ABSTRACT
This contribution analyzes an important feature of Sabhapati’s yogic literature that has received no scholarly treatment to date, namely the incorporation of a wide variety of mantras for a range of gods, goddesses, and planetary deities in his vernacular Indic literature (especially in Tamil and Hindi) as well as to a lesser extent English. Yoga in South Asia from the colonial period onward is often perceived as departing from its historical connection with Hindu Tantric ritual in many contexts on account of Theosophical Society’s and Swami Vivekananda’s modern reformulations of Rājayoga and an overall distancing from ritual in the colonial period. This chapter explores a notable exception to this trend, however, namely how yoga in Tamil vernacular contexts maintained an intrinsic connection with not only mantras but also an accompanying Tantric ritual apparatus that intersects with the mythos of Agastya and the associated folk religious traditions of the Tamil Siddhars and “Swamigals.”
