Dr James Mallinson, Lecturer at London University and ERC grantee says:

Yoga's history shows it to be a transformative spiritual technology that anyone can use. By increasing global awareness of yoga, the International Day of Yoga is bringing uplift to humanity.

Millions of people in India, in Europe and around the world are celebrating today the International Day of Yoga, created in December 2014 by the United Nations at the initiative of India.

Many Europeans practice yoga, which has deep roots in India and can provide benefits to anyone in the world. As such yoga can contribute to better understanding and cultural exchanges between Europeans and Indian citizens and strengthen people-to-people contacts.

At this occasion the European Union wishes to highlight a very particular research project which the European Research Council (ERC), a programme within the Scientific Excellence pillar of the EU's Research and Innovation Programme 'Horizon 2020', is supporting, aiming at a better understanding of the roots of yoga, through mapping and studying Sanskrit manuscripts and fieldwork. The project will identify yoga’s aims and benefits and show how they have adapted to changing historical contexts.

The project is led by Dr James Mallinson, a Sanskritist by training who specialises in the history of yoga. He is based at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in the University of London. As principal investigator he is supported by a multi-disciplinary team in Europe and in India (École française d'Extrême Orient in Pondicherry and the Mehrangarh Trust in Jodhpur).

The project is running for five years from October 2015 to September 2020. It is hoped that the project’s findings will be disseminated as exhibitions in Europe and India. It is also hoped that the project’s findings will be disseminated through collaboration with the Indian government's AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) Ministry.

Background on Hatha Yoga: Aim and deliverables

Hatha yoga consists of a variety of practices in which physical techniques predominate. These techniques include the postures for which yoga is now so famous, internal cleansing techniques and different ways of controlling the breath. Like other methods of yoga, hatha yoga’s teachings also include meditation. It is the physical methods of hatha yoga that provide the basis for much of the yoga practised around the world today.

Hatha yoga, as taught in its Sanskrit texts, has benefits ranging from the mundane, such as a slim and healthy body, to the transcendental, i.e. enlightenment. Its techniques aim at controlling the body's vital energies, thereby prolonging life; in some texts they are even said to bring about immortality.

Through analysis of ten key Sanskrit texts on hatha yoga, which are currently available only in manuscripts, and through fieldwork with traditional yogis in India today, the Hatha Yoga Project will delineate the history and practice of hatha yoga. This history is fascinating in itself, but it is also of interest to the huge number of practitioners of yoga around the world today. Some of modern yoga’s practices are twentieth-century innovations so by identifying what constituted hatha yoga in India prior to yoga’s engagement with the wider world; we will be able to point out what is new and what is old in modern yoga practice.

The project’s outputs will include ten critical editions and translations of key Sanskrit texts on yoga, and four monographs on physical yoga's history.

EU –India cooperation on Research and Innovation

India is a strategic partner for the European Union and this is also well reflected in the cooperation on research and innovation. India and the EU have very similar objectives on the role of research and innovation, in particular a focus on delivering economic growth faster and bringing solutions for the well-being of its citizens by addressing together the societal challenges we are facing today.

In the coming years we expect to engage more actively in research and innovation collaboration, in particular building upon the good cooperation on water and scaling up cooperation on renewable energy, health and bio-economy in the EU's research and Innovation Programme Horizon 2020.

In the ERC programme, which is an integral part of Horizon 2020, India is

already performing well: in total, 38 Indian researchers have obtained an ERC funded projects so far (since 2007- May 2017). India is the fifth country after the US, Canada, Russia and Australia in number of successful ERC grants.

In addition, more than 1100 Indians are working as a member in ERC teams across Europe.

The ERC provides EU-funded opportunities to both early-career and senior researchers to carry out their research projects in all scientific disciplines in institutions across Europe. The ERC stands for scientific excellence as can be demonstrated by the following track record:

- Six Nobel Prizes laureates have benefitted from ERC grants

- Five ERC grantees have received the Wolf Prizes

- Four ERC grantees have received the Field medals Prizes, and

- More than hundred thousand articles in scientific journals have been published.

India's goods track record in ERC is a demonstration of its scientific excellence.