techniques were perceived as tools for the accelerated
evolution of the individual. A rhetoric of spiritual engineering displaced discourses of otherworldly
liberation, and methods in some hands became a trans-generational fast-track to spiritual pre-
eminence.

I begin by considering the main tenets and assumptions underpinning the European efflorescence of
eugenic evolutionism. Popular Social Darwinism, usually combined with the Nietzsche cult,
promoted the notion that human beings could modify their own heredity through programmes of
selective breeding, hygiene and physical culture. Instead of the hereditary degeneracy that was
perceived to afflict modern nations and races, a new stock of Supermen would emerge as the
products of this eugenic religion. These fantasies of voluntary evolution struck a chord with certain
sections of the Indian psyche, often via the Aryan supremacy narratives of Orientalist scholars from
Jones to Avalon. Social Darwinist discourses underpinned the rhetoric of the nascent nationalist
movement, and Indian Eugenics societies flourished from the 1920s onwards in response to the
raging sentiment of national degeneration—physical, moral and spiritual. In the second part of the
study, I consider the degree to which these ideas passed into modern yoga through organisations
such as the Theosophical Society. Evolutionism infiltrated yoga writing to the extent that it became
naturalised as its trans-historical rationale. Through figures like Annie Besant and Aurobindo
Ghose, the Nietzschean faith was transplanted into 'Eastern' philosophy and made to seem like its
truest expression. A transmogrified sàükhya provided the alibi for various experiments in yoga, and
in combination with the eugenically-inclined physical culture movement, gave to yoga many of the
popular postural forms we know today. I consider briefly one character in whom these trends
culminate most clearly: the self-proclaimed innovator of the 'yoga renaissance', øri Yogendra. In
conclusion, I ask whether such inclinations really do reflect a modern and extraneous ideological
transfer, or whether it would be more helpful to consider them as present day recapitulations of
themes and practices already present in pre-colonial India.