Baḥr al-ḥayāt (Hamd-i mawfūr wa thanā-yi nā-maḥsur haḍrat-i ṣamadī-ra.) India: 11 Rabi I, 1130 (12 February 1718). PK3791 .A46 1718
Today, in honor of the First International Day of Yoga, we look at the dynamic history of the practice of yoga and how it has transformed through time and cultures. A book with some of the earliest illustrated yoga poses—the Baḥr al-ḥayāt—resides in the Rare Book Collection and offers an example of how treatises on yoga spread to the Islamic world through translations written between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries.
Untitled, from the Baḥr al-ḥayāt (1718).
The history of the Baḥr al-ḥayāt shows how yogic teachings moved from east to west as the practice, traditionally passed down orally, was written down and translated. The RBC’s copy of the Baḥr al-ḥayāt comes from a 1563 Persian translation of an Arabic version of the Amritakunda (“The Pool of Nectar”), which was a treatise on hatha yoga written in either Sanskrit or Hindi in the twelfth century. The Baḥr al-ḥayāt in UNC’s Rare Book Collection was written and illuminated in 1718, its illustrations likely copied from earlier Persian translations like this early seventeenth-century version from the Chester Beatty Library.
Through its many loose translations into Persian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu, the text of the Baḥr al-ḥayāt morphed in different ways, as one might suspect. Early Arabic translators of the Amritakunda drew parallels between Indic and Arabic spiritual practices in order to make yoga more accessible to Muslims. In fact, in Persian and Arabic translations, the asanas (yoga postures) were referred to as mantra chants or ascetic practices instead of physical poses. Translators also added quotations from the Koran and hadiths to the text. To Muslims studying the translations, the teachings of the Baḥr al-ḥayāt probably would have seemed to mesh well with their own faith.
Uttanakurmasana, from the Baḥr al-ḥayāt (1718).
Like the text, the illustrations of the RBC’s Baḥr al-ḥayāt were also likely copied from older versions and reflect changes over time. The varying appearance of successive copies was likely due to differences in regional artistic style. The illustration above, from the RBC’s Baḥr al-ḥayāt, is much simpler than the one here, from the earlier Baḥr al-ḥayāt in the Chester Beatty Library.
We wish you an enjoyable June 21st, whether celebrating the fathers in your family, the summer solstice, or now, thanks to a United Nations General Assembly resolution, yoga!
Today marks the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, the battle in which Napoleon was at last decisively defeated. Now remembered primarily as a conflict between England and France, the Battle of Waterloo took place south of Brussels in present-day Belgium and included armies from Prussia, Austria, Hanover, Nassau, the Duchy of Brunswick, and England. This Seventh Coalition formed expressly to defeat Napoleon after his return to power during the Hundred Days following his exile on Elba. The Battle of Waterloo ended Napoleon’s rule and two decades of war across the continent of Europe. A precursor to the World Wars of the twentieth century, the Napoleonic Wars brought issues of imperialism and nationalism to the fore, inaugurating modern warfare as they changed the face of Europe.
“View from Mont St. Jean at the Battle of Waterloo,” from Thomas Hartwell Horne, An Illustrated Record of Important Events in the Annals of Europe, During the Last Four Years… (London, 1816) | D308 H81 1817
The Battle of Waterloo is also significant in its immediate incorporation into popular imagination. Only days after news of the victory reached British soil, the battle was already being heralded as one of the most important events in history. Commemoration of the battle began within weeks, bolstered by eye-witness accounts from returning soldiers–many more of whom were literate than had ever been the case in previous wars.
M. De Beauchamp, An Authentic Narrative of the Campaign of 1815… (London, 1815) | Hoyt 235
Accounts of the battle took advantage of modern media. Portraits of the generals and principle agents of the battle appeared frequently, creating a cult of celebrity around the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon in particular. Maps, memorials, charts, and dramatic scenes all sought to deliver to the British reader an authentic experience of the battle and its particulars.
Literary reactions to the battle also abounded. Newspapers and journals of the day printed patriotic poetry affirming Britain’s supremacy in the wake of the victory. Leading writers, regardless of their political affiliations, joined the chorus. Sir Walter Scott was among the first to try his hand. His highly publicized Field of Waterloo figured itself as a philanthropic gesture; the proceeds were to fund relief efforts for returning soldiers.
John Booth, The Battle of Waterloo… (London, 1815) | Hoyt 237Walter Scott, The Field of Waterloo (Edinburgh, 1815) | PR3513 F5 c.2
William Wordsworth, long troubled by the threat to European culture and history represented by the chaotic ruin of Napoleon’s campaign, published an ambitious Pindaric ode titled Thanksgiving Ode, January 18, 1916 to commemorate the battle–an effort that met with mixed reviews due to his reluctance to praise the Duke of Wellington, whom he was known to dislike.
A sonnet included with the first publication of Thanksgiving Ode | William Wordsworth, Thanksgiving Ode, January 18, 1816 (London, 1816) | PR5869 .T43 1816
Robert Southey’s contribution, The Poet’s Pilgrimage to Waterloo, participated in the emerging tourist culture that surrounded Waterloo and other sites of the wars. Southey’s visitation to the scene of the battle provides a template for the literary traveller, who can follow in the poet’s footsteps on a pilgrimage of his own. That Southey’s poem was used as a kind of guide book is apparent in the Rare Book Collection’s copy, which is bound together with an actual travel guide to Belgium, published in the same year.
