title: Yoga

text: Yoga-like practices are first mentioned in the "Rigveda" as a non-Brahminical practice. Yoga is referred to in a number of the Upanishads. The first known appearance of the word "yoga" with the same meaning as the modern term is in the "Katha Upanishad", which was probably composed between the fifth and third centuries BCE. Yoga continued to develop as a systematic study and practice during the fifth and sixth centuries BCE in ancient India's ascetic and Śramaṇa movements. The most comprehensive text on Yoga, the "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali", date to the early centuries of the Common Era; Yoga philosophy became known as one of the six orthodox philosophical schools ("Darśanas") of Hinduism in the second half of the first millennium CE. Hatha yoga texts began to emerge between the ninth and 11th centuries, originating in tantra.


title: Yoga

text: The term "yoga" in the Western world often denotes a modern form of Hatha yoga and a posture-based physical fitness, stress-relief and relaxation technique, consisting largely of the asanas; this differs from traditional yoga, which focuses on meditation and release from worldly attachments. It was introduced by gurus from India after the success of Swami Vivekananda's adaptation of yoga without asanas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Vivekananda introduced the "Yoga Sutras" to the West, and they became prominent after the 20th-century success of hatha yoga.


title: Yoga

text: The Sanskrit noun योग "" is derived from the root " (युज्) " "to attach, join, harness, yoke". "Yoga" is a cognate of the English word "yoke". According to Mikel Burley, the first use of the root of the word "yoga" is in hymn 5.81.1 of the "Rigveda", a dedication to the rising Sun-god, where it has been interpreted as "yoke" or "control".


title: Yoga

text: Pāṇini (4th c. BCE) wrote that the term "yoga" can be derived from either of two roots: "yujir yoga" (to yoke) or "yuj samādhau" ("to concentrate"). In the context of the "Yoga Sutras", the root "yuj samādhau" (to concentrate) is considered the correct etymology by traditional commentators.


title: Yoga

text: In accordance with Pāṇini, Vyasa (who wrote the first commentary on the "Yoga Sutras") says that yoga means "samadhi" (concentration). In the "Yoga Sutras" (2.1), "kriyāyoga" is yoga's "practical" aspect: the "union with the supreme" in the performance of everyday duties. A person who practices yoga, or follows the yoga philosophy with a high level of commitment, is called a yogi; a female yogi may also be known as a yogini.


title: Yoga

text: The term "yoga" has been defined in a number of ways in Indian philosophical and religious traditions.


title: Yoga

text: The ultimate goals of yoga are stilling the mind and gaining insight, resting in detached awareness, and liberation ("Moksha") from "saṃsāra" and "duḥkha": a process (or discipline) leading to unity ("Aikyam") with the divine ("Brahman") or with one's Self ("Ātman"). This goal varies by philosophical or theological system. In the classical Astanga yoga system, the ultimate goal of yoga is to achieve "samadhi" and remain in that state as pure awareness.


title: Yoga

text: David Gordon White writes that yoga's core principles were more or less in place in the 5th century CE, and variations of the principles developed over time:


title: Yoga

text: According to White, the last principle relates to legendary goals of yoga practice; it differs from yoga's practical goals in South Asian thought and practice since the beginning of the Common Era in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain philosophical schools.


title: Yoga

text: There is no consensus on yoga's chronology or origins other than its development in ancient India. There are two broad theories explaining the origins of yoga. The linear model holds that yoga has Vedic origins (as reflected in Vedic texts), and influenced Buddhism. This model is mainly supported by Hindu scholars. According to the synthesis model, yoga is a synthesis of indigenous, non-Vedic practices with Vedic elements. This model is favoured in Western scholarship.


title: Yoga

text: Speculations about yoga began to emerge in the early Upanishads of the first half of the first millennium BCE, with expositions also appearing in Jain and Buddhist texts . Between 200 BCE and 500 CE, traditions of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain philosophy were taking shape; teachings were collected as sutras, and a philosophical system of "Patanjaliyogasastra" began to emerge. The Middle Ages saw the development of a number of yoga satellite traditions. It and other aspects of Indian philosophy came to the attention of the educated Western public during the mid-19th century.


title: Yoga

text: According to Edward Fitzpatrick Crangle, Hindu researchers have favoured a linear theory which attempts "to interpret the origin and early development of Indian contemplative practices as a sequential growth from an Aryan genesis"; traditional Hinduism regards the Vedas as the source of all spiritual knowledge. Edwin Bryant wrote that authors who support Indigenous Aryanism also tend to support the linear model.


title: Yoga

text: Heinrich Zimmer was an exponent of the synthesis model, arguing for non-Vedic eastern states of India. According to Zimmer, Yoga is part of a non-Vedic system which includes the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy, Jainism and Buddhism: "[Jainism] does not derive from Brahman-Aryan sources, but reflects the cosmology and anthropology of a much older pre-Aryan upper class of northeastern India [Bihar] – being rooted in the same subsoil of archaic metaphysical speculation as Yoga, Sankhya, and Buddhism, the other non-Vedic Indian systems." Richard Gombrich and Geoffrey Samuel believe that the "śramaṇa" movement originated in non-Vedic Greater Magadha.


title: Yoga

text: Thomas McEvilley favors a composite model in which a pre-Aryan yoga prototype existed in the pre-Vedic period and was refined during the Vedic period. According to Gavin D. Flood, the Upanishads differ fundamentally from the Vedic ritual tradition and indicate non-Vedic influences. However, the traditions may be connected:


title: Yoga

text: The ascetic traditions of the eastern Ganges plain are thought to drew from a common body of practices and philosophies, with proto-samkhya concepts of "purusha" and "prakriti" as a common denominator.


title: Yoga

text: The twentieth-century scholars Karel Werner, Thomas McEvilley, and Mircea Eliade believe that the central figure of the Pashupati seal is in a Mulabandhasana posture, and the roots of yoga are in the Indus Valley civilisation. This is rejected by more recent scholarship; for example, Geoffrey Samuel, Andrea R. Jain, and Wendy Doniger describe the identification as speculative; the meaning of the figure will remain unknown until Harappan script is deciphered, and the roots of yoga cannot be linked to the IVC.


title: Yoga

text: The Vedas, the only texts preserved from the early Vedic period and codified between c. 1200 and 900 BCE, contain references to yogic practices primarily related to ascetics outside, or on the fringes of Brahmanism. The "Rigveda" Nasadiya Sukta suggests an early Brahmanic contemplative tradition. Techniques for controlling breath and vital energies are mentioned in the "Atharvaveda" and in the Brahmanas (the second layer of the Vedas, composed c. 1000–800 BCE).


title: Yoga

text: According to Flood, "The Samhitas [the mantras of the Vedas] contain some references ... to ascetics, namely the Munis or Keśins and the Vratyas." Werner wrote in 1977 that the "Rigveda" does not describe yoga, and there is little evidence of practices. The earliest description of "an outsider who does not belong to the Brahminic establishment" is found in the Keśin hymn 10.136, the "Rigveda" youngest book, which was codified around 1000 BCE. Werner wrote that there were


title: Yoga

text: According to Whicher (1998), scholarship frequently fails to see the connection between the contemplative practices of the "rishis" and later yoga practices: "The proto-Yoga of the Vedic rishis is an early form of sacrificial mysticism and contains many elements characteristic of later Yoga that include: concentration, meditative observation, ascetic forms of practice ("tapas"), breath control practiced in conjunction with the recitation of sacred hymns during the ritual, the notion of self-sacrifice, impeccably accurate recitation of sacred words (prefiguring "mantra-yoga"), mystical experience, and the engagement with a reality far greater than our psychological identity or the ego." Jacobsen wrote in 2018, "Bodily postures are closely related to the tradition of ("tapas"), ascetic practices in the Vedic tradition"; ascetic practices used by Vedic priests "in their preparations for the performance of the sacrifice" may be precursors of yoga. "The ecstatic practice of enigmatic longhaired "muni" in "Rgveda" 10.136 and the ascetic performance of the "vratya-s" in the "Atharvaveda" outside of or on the fringe of the Brahmanical ritual order, have probably contributed more to the ascetic practices of yoga."


title: Yoga

text: According to Bryant, practices recognizable as classical yoga first appear in the Upanishads (composed during the late Vedic period). Alexander Wynne agrees that formless, elemental meditation might have originated in the Upanishadic tradition. An early reference to meditation is made in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (c. 900 BCE), one of the Principal Upanishads. The Chandogya Upanishad (c. 800–700 BCE) describes the five vital energies ("prana"), and concepts of later yoga traditions (such as blood vessels and an internal sound) are also described in this upanishad. The practice of pranayama (focusing on the breath) is mentioned in hymn 1.5.23 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, and pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses) is mentioned in hymn 8.15 of Chandogya Upanishad. The Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana (probably before the 6th c. BCE) teaches breath control and repetition of a mantra. The 6th-c. BCE Taittiriya Upanishad defines yoga as the mastery of body and senses. According to Flood, "[T]he actual term "yoga" first appears in the Katha Upanishad, dated to the fifth to first centuries BCE.


title: Yoga

text: Systematic yoga concepts begin to emerge in texts dating to c. 500–200 BCE, such as the early Buddhist texts, the middle Upanishads, and the "Mahabharata" "Bhagavad Gita" and "Shanti Parva".


title: Yoga

text: According to Geoffrey Samuel, the "best evidence to date" suggests that yogic practices "developed in the same ascetic circles as the early śramaṇa movements (Buddhists, Jainas and Ajivikas), probably in around the sixth and fifth centuries BCE." This occurred during India's second urbanisation period. According to Mallinson and Singleton, these traditions were the first to use mind-body techniques (known as "Dhyāna" and "tapas") but later described as yoga, to strive for liberation from the round of rebirth.


title: Yoga

text: Werner writes, "The Buddha was the founder of his [Yoga] system, even though, admittedly, he made use of some of the experiences he had previously gained under various Yoga teachers of his time." He notes:


title: Yoga

text: Early Buddhist texts describe yogic and meditative practices, some of which the Buddha borrowed from the śramaṇa tradition. The Pāli Canon contains three passages in which the Buddha describes pressing the tongue against the palate to control hunger or the mind, depending on the passage. There is no mention of the tongue inserted into the nasopharynx, as in khecarī mudrā. The Buddha used a posture in which pressure is put on the perineum with the heel, similar to modern postures used to evoke Kundalini. Suttas which discuss yogic practice include the "Satipatthana Sutta" (the four foundations of mindfulness sutta) and the "Anapanasati Sutta" (the mindfulness of breathing sutta).


