R
u
t
h
W
e
s
t
o
b
y
–
R
e
v
e
r
s
i
n
g
r
e
p
r
o
d
u
c
t
i
o
n
i
n
H
a
t
h
a
Y
o
g
a

Register to attend

K
e
y
i
n
f
o
r
m
a
t
i
o
n

Date
Time
5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
Venue
SOAS University of London
Room
Main Building Room 201
Event type
Lecture

A
b
o
u
t
t
h
i
s
e
v
e
n
t

The SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies is delighted to host Dr. Ruth Westoby (SOAS Alumni) of the Oxford Centre of Hindu Studies, to present on the topic of “Reversing Reproduction in Haṭha Yoga.”

The yogic body is often described as an elaborate matrix of channels (nāḍīs), energies (such as prāṇa) and wheels (cakras) that the practitioner should ritually construct and manipulate in order to attain power and liberation. However, in the texts of the early haṭha corpus we find little concern with either the esoteric body or the mundane, material (jaḍa) or saṃsāric body. 

Rather, the sources are practice manuals the focus of which is setting out techniques of yoga. Yet, an examination of the descriptions and principles of the body that do appear in these sources indicates that a key conceptualisation of the body relates to reproduction: the saṃsāric body is that which reproduces; the liberated body (jīvanmukti or videhamukti) is one which can be understood as reversing reproduction.

Drawing from her recently completed PhD dissertation on “The Body in Early Haṭha Yoga” Ruth Westoby offers a close analysis of key passages in texts such as the Amṛtasiddhi, Yogabīja and Khecarīvidyā to sketch concepts of reproduction and its reversal. She contextualises this within a framework of approaches to sex and reproduction that range from pronatalist to antinatalist, but nevertheless complicates an easy assumption that these approaches map only onto a strict ascetic and householder binary. She finds instead a prosaic approach to sex and sexuality.

A
b
o
u
t
t
h
e
s
p
e
a
k
e
r

Dr Ruth Westoby is a researcher in yoga and Asian Religions and a yoga practitioner. Ruth is Junior Research Fellow in Jaina Studies at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies with a focus on technologies of the body. In addition, Ruth is an Associate Researcher at Inform, based at King’s College London, researching menstruation in contemporary religions. 

Ruth holds a PhD from SOAS University of London on ‘The Body in Early Haṭha Yoga’ (2024), supervised by Professor James Mallinson and Dr Richard Williams, funded by CHASE-AHRC and awarded without corrections. Ruth is currently working on a book project from her doctoral thesis ‘Reversing Reproduction in Haṭha Yoga’. Her research focuses on the materiality of the body and sexuality from critical theoretical and medical humanities perspectives.

Ruth has published early research findings in the peer-reviewed Religions of South Asia (2021) and numerous public articles. She teaches MA ‘Theory and Method in the Study of Religion’ alongside undergraduate courses as Visiting Lecturer at Roehampton University (2023-2026). As a practitioner Ruth collaborated with the SOAS Haṭha Yoga Project (2015-2020) interpreting postures from an 18th-century text teaching a precursor of modern yoga, the Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati.

For articles and podcasts see Enigmatic Yoga.

Share this page

R
e
l
a
t
e
d
e
v
e
n
t
s