Robert Southey, The Poet’s Pilgrimage to Waterloo (London, 1816) | PR5464 P6 1816The Battle of Waterloo… (Manchester, 1816) | Hoyt 368
The primacy of the battle did not fade as the nineteenth century wore on. It remained a watershed moment in the British cultural consciousness. Eye-witness accounts of the battle continued to emerge throughout mid-century, including Fanny Burney’s posthumously published narrative in her Diary and Letters of Madame d’Arblay(1842) and Robert Gleig’s popular Story of the Battle of Waterloo(1848). William Makepeace Thackeray’s fictionalized version of the battle provided emotional crisis for the heroine of his much-read novel Vanity Fair (1847).
Models and panoramas of the battle provided another avenue for commemoration. Panorama paintings first began to appear in the 1780s but gained wide popularity during the nineteenth century as a pre-cinematic immersive experience for those who could not afford to travel to historic sites. Guides, prints, pamphlets, and other ephemeral publications produced in conjunction with panorama displays can help us recreate the space of the panorama, if not the experience.
Great National Panorama of the Battle of Waterloo, Painted by Chevalier Philip Fleisher (London, 18–) | Hoyt 1147
Patrons interested in learning more about the history of Waterloo may consult the Rare Book Collection’s Hoyt Collection of French History. The collection includes over 5,000 valuable books and documents related to the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.
Frontispiece portrait of W. B. Yeats by John Butler Yeats in Mosada: A Dramatic Poem (Dublin, 1886) / Yeats PR5904 .M67 1886, superv’d
The Rare Book Collection joins in the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of William Butler Yeats by posting this portrait of him from Mosada: A Dramatic Poem, his first separately published work. The drama had appeared in the June 1886 issue of the Dublin University Review; the twelve-page pamphlet in wrappers, a reprint by Sealy, Bryers, and Walker, followed in October. As William Michael Murphy notes in his book Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats (1839-1922), it was W.B’s father, a painter, who “insisted on including as [the pamphlet’s] frontispiece a pencil portrait by himself of the author, preferring this to ‘a picture of some incident in the play,’ as had been planned at first. In the sketch Willie wears a fuzzy beard, which his father had urged him to grow.
“The volume had little sale. Papa and Willie gave copies away liberally. One reached the hands of an English Roman Catholic priest who had recently come to Dublin, Gerard Manley Hopkins.” (p. 146) As Murphy recounts, the great poet politely refrained from expressing his negative opinion of the work to the elder Yeats.
The RBC’s copy of Mosada is one of three identified by bibliographer Allan Wade as bound with a thicker paper, unlined. While we cannot boast a provenance for our copy that includes Gerard Manley Hopkins, former owners known to us are New York editor and noted folk art collector Cyril I. Nelson and renowned British bookman Anthony Hobson.
This first separate publication is one of the rarest items in the RBC’s extensive Yeats Collection, a gift of the Hanes Foundation as the University Library’s five millionth volume. The RBC continues to add to the Yeats Collection as opportunities present themselves.
Almanach des bergers pour la Seconde Année Républicaine… (Paris: 1793) / QB807 .A46 1793
The vibrant covers of the Almanach des bergers stand out among the Rare Book Collection’s acquisitions of the year so far. This almanac dates from the second year of the French Revolutionary Calendar (1793–1794), which would mark time for the French Republic through the end of 1805.
Almanacs like the Almanach des bergers were marketed to the lower and middle classes, especially farmers who relied on the books’ predictions of meteorological events for planting and harvesting crops. When the National Convention created a completely new calendric system during the French Revolution, almanacs replicated and explained the new calendar. These almanacs were then printed in a large number and made widely accessible.
The Revolutionary Calendar was devised methodically, with a focus on the marking of time as it relates to the movement of the earth around the sun. This kind of organized structuring of the natural world was typical of the Age of Enlightenment (ca. 1650-1780). Months were renamed corresponding to the harvest cycle and were reformatted to contain three weeks of ten days each (décades). Five feast days occurred at the end of the year, and a leap day was observed once every four years. The Revolutionary calendar omitted the excessive feast days of the Gregorian calendar (see our earlier post) and strictly regulated the French citizen’s work week.
Page 35 of the Almanach des bergers showing the phases of the moon during Pluviôse, the fifth month of the revolutionary year, which started around January 20 and ended around February 20
Besides delineating the past—the ère vulgaire—from the present, the new calendar also incorporated contemporary values into the measurement of time. The calendar was based on the natural world, dividing time into even segments of ten, and it created a more rigorous work schedule. The author of the Almanach des bergers, thought to be one Taillardat, draws many parallels to the ancient Greek calendar, and suggests that perhaps the ancient Greek calendar was the inspiration for beginning the revolutionary calendar year in autumn. The new calendric system was regarded as politically neutral, as it was based on reason and the natural world, even though it was established by a very political group and acted as a tool to control the citizen’s schedule. The wide distribution of almanacs could even be compared to the distribution of political propaganda.
The Revolutionary Calendar was short lived. It fell out of favor during the reign of Napoleon, when concerns of inconvenience to international commerce prevailed. The Gregorian calendar, still in use today, was reinstated on January 1, 1806. The Almanach des bergers is an artifact of a brief but important period in the history of French culture, a sign of the French Revolution’s impact on the daily lives of French citizens.