title: Yoga

text: The chronology of these yoga-related early Buddhist texts, like the ancient Hindu texts, is unclear. Early Buddhist sources such as the Majjhima Nikāya mention meditation; the Aṅguttara Nikāya describes "jhāyins" (meditators) who resemble early Hindu descriptions of "muni", the Kesin and meditating ascetics, but the meditation practices are not called "yoga" in these texts. The earliest known discussions of yoga in Buddhist literature, as understood in a modern context, are from the later Buddhist Yogācāra and Theravada schools.


title: Yoga

text: Jain meditation is a yoga system which predated the Buddhist school. Since Jain sources are later than Buddhist ones, however, it is difficult to distinguish between the early Jain school and elements derived from other schools. Most of the other contemporary yoga systems alluded to in the Upanishads and some Buddhist texts have been lost.


title: Yoga

text: The Upanishads, composed in the late Vedic period, contain the first references to practices recognizable as classical yoga. The first known appearance of the word "yoga" in the modern sense is in the Katha Upanishad (probably composed between the fifth and third centuries BCE), where it is defined as steady control of the senses whichwith cessation of mental activityleads to a supreme state. The Katha Upanishad integrates the monism of the early Upanishads with concepts of samkhya and yoga. It defines levels of existence by their proximity to one's innermost being. Yoga is viewed as a process of interiorization, or ascent of consciousness. The upanishad is the earliest literary work which highlights the fundamentals of yoga. According to White,


title: Yoga

text: The hymns in book two of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad (another late-first-millennium BCE text) describe a procedure in which the body is upright, the breath is restrained and the mind is meditatively focused, preferably in a cave or a place that is simple and quiet.


title: Yoga

text: The "Maitrayaniya Upanishad", probably composed later than the Katha and Shvetashvatara Upanishads but before the "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali", mentions a sixfold yoga method: breath control, introspective withdrawal of the senses, meditation ("dhyana"), mental concentration, logic and reasoning, and spiritual union. In addition to discussions in the Principal Upanishads, the twenty Yoga Upanishads and related texts (such as "Yoga Vasistha", composed between the sixth and 14th centuries CE) discuss yoga methods.


title: Yoga

text: Alexander the Great reached India in the 4th century BCE. In addition to his army, he brought Greek academics who wrote memoirs about its geography, people, and customs. One of Alexander's companions was Onesicritus (quoted in Book 15, Sections 63–65 by Strabo in his "Geography"), who describes yogis. Onesicritus says that the yogis were aloof and adopted "different postures – standing or sitting or lying naked – and motionless".


title: Yoga

text: Onesicritus also mentions attempts by his colleague, Calanus, to meet them. Initially denied an audience, he was later invited because he was sent by a "king curious of wisdom and philosophy". Onesicritus and Calanus learn that the yogis consider life's best doctrines to "rid the spirit of not only pain, but also pleasure", that "man trains the body for toil in order that his opinions may be strengthened", that "there is no shame in life on frugal fare", and that "the best place to inhabit is one with scantiest equipment or outfit". According to Charles Rockwell Lanman, these principles are significant in the history of yoga's spiritual side and may reflect the roots of "undisturbed calmness" and "mindfulness through balance" in the later works of Patanjali and Buddhaghosa.


title: Yoga

text: "Nirodhayoga" (yoga of cessation), an early form of yoga, is described in the Mokshadharma section of the 12th chapter ("Shanti Parva") of the third-century BCE "Mahabharata". "Nirodhayoga" emphasizes progressive withdrawal from empirical consciousness, including thoughts and sensations, until "purusha" (self) is realized. Terms such as "vichara" (subtle reflection) and "viveka" (discrimination) similar to Patanjali's terminology are used, but not described. Although the "Mahabharata" contains no uniform yogic goal, the separation of self from matter and perception of Brahman everywhere are described as goals of yoga. Samkhya and yoga are conflated, and some verses describe them as identical. Mokshadharma also describes an early practice of elemental meditation. The "Mahabharata" defines the purpose of yoga as uniting the individual "ātman" with the universal Brahman pervading all things.


title: Yoga

text: The "Bhagavad Gita" ("Song of the Lord"), part of the "Mahabharata", contains extensive teachings about yoga. According to Mallinson and Singleton, the "Gita" "seeks to appropriate yoga from the renunciate milieu in which it originated, teaching that it is compatible with worldly activity carried out according to one's caste and life stage; it is only the fruits of one's actions that are to be renounced." In addition to a chapter (chapter six) dedicated to traditional yoga practice (including meditation), it introduces three significant types of yoga:


title: Yoga

text: The "Gita" consists of 18 chapters and 700 "shlokas" (verses); each chapter is named for a different form of yoga. Some scholars divide the "Gita" into three sections; the first six chapters (280 "shlokas") deal with karma yoga, the middle six (209 "shlokas") with bhakti yoga, and the last six (211 "shlokas" with jnana yoga. However, elements of all three are found throughout the work.


title: Yoga

text: Yoga is discussed in the foundational sutras of Hindu philosophy. The "Vaiśeṣika Sūtra" of the Vaisheshika school of Hinduism, composed between the sixth and second centuries BCE, discusses yoga. According to Johannes Bronkhorst, the "Vaiśeṣika Sūtra" describes yoga as "a state where the mind resides only in the Self and therefore not in the senses". This is equivalent to "pratyahara" (withdrawal of the senses). The sutra asserts that yoga leads to an absence of "sukha" (happiness) and "dukkha" (suffering), describing meditative steps in the journey towards spiritual liberation.


title: Yoga

text: The "Brahma Sutras", the foundation text of the Vedanta school of Hinduism, also discusses yoga. Estimated as completed in its surviving form between 450 BCE and 200 CE, its sutras assert that yoga is a means to attain "subtlety of body". The "Nyaya Sutras"—the foundation text of the Nyaya school, estimated as composed between the sixth century BCE and the secondcentury CE—discusses yoga in sutras 4.2.38–50. It includes a discussion of yogic ethics, dhyana (meditation) and samadhi, noting that debate and philosophy are also forms of yoga.


title: Yoga

text: The Indic traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism were taking shape during the period between the Mauryan and the Gupta eras (c. 200 BCE – 500 CE), and systems of yoga began to emerge; a number of texts from these traditions discussed and compiled yoga methods and practices. Key works of the era include the "Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali," the "Yoga-Yājñavalkya," the "Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra", and the "Visuddhimagga."


title: Yoga

text: One of the best-known early expressions of Brahminical yoga thought is the "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali" (early centuries CE, the original name of which may have been the "Pātañjalayogaśāstra-sāṃkhya-pravacana" (c. 325–425 CE); some scholars believe that it included the sutras and a commentary. As the name suggests, the metaphysical basis of the text is samkhya; the school is mentioned in Kauṭilya's Arthashastra as one of the three categories of "anviksikis" (philosophies), with yoga and "Cārvāka". Yoga and samkhya have some differences; yoga accepted the concept of a personal god, and Samkhya was a rational, non-theistic system of Hindu philosophy. Patanjali's system is sometimes called "Seshvara Samkhya", distinguishing it from Kapila's Nirivara Samkhya. The parallels between yoga and samkhya were so close that Max Müller says, "The two philosophies were in popular parlance distinguished from each other as Samkhya with and Samkhya without a Lord." Karel Werner wrote that the systematization of yoga which began in the middle and early Yoga Upanishads culminated in the "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali".


title: Yoga

text: The "Yoga Sutras" are also influenced by the Sramana traditions of Buddhism and Jainism, and may be a further Brahmanical attempt to adopt yoga from those traditions. Larson noted a number of parallels in ancient samkhya, yoga and Abhidharma Buddhism, particularly from the second century BCE to the first century AD. Patanjali's "Yoga Sutras" are a synthesis of the three traditions. From Samkhya, they adopt the "reflective discernment" ("adhyavasaya") of "prakrti" and "purusa" (dualism), their metaphysical rationalism, and their three epistemological methods of obtaining knowledge. Larson says that the "Yoga Sutras" pursue an altered state of awareness from Abhidharma Buddhism's "nirodhasamadhi"; unlike Buddhism's "no self or soul", however, yoga (like Samkhya) believes that each individual has a self. The third concept which the "Yoga Sutras" synthesize is the ascetic tradition of meditation and introspection.


title: Yoga

text: Patanjali's "Yoga Sutras" are considered the first compilation of yoga philosophy. The verses of the "Yoga Sutras" are terse. Many later Indian scholars studied them and published their commentaries, such as the "Vyasa Bhashya" (c. 350–450 CE). Patanjali defines the word "yoga" in his second sutra, and his terse definition hinges on the meaning of three Sanskrit terms. I. K. Taimni translates it as "Yoga is the inhibition (') of the modifications (') of the mind ("")". Swami Vivekananda translates the sutra as "Yoga is restraining the mind-stuff ("Citta") from taking various forms ("Vrittis")." Edwin Bryant writes that to Patanjali, "Yoga essentially consists of meditative practices culminating in attaining a state of consciousness free from all modes of active or discursive thought, and of eventually attaining a state where consciousness is unaware of any object external to itself, that is, is only aware of its own nature as consciousness unmixed with any other object."


title: Yoga

text: Baba Hari Dass writes that if yoga is understood as nirodha (mental control), its goal is "the unqualified state of "niruddha" (the perfection of that process)". "Yoga (union) implies duality (as in joining of two things or principles); the result of yoga is the nondual state ... as the union of the lower self and higher Self. The nondual state is characterized by the absence of individuality; it can be described as eternal peace, pure love, Self-realization, or liberation."


title: Yoga

text: In Hindu scholasticism since the 12th century, yoga has been one of the six orthodox philosophical schools (darsanas): traditions which accept the Vedas.


