Editing Yoga (section)

====Indus Valley Civilisation====

[[File:Shiva Pashupati.jpg|thumb|The Pashupati seal from the [[Indus Valley Civilisation]] (3300 BCE) shows a seated figure, surrounded by animals, in a posture thought by 20th century scholars to be [[Mulabandhasana]]. This is rejected by more recent scholars.{{sfn|Samuel|2008|pp=1–14}}]]

The twentieth-century scholars [[Karel Werner]], [[Thomas McEvilley]], and Mircea Eliade believed that the central figure of the [[Pashupati seal]] is seated in the [[Mulabandhasana]] posture,{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=25–34}} and the roots of yoga are in the [[Indus Valley civilisation]].{{sfn|Samuel|2008|pp=1–14}} This is rejected by more recent scholarship; for example, [[Geoffrey Samuel]], Andrea R. Jain, and [[Wendy Doniger]] describe the identification as speculative; the meaning of the figure will remain unknown until [[Indus script |Harappan script]] is deciphered, and the roots of yoga cannot be linked to the IVC.{{sfn|Samuel|2008|pp=1–14}}<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Doniger |first=Wendy |date=2011 |title=God's Body, or, The Lingam Made Flesh: Conflicts over the Representation of the Sexual Body of the Hindu God Shiva |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23347187 |journal=Social Research |volume=78 |issue=2 |pages=485–508 |jstor=23347187 |issn=0037-783X}}</ref>{{refn |group=note |Some scholars are now considering the image to be an instance of Lord of the Beasts found in Eurasian neolithic mythology or the widespread motif of the [[Master of Animals]] found in ancient [[Near East]]ern and Mediterranean art.{{sfn |Witzel |2008 |pp=68–70, 90}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kenoyer |first=Jonathan Mark |title=The Master of Animals in Old World Iconography |publisher=Archaeolingua Alapítvány |year=2010 |editor-last=Counts |editor-first=Derek B. |pages=50 |chapter=Master of Animals and Animal Masters in the Iconography of the Indus Tradition |editor-last2=Arnold |editor-first2=Bettina}}</ref>}}

{{anchor|Earliest textual references (1000–500 BCE)}}