ABSTRACT
In this chapter I provide an overview of studies about yoga and meditation that have used ethnographic methods to collect data, describing the major issues that have been outlined by scholars studying these two disciplines, especially in their modern manifestations. This literature is then confronted with my ethnographic work among ascetic practitioners of yoga in India. I demonstrate that ethnography, critically used, provides interesting and unique methods that enable scholars to collect useful data through which to better understand yoga practices and the consequences of their diffusion and, in some cases, also their historical development.