title: Yoga

text: Yoga and "Vedanta" are the two largest surviving schools of Hindu traditions. Although they share many principles, concepts, and the belief in Self, they differ in degree, style, and methods; yoga accepts three means to obtain knowledge, and Advaita Vedanta accepts. Yoga disputes Advaita Vedanta's monism. It believes that in the state of moksha, each individual discovers the blissful, liberating sense of himself or herself as an independent identity; Advaita Vedanta teaches that in the state of moksha, each individual discovers the blissful, liberating sense of himself or herself as part of oneness with everything, everyone and the Universal Self. They both hold that the free conscience is transcendent, liberated and self-aware. Advaita Vedanta also encourages the use of Patanjali's yoga practices and the "Upanishads" for those seeking the supreme good and ultimate freedom.


title: Yoga

text: The "Yoga Yajnavalkya" is a classical treatise on yoga, attributed to the Vedic sage Yajnavalkya, in the form of a dialogue between Yajnavalkya and the renowned philosopher Gargi Vachaknavi. The origin of the 12-chapter text has been traced to the second century BCE and the fourth century CE. A number of yoga texts, such as the "Hatha Yoga Pradipika", the "Yoga Kundalini" and the "Yoga Tattva Upanishads", have borrowed from (or frequently refer to) the "Yoga Yajnavalkya". It discusses eight yoga asanas (Swastika, Gomukha, Padma, Vira, Simha, Bhadra, Mukta and Mayura), a number of breathing exercises for body cleansing, and meditation.


title: Yoga

text: The Buddhist tradition of Abhidharma spawned treatises which expanded teachings on Buddhist theory and yoga techniques which influenced Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism. At the height of the Gupta period (fourth to fifth centuries CE), a northern Mahayana movement known as Yogācāra began to be systematized with the writings of Buddhist scholars Asanga and Vasubandhu. Yogācāra Buddhism provided a systematic framework for practices which lead a bodhisattva towards awakening and full Buddhahood. Its teachings are found in the encyclopedic "Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra" ("Treatise for Yoga Practitioners"), which was also translated into Tibetan and Chinese and influenced East Asian and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Mallinson and Singleton write that the study of Yogācāra Buddhism is essential to understand yoga's early history, and its teachings influenced the "Pātañjalayogaśāstra." The South India and Sri Lankan-based Theravada school also developed manuals for yogic and meditative training, primarily the "Vimuttimagga" and the "Visuddhimagga".


title: Yoga

text: According to "Tattvarthasutra", a second-to-fifth century Jain text, yoga is the sum of all activities of mind, speech and body. Umasvati calls yoga the generator of karma, and essential to the path to liberation. In his "Niyamasara", Kundakunda describes "yoga bhakti"—devotion to the path to liberation—as the highest form of devotion. Haribhadra and Hemacandra note the five major vows of ascetics and 12 minor vows of laity in yoga. According to Robert J. Zydenbos, Jainism is a system of yogic thinking which became a religion. The five yamas (constraints) of the "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali" are similar to Jainism's five major vows, indicating cross-fertilization between these traditions. Hinduism's influence on Jain yoga may be seen in Haribhadra's "Yogadṛṣṭisamuccaya", which outlines an eightfold yoga influenced by Patanjali's eightfold yoga.


title: Yoga

text: The Middle Ages saw the development of satellite yoga traditions. Hatha yoga emerged during this period.


title: Yoga

text: In medieval Hinduism, the Bhakti movement advocated the concept of a personal god or Supreme Personality. The movement, begun by the Alvars of South India during the 6th to 9th centuries, became influential throughout India by the 12th to 15th centuries. Shaiva and Vaishnava "bhakti" traditions integrated aspects of the "Yoga Sutras" (such as meditative exercises) with devotion. The "Bhagavata Purana" elucidates a form of yoga known as "viraha" (separation) "bhakti", which emphasizes concentration on Krishna.


title: Yoga

text: "Tantra" is a range of esoteric traditions which had begun to arise in India by the 5th century CE. Its use suggests that the word "tantra" in the "Rigveda" means "technique". George Samuel wrote that "tantra" is a contested term, but may be considered a school whose practices appeared in nearly-complete form in Buddhist and Hindu texts by about the 10th century CE. Tantric yoga developed complex visualizations, which included meditation on the body as a microcosm of the cosmos. It included mantras, breath control, and body manipulation (including its nadis and chakras. Teachings about chakras and Kundalini became central to later forms of Indian yoga.


title: Yoga

text: Tantric concepts influenced Hindu, Bon, Buddhist, and Jain traditions. Elements of Tantric rituals were adopted by, and influenced, state functions in medieval Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in East and Southeast Asia. By the turn of the first millennium, hatha yoga emerged from tantra.


title: Yoga

text: Vajrayana is also known as Tantric Buddhism and "Tantrayāna". Its texts began to be compiled during the seventh century CE, and Tibetan translations were completed the following century. These "tantra" texts were the main source of Buddhist knowledge imported into Tibet, and were later translated into Chinese and other Asian languages. The Buddhist text Hevajra Tantra and "caryāgiti" introduced hierarchies of chakras. Yoga is a significant practice in Tantric Buddhism.


title: Yoga

text: Tantra yoga practices include postures and breathing exercises. The Nyingma school practices yantra yoga, a discipline which includes breath work, meditation and other exercises. Nyingma meditation is divided into stages, such as Kriya Yoga, Upa yoga, Yoga yana, mahā yoga, Anu yoga and atiyoga. The Sarma traditions also include Kriya, Upa (called "Charya"), and yoga, with anuttara yoga replacing mahayoga and atiyoga.


title: Yoga

text: Zen, whose name derives from the Sanskrit "dhyāna" via the Chinese "ch'an", is a form of Mahayana Buddhism in which yoga is an integral part.


title: Yoga

text: The first references to hatha yoga are in eighth-century Buddhist works. The earliest definition of hatha yoga is in the 11th-century Buddhist text "Vimalaprabha". Hatha yoga blends elements of Patanjali's "Yoga Sutras" with posture and breathing exercises. It marks the development of asanas into the full-body postures in current popular use and, with its modern variations, is the style presently associated with the word "yoga".


title: Yoga

text: Yogic groups became prominent in Punjab during the 15th and 16th centuries, when Sikhism was beginning. Compositions by Guru Nanak (the founder of Sikhism) describe dialogues he had with Jogis, a Hindu community which practiced yoga. Guru Nanak rejected the austerities, rites and rituals associated with hatha yoga, advocating sahaja yoga or nama yoga instead. According to the Guru Granth Sahib,


title: Yoga

text: Yoga and other aspects of Indian philosophy came to the attention of the educated Western public during the mid-19th century, and N. C. Paul published his "Treatise on Yoga Philosophy" in 1851. Swami Vivekananda, the first Hindu teacher to advocate and disseminate elements of yoga to a Western audience, toured Europe and the United States in the 1890s. His reception built on the interest of intellectuals who included the New England Transcendentalists; among them were Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), who drew on German Romanticism and philosophers and scholars such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), the brothers August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845) and Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), Max Mueller (1823–1900), and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860).


title: Yoga

text: Theosophists, including Helena Blavatsky, also influenced the Western public's view of yoga. Esoteric views at the end of the 19th century encouraged the reception of Vedanta and yoga, with their correspondence between the spiritual and the physical. The reception of yoga and Vedanta entwined with the (primarily neoplatonic) currents of religious and philosophical reform and transformation during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Mircea Eliade brought a new element to yoga, emphasizing tantric yoga in his "Yoga: Immortality and Freedom". With the introduction of tantra traditions and philosophy, the conception of the "transcendent" attained by yogic practice shifted from the mind to the body.


title: Yoga

text: The postural yoga of the Western world is a physical activity consisting of asanas (often connected by smooth transitions, sometimes accompanied by breathing exercises and usually ending with a period of relaxation or meditation. It is often known simply as "yoga", despite older Hindu traditions (some dating to the "Yoga Sutras") in which asanas played little or no part; asanas were not central to any tradition.


title: Yoga

text: Yoga as exercise is part of a modern yoga renaissance, a 20th-century blend of Western gymnastics and haṭha yoga pioneered by Shri Yogendra and Swami Kuvalayananda. Before 1900, hatha yoga had few standing poses; the Sun Salutation was pioneered by Bhawanrao Shrinivasrao Pant Pratinidhi, the Rajah of Aundh, during the 1920s. Many standing poses used in gymnastics were incorporated into yoga by Krishnamacharya in Mysore between the 1930s and the 1950s. Several of his students founded schools of yoga. Pattabhi Jois created ashtanga vinyasa yoga, which led to Power Yoga; B. K. S. Iyengar created Iyengar Yoga and systematised asanas in his 1966 book, "Light on Yoga"; Indra Devi taught yoga to Hollywood actors; and Krishnamacharya's son, T. K. V. Desikachar, founded the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandalam in Chennai. Other schools founded during the 20th century include Bikram Choudhury's Bikram Yoga and Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh's Sivananda yoga. Modern yoga has spread around the world.


title: Yoga

text: The number of asanas used in yoga has increased from 84 in 1830 (as illustrated in "Joga Pradipika") to about 200 in "Light on Yoga" and over 900 performed by Dharma Mittra by 1984. The goal of haṭha yoga (spiritual liberation through energy) was largely replaced by the goals of fitness and relaxation, and many of its more esoteric components were reduced or removed. The term "hatha yoga" also refers to gentle yoga, often for women.


title: Yoga

text: Yoga has developed into a worldwide, multi-billion-dollar business involving classes, teacher certification, clothing, books, videos, equipment, and holidays. The ancient, cross-legged lotus position and Siddhasana are widely-recognised symbols of yoga. The United Nations General Assembly established 21 June as the International Day of Yoga, and it has been celebrated annually around the world since 2015. On 1 December 2016, yoga was listed by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage.


title: Yoga

text: The effect of postural yoga on physical and mental health has been a subject of study, with evidence that regular yoga practice is beneficial for low back pain and stress. In 2017, a Cochrane review found that yoga interventions designed for chronic low back pain increased function at the six month mark, and modestly decreased pain after 3–4 months. The decrease in pain was found to be similar to other exercise programs designed for low-back pain, but the decrease is not large enough to be deemed clinically significant. Theories of the mechanism underlying these changes include the increase in strength and flexibility, physical and mental relaxation and increased body awareness.


title: Yoga

text: Yoga is practised with a variety of methods by all Indian religions. In Hinduism, practices include jnana yoga, bhakti yoga, karma yoga, kundalini yoga, and hatha yoga.


title: Yoga

text: Yoga has been a central practice in Jainism. Jain spirituality is based on a strict code of nonviolence, or ahimsa (which includes vegetarianism), almsgiving (dāna), faith in the three jewels, austerities ("tapas") such as fasting, and yoga. Jain yoga aims at the liberation and purification of the self from the forces of karma, which binds the self to the cycle of reincarnation. Like yoga and Sankhya, Jainism believes in a number of individual selves bound by their individual karma. Only through the reduction of karmic influences and the exhaustion of collected karma can one become purified and released. Early Jain yoga seems to have been divided into several types, including meditation, abandonment of the body (kāyotsarga), contemplation, and reflection (bhāvanā).


title: Yoga

text: Buddhist yoga encompasses a variety of methods which aim to develop the 37 aids to awakening. Its ultimate goal is bodhi (awakening) or nirvana (cessation), traditionally seen as the permanent end of suffering (dukkha) and rebirth. Buddhist texts use a number of terms for spiritual praxis in addition to yoga, such as "bhāvanā" ("development") and "jhāna/dhyāna".


title: Yoga

text: These meditations were seen as supported by the other elements of the Noble Eightfold Path, such as ethics, right exertion, sense restraint and right view. Two mental qualities are said to be indispensable for yoga practice in Buddhism: "samatha" (calm, stability) and "vipassanā" (insight, clear seeing). "Samatha" is a stable, relaxed mind, associated with "samadhi" (mental unification, focus) and "dhyana" (a state of meditative absorption). "Vipassanā" is insight or penetrative understanding into the true nature of phenomena, also defined as "seeing things as they truly are" ("yathābhūtaṃ darśanam"). A unique feature of classical Buddhism is its understanding of all phenomena ("dhammas") as being empty of a self.


title: Yoga

text: Later developments in Buddhist traditions led to innovations in yoga practice. The conservative Theravada school developed new ideas on meditation and yoga in its later works, the most influential of which is the "Visuddhimagga". Mahayana meditation teachings may be seen in the "Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra", compiled c. 4th century. Mahayana also developed and adopted yoga methods such as the use of mantras and dharani, pure land practices aiming at rebirth in a pure land or buddhafield, and visualization. Chinese Buddhism developed the Chan practice of Koan introspection and Hua Tou. Tantric Buddhism developed and adopted tantric methods which are the basis of the Tibetan Buddhist yoga systems, including deity yoga, guru yoga, the six yogas of Naropa, Kalacakra, Mahamudra and Dzogchen.


title: Yoga

text: What is often referred to as classical yoga, ashtanga yoga, or "rāja yoga" is primarily the yoga outlined in the dualistic "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali". The origins of classical yoga are unclear, although early discussions of the term appear in the Upanishads. "Rāja yoga" (yoga of kings) originally denoted the ultimate goal of yoga; "samadhi", but was popularised by Vivekananda as a common name for ashtanga yoga, the eight limbs attain samadhi as described in the "Yoga Sutras". Yoga philosophy came to be regarded as a distinct orthodox school ("darsanas") of Hinduism in the second half of the first millennium CE.


title: Yoga

text: Classical yoga incorporates epistemology, metaphysics, ethical practices, systematic exercises and self-development for body, mind and spirit. Its epistemology ("pramana") and metaphysics are similar to the Sāṅkhya school. The Classical yoga's metaphysics, like Sāṅkhya's, primarily posits two distinct realities: "prakriti" (nature, the eternal and active unconscious source of the material world composed of three Gunas) and "puruṣa" (consciousness), the plural consciousnesses which are the intelligent principles of the world. Moksha (liberation) results from the isolation ("kaivalya)" of "puruṣa" from "prakirti," and is achieved through meditation, stilling one's thought waves ("citta vritti") and resting in pure awareness of "puruṣa." Unlike Sāṅkhya, which takes a non-theistic approach, the yoga school of Hinduism accepts a "personal, yet essentially inactive, deity" or "personal god" (Ishvara).


title: Yoga

text: Vedanta is a varied tradition, with a number of sub-schools and philosophical views. It focuses on the study of the Upanishads and the "Brahma Sutras" (one of its early texts), about gaining spiritual knowledge of Brahman: the unchanging, absolute reality.


title: Yoga

text: One of the earliest and most influential sub-traditions of Vedanta is Advaita Vedanta, which posits non-dualistic monism. It emphasizes jñāna yoga (yoga of knowledge), which aims at realizing the identity of one's atman (individual consciousness) with Brahman (the Absolute consciousness). The most influential thinker of this school is Adi Shankara (8th century), who wrote commentaries and other works on jñāna yoga. In Advaita Vedanta, jñāna is attained from scripture, one's guru, and through a process of listening to (and meditating on) teachings. Qualities such as discrimination, renunciation, tranquility, temperance, dispassion, endurance, faith, attention, and a longing for knowledge and freedom are also desirable. Yoga in Advaita is a "meditative exercise of withdrawal from the particular and identification with the universal, leading to contemplation of oneself as the most universal, namely, Consciousness".


title: Yoga

text: "Yoga Vasistha" is an influential Advaita text which uses short stories and anecdotes to illustrate its ideas. Teaching seven stages of yoga practice, it was a major reference for medieval Advaita Vedanta yoga scholars and one of the most popular texts on Hindu yoga before the 12th century. Another text which teaches yoga from an Advaita point of view is the "Yoga Yajnavalkya."


title: Yoga

text: According to Samuel, Tantra is a contested concept. Tantra yoga may be described as practices in 9th to 10th century Buddhist and Hindu (Saiva, Shakti) texts which included yogic practices with elaborate deity visualizations using geometric arrays and drawings (mandalas), male and (particularly) female deities, life-stage-related rituals, the use of chakras and mantras, and sexual techniques aimed at aiding one's health, longevity and liberation.


title: Yoga

text: Hatha yoga focuses on physical and mental strength-building exercises and postures described primarily in three Hindu texts:


title: Yoga

text: Some scholars include Gorakshanath's 11th-century "Goraksha Samhita" on the list, since Gorakshanath is considered responsible for popularizing present-day hatha yoga. Vajrayana Buddhism, founded by the Indian Mahasiddhas, has a series of asanas and pranayamas (such as tummo) which resemble hatha yoga.


title: Yoga

text: Laya and kundalini yoga, closely associated with hatha yoga, are often presented as independent approaches. According to Georg Feuerstein, laya yoga (yoga of dissolution or merging) "makes meditative absorption ("laya") its focus. The laya-yogin seeks to transcend all memory traces and sensory experiences by dissolving the microcosm, the mind, in the transcendental Self-Consciousness." Laya yoga has a number of techniques which include listening to the "inner sound" ("nada"), mudras such as Khechari and Shambhavi mudra, and awakening kundalini (body energy).


title: Yoga

text: Kundalini yoga aims to awaken bodily and cosmic energy with breath and body techniques, uniting them with universal consciousness. A common teaching method awakens kundalini in the lowest chakra and guides it through the central channel to unite with the absolute consciousness in the highest chakra, at the top of the head.


title: Yoga

text: Some Christians integrate physical aspects of yoga, stripped from the spiritual roots of Hinduism, and other aspects of Eastern spirituality with prayer, meditation and Jesus-centric affirmations. The practice also includes renaming poses in English (rather than using the original Sanskrit terms), and abandoning involved Hindu mantras as well as the philosophy of Yoga; Yoga is associated and reframed into Christianity. This has drawn charges of cultural appropriation from various Hindu groups; scholars remain skeptical. Previously, the Roman Catholic Church, and some other Christian organizations have expressed concerns and disapproval with respect to some eastern and New Age practices that include yoga and meditation.


title: Yoga

text: In 1989 and 2003, the Vatican issued two documents: "Aspects of Christian meditation" and "A Christian reflection on the New Age," that were mostly critical of eastern and New Age practices. The 2003 document was published as a 90-page handbook detailing the Vatican's position. The Vatican warned that concentration on the physical aspects of meditation "can degenerate into a cult of the body" and that equating bodily states with mysticism "could also lead to psychic disturbance and, at times, to moral deviations." Such has been compared to the early days of Christianity, when the church opposed the gnostics' belief that salvation came not through faith but through mystical inner knowledge. The letter also says, "one can see if and how [prayer] might be enriched by meditation methods developed in other religions and cultures" but maintains the idea that "there must be some fit between the nature of [other approaches to] prayer and Christian beliefs about ultimate reality." Some fundamentalist Christian organizations consider yoga to be incompatible with their religious background, considering it a part of the New Age movement inconsistent with Christianity.


title: Yoga

text: Early-11th-century Persian scholar Al-Biruni visited India, lived with Hindus for 16 years, and (with their help) translated several Sanskrit works into Arabic and Persian; one of these was Patanjali's "Yoga Sutras". Although Al-Biruni's translation preserved many core themes of Patañjali's yoga philosophy, some sutras and commentaries were restated for consistency with monotheistic Islamic theology. Al-Biruni's version of the "Yoga Sutras" reached Persia and the Arabian Peninsula by about 1050. During the 16th century, the hatha yoga text "Amritakunda" was translated into Arabic and Persian. Yoga was, however, not accepted by mainstream Sunni and Shia Islam. Minority Islamic sects such as the mystic Sufi movement, particularly in South Asia, adopted Indian yoga postures and breath control. Muhammad Ghawth, a 16th-century Shattari Sufi and translator of yoga text, was criticized for his interest in yoga and persecuted for his Sufi beliefs.


title: Yoga

text: Malaysia's top Islamic body imposed a legally-enforceable 2008 fatwa prohibiting Muslims from practicing yoga, saying that it had elements of Hinduism and its practice was haram as blasphemy. Malaysian Muslims who had been practicing yoga for years called the decision "insulting." Sisters in Islam, a Malaysian women's-rights group, expressed disappointment and said that yoga was a form of exercise. Malaysia's prime minister clarified that yoga as exercise is permissible, but the chanting of religious mantras is not.


title: Yoga

text: The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) imposed a 2009 fatwa banning yoga because it contains Hindu elements. These fatwas have been criticized by Darul Uloom Deoband, a Deobandi Islamic seminary in India. Similar fatwas banning yoga for its link to Hinduism were imposed by Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa in Egypt in 2004, and by Islamic clerics in Singapore earlier.


title: Yoga

text: According to Iran's yoga association, the country had about 200 yoga centres in May 2014. One-quarter were in the capital, Tehran, where groups could be seen practising in parks; conservatives were opposed. In May 2009, Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs head Ali Bardakoğlu discounted personal-development techniques such as reiki and yoga as commercial ventures which could lead to extremism. According to Bardakoğlu, reiki and yoga could be a form of proselytizing at the expense of Islam. Nouf Marwaai brought yoga to Saudi Arabia in 2017, contributing to making it legal and recognized despite being allegedly threatened by her community who asserts yoga as "un-Islamic".


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. The artist John Tenniel provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the book.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: It received positive reviews upon release and is now one of the best-known works of Victorian literature; its narrative, structure, characters and imagery have had widespread influence on popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre. It is credited as helping end an era of didacticism in children's literature, inaugurating a new era in which writing for children aimed to "delight or entertain". The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children. The titular character Alice shares her given name with Alice Liddell, a girl Carroll knew.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The book has never been out of print and has been translated into 174 languages. Its legacy covers adaptations for screen, radio, art, ballet, opera, musicals, theme parks, board games and video games. Carroll published a sequel in 1871 entitled "Through the Looking-Glass" and a shortened version for young children, "The Nursery "Alice"", in 1890.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was inspired when, on 4 July 1862, Lewis Carroll and Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed up The Isis in a boat with three young girls. The three girls were the daughters of scholar Henry Liddell: Lorina Charlotte Liddell (aged 13; "Prima" in the book's prefatory verse); Alice Pleasance Liddell (aged 10; "Secunda" in the verse); and Edith Mary Liddell (aged 8; "Tertia" in the verse).


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The journey began at Folly Bridge, Oxford, and ended away in Godstow, Oxfordshire. During the trip Carroll told the girls a story that he described in his diary as "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" and which his journal says he "undertook to write out for Alice". Alice Liddell recalled that she asked Carroll to write it down: unlike other stories he had told her, this one she wanted to preserve. She finally got the manuscript more than two years later.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: 4 July was known as the "golden afternoon", prefaced in the novel as a poem. In fact, the weather around Oxford on 4 July was "cool and rather wet", although at least one scholar has disputed this claim. Scholars debate whether Carroll in fact came up with "Alice" during the "golden afternoon" or whether the story was developed over a longer period.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Carroll had known the Liddell children since around March 1856, when he befriended Harry Liddell. He met Lorina by early March as well. In June 1856, he took the children out on the river. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, who wrote a literary biography of Carroll, suggests that Carroll favoured Alice Pleasance Liddell in particular because her name was ripe for allusion. "Pleasance" means pleasure and the name "Alice" appeared in contemporary works including the poem "Alice Gray" by William Mee, of which Carroll wrote a parody; and Alice is a character in "Dream-Children: A Reverie", a prose piece by Charles Lamb. Carroll, an amateur photographer by the late 1850s, produced many photographic portraits of the Liddell children—but none more than Alice, of whom 20 survive.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Carroll began writing the manuscript of the story the next day, although that earliest version is lost. The girls and Carroll took another boat trip a month later, when he elaborated the plot to the story of Alice, and in November he began working on the manuscript in earnest.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: To add the finishing touches he researched natural history in connection with the animals presented in the book, and then had the book examined by other children—particularly those of George MacDonald. Though Carroll did add his own illustrations to the original copy, on publication he was advised to find a professional illustrator so the pictures were more appealing to its audiences. He subsequently approached John Tenniel to reinterpret Carroll's visions through his own artistic eye, telling him that the story had been well liked by the children.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: On 26 November 1864, Carroll gave Alice the handwritten manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, with illustrations by Carroll himself, dedicating it as "A Christmas Gift to a Dear Child in Memory of a Summer's Day".


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The published version of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is about twice the length of "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" and includes episodes, such as the Mad Tea-Party, that did not appear in the manuscript. The only known manuscript copy of "Under Ground" is held in the British Library. Macmillan published a facsimile of the manuscript in 1886.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Carroll began planning a print edition of the "Alice" story in 1863, before he gave Alice Liddell the handwritten manuscript. He wrote on 9 May 1863 that MacDonald's family had suggested he publish "Alice". A diary entry for 2 July says that he received a specimen page of the print edition around that date.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: A young girl named Alice sits bored by a riverbank, where she suddenly spots a White Rabbit with a pocket watch and waistcoat lamenting that he is late. The surprised Alice follows him down a rabbit hole, which sends her down a lengthy plummet but to a safe landing. Inside a room with a table, she finds a key to a tiny door, beyond which is a beautiful garden. As she ponders how to fit through the door, she discovers a bottle reading "Drink me". Alice hesitantly drinks a portion of the bottle's contents, and to her astonishment, she shrinks small enough to enter the door. However, she had left the key upon the table and is unable to reach it. Alice then discovers and eats a cake, which causes her to grow to a tremendous size. As the unhappy Alice bursts into tears, the passing White Rabbit flees in a panic, dropping a fan and pair of gloves. Alice uses the fan for herself, which causes her to shrink once more and leaves her swimming in a pool of her own tears. Within the pool, Alice meets a variety of animals and birds, who convene on a bank and engage in a "Caucus Race" to dry themselves. Following the end of the race, Alice inadvertently frightens the animals away by discussing her cat.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The White Rabbit appears in search of the gloves and fan. Mistaking Alice for his maidservant, the White Rabbit orders Alice to go into his house and retrieve them. Alice finds another bottle and drinks from it, which causes her to grow to such an extent that she gets stuck within the house. The White Rabbit and his neighbors attempt several methods to extract her, eventually taking to hurling pebbles that turn into small cakes. Alice eats one and shrinks herself, allowing her to flee into the forest. She meets a Caterpillar seated on a mushroom and smoking a hookah. Amidst the Caterpillar's questioning, Alice begins to admit to her current identity crisis, compounded by her inability to remember a poem. Before crawling away, the Caterpillar tells her that a bite of one side of the mushroom will make her larger, while a bite from the other side will make her smaller. During a period of trial and error, Alice's neck extends between the treetops, frightening a pigeon who mistakes her for a serpent. After shrinking to an appropriate height, Alice arrives at the home of a Duchess, who owns a perpetually grinning Cheshire Cat. The Duchess's baby, whom she hands to Alice, transforms into a piglet, which Alice releases into the woods. The Cheshire Cat appears to Alice and directs her toward the Hatter and March Hare before disappearing, leaving his grin behind. Alice finds the Hatter, March Hare, and a sleepy Dormouse in the midst of an absurd tea party. The Hatter explains that it is always 6 pm (tea time), claiming that time is standing still as punishment for the Hatter trying to "kill it". A strange conversation ensues around the table, and the riddle "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" is brought forward. Eventually, Alice impatiently decides to leave, dismissing the affair as "the stupidest tea party that [she has] ever been to".


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Noticing a door on one of the trees, Alice passes through and finds herself back in the room from the beginning of her journey. She is able to take the key and use it to open the door to the garden, which turns out to be the croquet court of the Queen of Hearts, whose guard consists of living playing cards. Alice participates in a croquet game, in which hedgehogs are used as balls, flamingos are used as mallets, and soldiers act as gates. The Queen proves to be short-tempered, and she constantly orders beheadings. When the Cheshire Cat appears as only a head, the Queen orders his beheading, only to be told that such an act is impossible. Because the cat belongs to the Duchess, Alice prompts the Queen to release the Duchess from prison to resolve the matter. When the Duchess ruminates on finding morals in everything around her, the Queen dismisses her on the threat of execution. Alice then meets a Gryphon and a weeping Mock Turtle, who dance to the Lobster Quadrille while Alice recites (rather incorrectly) "'Tis the Voice of the Lobster". The Mock Turtle sings them "Beautiful Soup" during which the Gryphon drags Alice away for an impending trial, in which the Knave of Hearts stands accused of stealing the Queen's tarts. The trial is ridiculously conducted by the King of Hearts, and the jury is composed of various animals that Alice had previously met. Alice gradually grows in size and confidence, allowing herself increasingly frequent remarks on the irrationality of the proceedings. The Queen finally commands Alice's beheading, but Alice scoffs that the Queen's guard is only a pack of cards. Although Alice holds her own for a time, the card guards soon gang up and start to swarm all over her. Alice's sister wakes her up from a dream, brushing what turns out to be some leaves from Alice's face. Alice leaves her sister on the bank to imagine all the curious happenings for herself.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: In "The Annotated Alice", Martin Gardner provides background information for the characters. The members of the boating party that first heard Carroll's tale show up in chapter 3 ("A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale"). Alice Liddell herself is there, while Carroll is caricatured as the Dodo (because Carroll stuttered when he spoke, he sometimes pronounced his last name as "Dodo-Dodgson"). The Duck refers to Robinson Duckworth, and the Lory and Eaglet to Alice Liddell's sisters Lorina and Edith.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Bill the Lizard may be a play on the name of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. One of Tenniel's illustrations in "Through the Looking-Glass"—the 1871 sequel to "Alice"—depicts the character referred to as the "Man in White Paper" (whom Alice meets on a train) as a caricature of Disraeli, wearing a paper hat. The illustrations of the Lion and the Unicorn (also in "Looking-Glass") look like Tenniel's "Punch" illustrations of William Ewart Gladstone and Disraeli, although Gardner says there is "no proof" that they were intended to represent these politicians.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Gardner has suggested that the Hatter is a reference to Theophilus Carter, an Oxford furniture dealer, and that Tenniel apparently drew the Hatter to resemble Carter, on a suggestion of Carroll's. The Dormouse tells a story about three little sisters named Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie. These are the Liddell sisters: Elsie is L.C. (Lorina Charlotte); Tillie is Edith (her family nickname is Matilda); and Lacie is an anagram of Alice.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The Mock Turtle speaks of a drawling-master, "an old conger eel", who came once a week to teach "Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils". This is a reference to the art critic John Ruskin, who came once a week to the Liddell house to teach the children drawing, sketching, and painting in oils.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The Mock Turtle also sings "Turtle Soup". This is a parody of a song called "Star of the Evening, Beautiful Star", which the Liddells sang for Carroll.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Carroll's biographer Morton N. Cohen reads "Alice" as a roman à clef populated with real figures from Carroll's life. The Alice of "Alice" is Alice Liddell; the Dodo is Carroll himself; Wonderland is Oxford; even the Mad Tea Party, according to Cohen, is a send-up of Alice's own birthday party. The critic Jan Susina rejects Cohen's account, arguing that Alice the character bears a tenuous relationship with Alice Liddell.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Beyond its refashioning of Carroll's everyday life, Cohen argues, "Alice" critiques Victorian ideals of childhood. It is an account of "the child's plight in Victorian upper-class society" in which Alice's mistreatment by the creatures of Wonderland reflects Carroll's own mistreatment by older people as a child.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: In the eighth chapter, three cards are painting the roses on a rose tree red, because they had accidentally planted a white-rose tree that The Queen of Hearts hates. According to Wilfrid Scott-Giles, the rose motif in "Alice" alludes to the English Wars of the Roses: red roses symbolised the House of Lancaster, while white roses symbolised their rival House of York.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: "Alice" is full of linguistic play, puns, and parodies. According to Gillian Beer, Carroll's play with language evokes the feeling of words for new readers: they "still have insecure edges and a nimbus of nonsense blurs the sharp focus of terms". The literary scholar Jessica Straley, in a work about the role of evolutionary theory in Victorian children's literature, argues that Carroll's focus on language prioritises humanism over scientism by emphasising language's role in human self-conception.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Pat's "Digging for apples" is a cross-language pun, as "pomme de terre" (literally; "apple of the earth") means potato and "pomme" means apple.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: In the second chapter, Alice initially addresses the mouse as "O Mouse", based on her memory of the noun declensions "in her brother's Latin Grammar, 'A mouse – of a mouse – to a mouse – a mouse – O mouse!'" These words correspond to the first five of Latin's six cases, in a traditional order established by medieval grammarians: "mus" (nominative), "muris" (genitive), "muri" (dative), "murem" (accusative), "(O) mus" (vocative). The sixth case, "mure" (ablative) is absent from Alice's recitation. Nilson has plausibly suggested that Alice's missing ablative is a pun on her father Henry Liddell's work on the standard "A Greek-English Lexicon" since ancient Greek does not have an ablative case. Further, Mousa (meaning muse) was a standard model noun in Greek books of the time in paradigms of the first declension, short-alpha noun.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Mathematics and logic are central to "Alice". As Carroll was a mathematician at Christ Church, it has been suggested that there are many references and mathematical concepts in both this story and "Through the Looking-Glass". Literary scholar Melanie Bayley asserted in the "New Scientist" magazine that Carroll wrote "Alice in Wonderland" in its final form as a satire of mid-19th century mathematics.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Carina Garland notes how the world is "expressed via representations of food and appetite", naming Alice's frequent desire for consumption (of both food and words), her 'Curious Appetites'. Often, the idea of eating coincides to make gruesome images. After the riddle "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?", the Hatter claims that Alice might as well say, "I see what I eat…I eat what I see" and so the riddle's solution, put forward by Boe Birns, could be that "A raven eats worms; a writing desk is worm-eaten"; this idea of food encapsulates idea of life feeding on life itself, for the worm is being eaten and then becomes the eater a horrific image of mortality.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Nina Auerbach discusses how the novel revolves around eating and drinking which "motivates much of her [Alice's] behaviour", for the story is essentially about things "entering and leaving her mouth". The animals of Wonderland are of particular interest, for Alice's relation to them shifts constantly because, as Lovell-Smith states, Alice's changes in size continually reposition her in the food chain, serving as a way to make her acutely aware of the 'eat or be eaten' attitude that permeates Wonderland.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: "Alice" is an example of the literary nonsense genre. According to Humphrey Carpenter, "Alice" brand of nonsense embraces the nihilistic and existential. Characters in nonsensical episodes such as the Mad Tea Party, in which it is always the same time, go on posing paradoxes that are never resolved.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Wonderland is a rule-bound world, but its rules are not those of our world. The literary scholar Daniel Bivona writes that "Alice" is characterised by "gamelike social structures". She trusts in instructions from the beginning, drinking from the bottle labelled "drink me" after recalling, during her descent, that children who do not follow the rules often meet terrible fates. Unlike the creatures of Wonderland, who approach their world's wonders uncritically, Alice continues to look for rules as the story progresses. Gillian Beer suggests that Alice, the character, looks for rules to soothe her anxiety, while Carroll may have hunted for rules because he struggled with the implications of the non-Euclidean geometry then in development.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The manuscript was illustrated by Carroll himself who added 37 illustrations—printed in a facsimile edition in 1887. John Tenniel provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the published version of the book. The first print run was destroyed (or sold to the US) at Carroll's request because he was dissatisfied with the quality. There are only 22 known first edition copies in existence. The book was reprinted and published in 1866. Tenniel's detailed black-and-white drawings remain the definitive depiction of the characters.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Tenniel's illustrations of Alice do not portray the real Alice Liddell, who had dark hair and a short fringe. "Alice" has provided a challenge for other illustrators, including those of 1907 by Charles Pears and the full series of colour plates and line-drawings by Harry Rountree published in the (inter-War) Children's Press (Glasgow) edition. Other significant illustrators include: Arthur Rackham (1907), Willy Pogany (1929), Mervyn Peake (1946), Ralph Steadman (1967), Salvador Dalí (1969), Graham Overden (1969), Max Ernst (1970), Peter Blake (1970), Tove Jansson (1977), Anthony Browne (1988), Helen Oxenbury (1999), and Lisbeth Zwerger (1999).


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Carroll first met Alexander Macmillan, a high-powered London publisher, on 19 October 1863. His firm, Macmillan Publishers, agreed to publish "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by sometime in 1864. Carroll financed the initial print run, possibly because it gave him more editorial authority than other financing methods. He managed publication details such as typesetting and engaged illustrators and translators.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Macmillan had published "The Water-Babies", also a children's fantasy, in 1863, and suggested its design as a basis for "Alice". Carroll saw a specimen copy in May 1865. 2,000 copies were printed by July but John Tenniel, the illustrator, objected to their quality and Carroll instructed Macmillan to halt publication so they could be reprinted. In August, he engaged Richard Clay as an alternative printer for a new run of 2,000. The reprint cost £600, paid entirely by Carroll. He received the first copy of Clay's reprint on 9 November 1865.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Macmillan finally published the revised first edition, printed by Richard Clay, in November 1865. Carroll requested a red binding, deeming it appealing to young readers. A new edition, released in December of the same year for the Christmas market, but carrying an 1866 date, was quickly printed. The text blocks of the original edition were removed from the binding and sold with Carroll's permission to the New York publishing house of D. Appleton & Company. The binding for the Appleton "Alice" was identical to the 1866 Macmillan "Alice", except for the publisher's name at the foot of the spine. The title page of the Appleton "Alice" was an insert cancelling the original Macmillan title page of 1865, and bearing the New York publisher's imprint and the date 1866.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The entire print run sold out quickly. "Alice" was a publishing sensation, beloved by children and adults alike. Oscar Wilde was a fan. Queen Victoria was also an avid reader of the book. She reportedly enjoyed "Alice" enough that she asked for Carroll's next book, which turned out to be a mathematical treatise; Carroll denied this. The book has never been out of print. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" has been translated into 174 languages.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The following list is a timeline of major publication events related to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland":


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: "Alice" was published to critical praise. One magazine declared it "exquisitely wild, fantastic, [and] impossible". In the late 19th century, Walter Besant wrote that "Alice in Wonderland" "was a book of that extremely rare kind which will belong to all the generations to come until the language becomes obsolete".


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: F. J. Harvey Darton argued in a 1932 book that "Alice" ended an era of didacticism in children's literature, inaugurating a new era in which writing for children aimed to "delight or entertain". In 2014, Robert McCrum named "Alice" "one of the best loved in the English canon" and called it "perhaps the greatest, possibly most influential, and certainly the most world-famous Victorian English fiction". A 2020 review in "Time" states: "The book changed young people's literature. It helped to replace stiff Victorian didacticism with a looser, sillier, nonsense style that reverberated through the works of language-loving 20th-century authors as different as James Joyce, Douglas Adams and Dr. Seuss." The protagonist of the story, Alice, has been recognised as a cultural icon. In 2006, "Alice in Wonderland" was named among the icons of England in a public vote.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Books for children in the "Alice" mould emerged as early as 1869 and continued to appear throughout the late 19th century. Released in 1903, the British silent film, "Alice in Wonderland", was the first screen adaptation of the book.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Labelled "a dauntless, no-nonsense heroine" by "The Guardian", the character of the plucky, yet proper, Alice has proven immensely popular and inspired similar heroines in literature and pop culture, many also named Alice in homage. The book has inspired numerous film and television adaptations which have multiplied as the original work is now in the public domain in all jurisdictions. Musical works inspired by "Alice" includes The Beatles' single "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", with songwriter John Lennon attributing the song's fantastical imagery to his reading of Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" books. A popular figure in Japan since the country opened up to the West in the late 19th century, Alice has been a popular subject for writers of manga and a source of inspiration for Japanese fashion, in particular Lolita fashion.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The first full major production of 'Alice' books during Lewis Carroll's lifetime was "Alice in Wonderland", an 1886 musical play in London's West End by Henry Savile Clark (book) and Walter Slaughter (music), which played at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Twelve-year-old actress Phoebe Carlo (the first to play Alice) was personally selected by Carroll for the role. Carroll attended a performance on 30 December 1886, writing in his diary he enjoyed it. The musical was frequently revived during West End Christmas seasons during the four decades after its premiere, including a London production at the Globe Theatre in 1888, with Isa Bowman as Alice.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: As the book and its sequel are Carroll's most widely recognised works, they have also inspired numerous live performances, including plays, operas, ballets, and traditional English pantomimes. These works range from fairly faithful adaptations to those that use the story as a basis for new works. Eva Le Gallienne's stage adaptation of the "Alice" books premiered on 12 December 1932 and ended its run in May 1933. The production has been revived in New York in 1947 and 1982. Joseph Papp staged "Alice in Concert" at the Public Theater in New York City in 1980. Elizabeth Swados wrote the book, lyrics, and music. Based on both "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass", Papp and Swados had previously produced a version of it at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Meryl Streep played Alice, the White Queen, and Humpty Dumpty. The cast also included Debbie Allen, Michael Jeter, and Mark Linn-Baker. Performed on a bare stage with the actors in modern dress, the play is a loose adaptation, with song styles ranging the globe. A community theatre production of Alice was Olivia de Havilland's first foray onto the stage.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The 1992 musical theatre production "Alice" used both "Alice" books as its inspiration. It also employs scenes with Carroll, a young Alice Liddell, and an adult Alice Liddell, to frame the story. Paul Schmidt wrote the play, with Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan writing the music. Although the original production in Hamburg, Germany, received only a small audience, Tom Waits released the songs as the album "Alice" in 2002.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: The English composer Joseph Horovitz composed an "Alice in Wonderland" ballet commissioned by the London Festival Ballet in 1953. It was performed frequently in England and the US. A ballet by Christopher Wheeldon and Nicholas Wright commissioned for The Royal Ballet entitled "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" premiered in February 2011 at the Royal Opera House in London. The ballet was based on the novel Wheeldon grew up reading as a child and is generally faithful to the original story, although some critics claimed it may have been too faithful. Gerald Barry's 2016 one-act opera, "Alice's Adventures Under Ground", first staged in 2020 at the Royal Opera House, is a conflation of the two "Alice" books.


title: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

text: Characters from the book are depicted on the stained glass windows of Lewis Carroll's hometown church, All Saints', in Daresbury, Cheshire. Another commemoration of Carroll's work in his home county of Cheshire is the granite sculpture, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, located in Warrington. International works based on the book include the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park, New York, and the Alice statue in Rymill Park, Adelaide, Australia. In 2015, "Alice" characters featured on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of the book.


title: Lea Thompson

text: She is best known for her role as Lorraine Baines-McFly in the "Back to the Future" film trilogy (1985–1990) and Beverly Switzler in "Howard the Duck" (1986). Other films for which she is known include "All the Right Moves" (1983), "Red Dawn" (1984), "Some Kind of Wonderful" (1987), "Dennis the Menace" (1993) and "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1993). In the 1990s, she played the title character in the NBC sitcom "Caroline in the City". From 2011 to 2017, she co-starred as Kathryn Kennish in the ABC Family-turned-Freeform series "Switched at Birth".


title: Lea Thompson

text: Thompson was born on May 31, 1961, in Rochester, Minnesota, one of five children of Clifford and Barbara Barry Thompson, a musician. She has two sisters, Coleen Goodrich and Shannon Katona, and two brothers, Andrew and Barry


title: Lea Thompson

text: She studied ballet as a girl and danced professionally by the age of 14, winning scholarships to the San Francisco Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and the American Ballet Theatre.


title: Lea Thompson

text: When she was 20 years old and dancing professionally with American Ballet Theatre's Studio Company (then known as ABT II), the time came to decide if she would move to the main company. Mikhail Baryshnikov, who was the artistic director at the time, told her, "You're a lovely dancer, but you're too stocky." In her words, that was "my epiphany when I decided to stop dancing and not be a ballet dancer. It was a wonderful moment because I could've been banging my head against the wall for another 10 years." She changed her focus to acting.


title: Lea Thompson

text: Moving to New York at age 20, she performed in a number of Burger King advertisements in the 1980s along with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Elisabeth Shue, her eventual co-star in "Back to the Future Part II" and "Back to the Future Part III".


title: Lea Thompson

text: Thompson made her home-media screen debut in 1982 as Cecily "Sissy" Loper in the interactive live-action video game "MysteryDisc: Murder, Anyone?" and her movie debut in 1983, with "Jaws 3-D". She recalled the film as "the very first movie I ever got, but I lied and said I had done a couple of other movies, so when I showed up, I really knew absolutely nothing. Also, I had said that I knew how to water ski. And I did not. So I had, like, five days to learn really, really complicated water-skiing things, because I had to fit into the Sea World water-skiing show. I don't even know how to swim!" She followed this with "All the Right Moves" (1983), "Red Dawn" (1984), and "The Wild Life" (1984).


title: Lea Thompson

text: Thompson's most famous role is that of Lorraine Baines McFly in the "Back to the Future" trilogy, with the first film released in 1985. Thompson's character is the mother of Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, whom Marty meets when she is a 1950s adolescent age after he travels back in time; he has to avoid having Lorraine fall in love with him instead of with his future father, George (Crispin Glover), which leads to awkward scenes where Lorraine is attracted to him.


title: Lea Thompson

text: In 1986, Thompson starred in "SpaceCamp" and "Howard the Duck". For the latter film, she sang several songs on the soundtrack in character, as musician Beverly Switzler, who was the lead vocalist for a band called Cherry Bomb. The recordings appeared on the soundtrack album and on singles. Rounding out film appearances in the late 1980s, Thompson starred in "Some Kind of Wonderful", "Casual Sex?", and "The Wizard of Loneliness". She also had a prominent role in the 1989 TV film "Nightbreaker", for which she was nominated for a CableACE Award. In the early 1990s, Thompson starred as the mother of the eponymous character in "Dennis the Menace" (1993), the villainess in "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1993), and a snooty ballet instructor in "The Little Rascals" (1994). She also appeared in several TV films throughout the 1990s, including "The Substitute Wife" (1994) and "The Right To Remain Silent" (1996).


title: Lea Thompson

text: Thompson found moderate critical and popular success as the star of the NBC sitcom "Caroline in the City" from 1995 to 1999. In 1996, Thompson received a People's Choice Award for Favorite Female Performer in a New TV Series, while her show won for Favorite New TV Comedy Series. Thompson also starred in "A Will of their Own", a 1998 American television mini-series directed by Karen Arthur. The film follows six generations of females within one family, and their struggle for power and independence in America. The film debuted on October 18, 1998, on the NBC network to strong critical reviews.


title: Lea Thompson

text: After a break from acting, Thompson went on to star in several Broadway plays. She later appeared in a TV series called "For the People", which only lasted one season. She then starred in a TV film, "Stealing Christmas" (2003), starring Tony Danza and Betty White. Thompson also appeared in several episodes of the dramedy series "Ed" and in a guest role for one episode in 2004 on NBC's ""; she played a woman whose embryos were stolen.


title: Lea Thompson

text: In 2005, Thompson began a series of made-for-TV films for the Hallmark Channel, in which she plays "Jane Doe", an ex-secret agent turned housewife, who helps the government solve mysteries. Thompson directed two films from the "Jane Doe" series – "Jane Doe: The Harder They Fall" and "Jane Doe: Eye of the Beholder".


title: Lea Thompson

text: Thompson was a featured singer on "Celebrity Duets" and the second contestant eliminated in 2006. In April 2007, she starred in another television film, "A Life Interrupted", which premiered on Lifetime television.


title: Lea Thompson

text: Thompson guest-starred on the show "Head Case" in January 2008. She appeared in the TV film "Final Approach", which debuted in the U.S. on May 24, 2008. Her film credits include "Exit Speed", "Spy School", "Splinterheads", and "Adventures of a Teenage Dragon Slayer". She starred in the television movie "The Christmas Clause", which received good reviews and ratings.


title: Lea Thompson

text: Thompson stars in "Mystery Case Files: Shadow Lake", an adventure game released in November 2012 by Big Fish Games. Thompson's daughter Madelyn Deutch plays a paranormal television-series host.


title: Lea Thompson

text: From 2011 to 2017, Thompson starred in the ABC Family series "Switched at Birth", about a family realizing their 16-year-old daughter is not biologically theirs and was switched with another baby at the hospital.


title: Lea Thompson

text: In 2014, Thompson was a competitor on the 19th season of "Dancing with the Stars". She was paired with professional dancer Artem Chigvintsev. The couple was eliminated in the quarterfinals, finishing sixth place. She also played Irene Steele in the film "Left Behind".


title: Lea Thompson

text: On April 27, 2017, Thompson was cast in the film "Little Women", the seventh adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel of the same name, written and directed by first-time Director Clare Niederpruem. Thompson portrayed Marmee March, the mother who helps her daughters navigate the struggles and heartbreaks of adolescence and adulthood. The film was released on September 28, 2018, to coincide with the book's 150th-anniversary publishing date.


title: Lea Thompson

text: She directed episodes 3 and 4 as well as having a cameo role in episode 5 of season 2 of in the Paramount+ series "", which aired in March 2022.


title: Lea Thompson

text: She has been married to film director Howard Deutch since 1989. They met on the set of "Some Kind of Wonderful" (1987).


title: Lea Thompson

text: Thompson and Deutch have two daughters, Madelyn Deutch (born 1991) and Zoey Deutch (born 1994), with whom she sang on stage in the "Bye Bye Birdie" production for the 16th annual Alzheimer's Association "A Night at Sardi's" in March 2008.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: Disney+ Hotstar (also known as Hotstar) is an Indian brand of subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Novi Digital Entertainment of Disney Star and operated by Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution, both divisions of The Walt Disney Company.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: The brand was first introduced as Hotstar for a streaming service carrying content from Disney Star's local networks, including films, television series, live sports, and original programming, as well as featuring content licensed from third-parties such as HBO and Showtime among others. Amid the significant growth of mobile broadband in India, Hotstar quickly became the dominant streaming service in the country.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: Following the acquisition of Star India's parent company 21st Century Fox by Disney in 2019, Hotstar was integrated with the company's new global streaming brand Disney+ as 'Disney+ Hotstar' in April 2020. The co-branded service added Disney+ original programming, and films and television series from its main content brands of Walt Disney Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and National Geographic alongside the domestic and third-party content already carried on the platform.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: Outside of India, the Disney+ Hotstar service also operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, where it similarly combines entertainment content licensed from local, third-party studios, with the larger Disney+ library. Disney+ Hotstar is also expected to launch in Vietnam in early 2023. In Singapore, Canada, and the United Kingdom, Hotstar operates as a streaming service targeting overseas Indians, focusing on Disney Star's domestic entertainment and sports content; Disney+ operates as a standalone service in these markets. In 2021, Disney announced that it would discontinue the U.S. version of Hotstar in November 2021, in favor of adding its content to the domestic Hulu and ESPN+ services instead.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: Star India officially launched Hotstar on 11 February 2015 after fifteen months of development, coinciding with the 2015 Cricket World Cup and upcoming 2015 Indian Premier League (for which Star had acquired the streaming rights). The ad-supported service initially featured a library of over 35,000 hours of content in seven regional languages, as well as live streaming coverage of sports such as football and kabaddi, and cricket on a delay. Star CEO Sanjay Gupta felt that there "[weren't] many platforms available to Indian consumers offering high-quality, curated content besides, say, YouTube", and explained that the service would appeal most prominently to the growing young adult demographic, and feature "very targeted" advertising. He estimated that by 2020, the service could account for nearly a quarter of Star's annual revenue.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: Hotstar generated at least 345 million views throughout the 2015 Cricket World Cup, and approximately over 200 million views during the 2015 Indian Premier League season. In April 2016, Hotstar launched a subscription tier primarily oriented towards international content and the possibility of premium sports content. The service launched alongside a new deal to carry HBO content uncut on the platform, with its introduction coinciding with the season 6 premiere of "Game of Thrones".


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: The 2016 launch of the LTE-only wireless carrier Jio spurred the growth of mobile broadband in India, and was credited in turn for having bolstered the growth of streaming video in the country. While services of US origin such as Amazon Prime Video and Netflix saw some growth in the Indian market, Hotstar remained the dominant streaming service. By July 2017, Hotstar's apps had reached 300 million downloads, and it was reported as being the top video streaming app in the country.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: In May 2018, it was reported that the service had 75100 million active users per-month. In September 2018, Hotstar CEO Ajit Mohan left to become the vice-president and managing director of Facebook India. That month, it was reported that the service had begun to restructure its leadership to have separate executives for its ad-supported and premium services, and, aided by new funding from Star US Holdings, planned to increase its production of premium original content to better-compete with Amazon and Netflix, amidst concerns that the service was beginning to haemorrhage cash.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: By 2019, the service had over 150 million active users monthly. In March 2019, ahead of the 2019 Indian Premier League, Hotstar migrated existing subscribers of its All Annual Sports plan to a new entry-level plan known as Hotstar VIP. Intended as an introductory option, it includes access to sports content (including the IPL, 2019 Cricket World Cup, and Premier League football), early access to serials before their television broadcast, and original series from the new "Hotstar Specials" banner. It is also payable via cash. Chief product officer Varun Narang described the offering as "a value proposition built with the Indian audience at the heart of it".


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: The 2019 Indian Premier League repeatedly broke records for concurrent viewership on Hotstar, with the 2019 final setting a new "global record" peak of 18.6 million. US website "TechCrunch" credited these gains to the extensive growth of internet usage in the country. This was surpassed during the semi-final of the 2019 Cricket World Cup between India and New Zealand, with 25.3 million. After the India-Pakistan match earlier in the tournament, Hotstar surpassed almost 100 million daily users.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: Star, and in turn Hotstar, were acquired by The Walt Disney Company in 2019, as part of its acquisition of their US parent company 21st Century Fox.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: During a February 2020 earnings call, Iger announced that its recently launched international streaming brand Disney+ and its original programming would be integrated into Hotstar as part of a re-launch on 29 March 2020. Iger stated that the service's launch—originally scheduled to coincide with the opening of the 2020 Indian Premier League—would take advantage of Hotstar's existing infrastructure and customer base. "The Motley Fool" described Hotstar as being Disney's "secret weapon" in the market, due to its already-dominant position.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: Hotstar began to soft launch the expanded service for some users in March. On 20 March 2020, in recognition of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated postponement of the IPL season, the launch was pushed back to 3 April. The service officially launched with a "virtual red carpet premiere" of "The Lion King" and Disney+ series "The Mandalorian", featuring actors Rana Daggubati, Katrina Kaif, Shraddha Kapoor, Hrithik Roshan, and Tiger Shroff participating in live interactions. The price of the Hotstar Premium service was also increased with the launch.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: On 2 May 2020, Star announced that it would distribute the service for free to migrant workers in Singapore through 21 July, to improve morale amid their impact from COVID-19. In June 2020, Hotstar named Sunil Rayan, formerly of Google, as its new president.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: In August 2020, Disney announced that it would begin extending the Disney+ Hotstar service to other territories, beginning with Indonesia. The company also announced that it would similarly use the branding Star (as originated from Star Asia) for general entertainment streaming services in markets outside of the United States. Unlike Disney+ Hotstar-branded services, however, the Star brand is used as an equivalent to Disney's U.S. streaming brand Hulu (which has less recognition outside of the U.S.), and generally consists of a content hub added to existing Disney+ services (unlike Disney+ Hotstar, which is based on Hotstar's platform). In Latin America, Star was released as a second service, Star+, which also features ESPN content. Both Star+ and Star content hub on Disney+ are also featuring some original and library content from Disney+ Hotstar as well.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: Disney+ Hotstar's content library draws from Disney Star's television networks, including its entertainment networks and Star Sports. Imported content is drawn primarily from Walt Disney Studios and Walt Disney Television, and includes Disney+ original programming and the core Disney+ libraries of Disney (including Pixar), Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm (including the "Star Wars" franchises), and National Geographic. It also holds licensing agreements with other third-party content providers, such as streaming rights to first-run and library programming from HBO.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: In July 2017, Hotstar gained domestic streaming rights to first-run and library programming from Showtime. Rights to new Showtime content later moved to Viacom18's Voot (a sister of Showtime via parent company Paramount Global). In October 2018, Hotstar partnered with Hooq to offer its content on its premium service, including rights to films and series from its co-owners Sony Pictures and Warner Bros., as well as its other content partners. The partnership ended following Hooq's liquidation in April 2020.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: Some early original content on the service included the news comedy program "On Air With AIB", and "CinePlay". In March 2019, the service launched a new premium original content brand, "Hotstar Specials", with the first production being "Roar of the Lion"—a docudrama miniseries chronicling the Chennai Super Kings in the 2018 Indian Premier League. Hotstar stated that these series would be at least six episodes in length, be available in seven regional languages (Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu) and focus on providing "big-scale, high-quality drama". Hotstar partnered with a large number of Indian filmmakers to produce series for the brand.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: In June 2020, Hotstar announced that it would begin to offer direct-to-streaming premieres of Indian films under the "Disney+ Hotstar Multiplex" banner due to COVID-19-related cinema closures, beginning with Fox Star Studios' "Dil Bechara" on 24 July 2020, followed by "The Big Bull", "Lootcase", "Khuda Haafiz", "Laxmii", "", "Sadak 2", and "Mookuthi Amman."


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: Hotstar allows users to stream on up to four devices concurrently depending on their plan, and downloads for offline viewing depending on individual content licenses. Most content is able to be streamed in resolutions up to 1080p. In April 2020, Hotstar started rolling out Dolby Digital 5.1 sound on Android TV, Apple TV, Fire TV, Fire HD, and Roku, and later 4K with HDR in August 2020, initially for Apple TV and Android TV devices.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: In India, the service was previously offered with "VIP" and "Premium" subscription tiers, which were differentiated by their content libraries (with the Premium tier featuring more premium international series and films). In September 2021, Hotstar introduced a new plan structure based on device support and concurrent streams (more akin to that of Netflix), with "Mobile" allowing a single stream on a mobile device only, "Super" allowing streams on up to two devices simultaneously, and "Premium" allowing streaming on up to four devices simultaneously, and with 4K support. Under the new plan structure, the same content library became available to all Disney+ Hotstar subscribers regardless of tier.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: On 4 September 2017, Star Sports acquired the entirety of the media rights to the Indian Premier League, with Hotstar acting as the international digital rightsholder. Hotstar launched an international subscription service in Canada and the United States, aimed towards providing its domestic Indian content and sports. Hotstar launched in the United Kingdom on 13 September 2018, to coincide with the 2018 Asia Cup.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: On 4 January 2019, Star discontinued their international linear pay television channels in the United States (such as StarPlus), pivoting its focus in the region to Hotstar. On 31 August 2021, Disney announced that it would, in turn, discontinue Hotstar in the United States, in favour of hosting its sports and entertainment content on ESPN+ and Hulu respectively beginning 1 September. Annual subscribers who had not yet subscribed to Disney's streaming services were provided with an offer to receive the Disney Bundle (Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu) at no cost for the remainder of their Hotstar subscription period. The shutdown was later scheduled for 30 November 2021.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: In August 2019, Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that plans were in place for expansion of Hotstar into Southeast Asia. In August 2020, it was announced that Disney+ Hotstar would launch in Indonesia on 5 September 2020, marking the unified service's first expansion outside of India. On 19 October 2020, Star India announced the launch of Hotstar in Singapore, which took place on 1 November 2020. On 25 February 2021, it was reported that Disney+ Hotstar would launch in Malaysia and Thailand in 2021. The service launched in Malaysia on 1 June 2021, and Thailand on 30 June. There was a report stating the service was expected to launch in Vietnam in early 2023.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: In addition to content from Disney's library, the Southeast Asian versions of Disney+ Hotstar also had a large focus on domestic acquisitions. In Indonesia, Hotstar reached content supply agreements with studios such as , , Rapi Films, , , and among others, and also acquired first-run direct-to-streaming releases (which are being marketed as "Hotstar Originals"). To appeal to the local Indian ethnicity population, the service also carries Bollywood films subtitled and/or dubbed into the Indonesian language.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: The Malaysian version of the service has similarly reached deals with studios such as Skop Productions, Revolution Media Films, Primeworks Studios, WAU Animation, Act 2 Pictures, Les’ Copaque Production and Red Films to carry films on the platform, with some being released direct-to-streaming. The Thai version reached agreements with studios and broadcasters such as GDH, GMM 25, Kantana Group, One 31, and Sahamongkolfilm, and has licensed content from other East Asian regions such as China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: In January 2022, Disney+ Hotstar announced that it had acquired rights to WWE Network in Indonesia, with its content and live events becoming available on the platform at no additional charge.


title: Disney+ Hotstar

text: The HBO series "Last Week Tonight" faced several instances of censorship on Hotstar since the purchase of the service by Disney; two episodes were edited to remove jokes referencing Disney characters, including a November 2019 episode on the US census relating to a PSA featuring Mickey Mouse (where Oliver claimed the character was a "crack addict"; a scene was also cropped to obscure a graphic relating to the joke), and a remark about Donald Duck's penis being "shaped like a corkscrew" during an episode discussing China's one-child policy. In February 2020, Hotstar refused to carry an episode that contained segments critical of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, which had alleged that his policy of Hindu nationalism was a growing threat to democracy in India.