Clip from a 1969 Swiss Weekly Newsreel report on the growing popularity of yoga. Memobase

From India to Switzerland

Today, yoga is a popular fitness and relaxation technique. But it has a long history stretching back over millennia and origins that are deeply rooted in Indian philosophy. So how did yoga make its way to Switzerland?

Manda Beck

Manda Beck is a historian.

From beer yoga on the concourse of Zurich’s main station to yoga retreats in Scuol, yoga is all the rage in Switzerland. It is practised in fitness studios, outdoors or at wellness facilities. But behind this popular image of yoga lies a cultural history thousands of years old that is deeply rooted in the philosophical traditions of India.

Origins and evolution in India

Yoga has its roots in ancient India, where it emerged as a spiritual practice over 3,000 years ago. In India, yoga was more than just physical exercise: above all, it was a spiritual and cultural path with the ultimate aim of achieving enlightenment through meditation. The earliest references to yogic practices date back to the Vedic period between 1500 and 500 BCE. The Yoga Sutras, compiled by Patanjali around 200 CE, are a key source. The text describes the eight elements of yoga, beginning with ethical rules (yamas) and culminating in enlightened consciousness (samadhi).

Portuguese missionaries came across yoga during the colonial era, but dismissed it due to its perceived associations with Hinduism. British colonialists likewise displayed little interest in the Indian culture they ruled over, including yoga, prompting Indians to adopt the practice as a symbol of cultural identity and self-determination.

**Mural depicting the Peacock Pose (mayurasana) at the Mahamandir temple, Jodhpur, circa 1810.** Wikimedia

Although the British initially looked down on yoga at the beginning of their colonial rule, they later came to see the asanas – the body postures of yoga – as fitness exercises that they could combine with their Western gymnastics. It is difficult to trace the origins of certain yoga postures that we know and practice today, like the Downward Dog or the Warrior II. Some sources attribute them to this synthesis of the asanas and British physical culture.

The journey West

The practices continued to develop, giving rise to various schools that focused on the physical aspects of yoga. Indian scholars and spiritual teachers began visiting the West at the end of the 19th century. Swami Vivekananda, for instance, spoke about yoga at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893. He hoped to overcome differences and gain the support of the West for Hinduism. To achieve this, he adapted yoga to Western notions of science and rationality, omitting some of the spiritual and cultural aspects.

In the decades that followed, more teachers brought yoga to Europe and North America. Yoga experienced a boom in the western world in the 1960s and 1970s. The Beatles played a large part in boosting its popularity when they took part in a seminar on transcendental meditation held by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Bangor, Wales in 1967. The following year, the band members travelled to India with family, friends, assistants and a large number of journalists to the guru’s Shankaracharya Nagar ashram to further explore transcendental meditation. The Beatles and other global stars set Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the path to world fame – a path that would also lead him to Switzerland.

In August 1967, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi gave a lecture in London about the role of transcendental meditation, a form of yoga the guru had developed. Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon were among the audience. Dukas

Yoga in Switzerland

At the beginning of the 1970s, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi moved the headquarters of his organisation to Switzerland, taking over the former Grand Hotel Sonnenberg in Seelisberg. The guru was fascinated by this mountain village in the canton of Uri, directly above the Rütli meadow, and by the surrounding scenery, the sense of peace and the mountain views. It was Felix Kägi, one of his first acolytes in Switzerland, who introduced him to the place. In its heyday, up to 300 of the guru’s followers lived in Seelisberg.

**Guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi with some of his followers, 1970.** e-pics

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was not the first of his kind in Switzerland. Although there are no sources specifically identifying the earliest yogis in the country, we do know that yoga was being practised in Switzerland in the early years of the 20th century, on the legendary Monte Verità high above Ascona. It was a place that attracted people seeking an alternative lifestyle, free of the rigid social conventions of the time. They aspired to live close to nature and in harmony with the natural rhythms of the body and the environment. According to author Hermann Hesse, some of the residents of Monte Verità were devotees who practiced “Indian exercises”.

**A yoga class in Switzerland in 1954.** e-pics

As the 20th century progressed yoga became better known, and increasingly popular, in Switzerland. In 1948, Selvarajan Yesudian and Elisabeth Haich set up Switzerland’s first yoga school in Zurich after fleeing communist Hungary. Yesudian, an Indian yogi, had trained in Hungary, where he published his book "Sport és jóga" (released in English as “Yoga and Health” ) in 1941. It was aimed at a Western audience.

Yesudian and Haich would go on to open more schools in Switzerland in the years that followed, including in St. Gallen, Lausanne and Ticino. As in other European countries, yoga experienced a boom in Switzerland in the 1970s. Yoga studios, retreats and opportunities to train arose, and the Fédération Suisse de Yoga was founded in Lausanne.

The world of science and academia also showed more and more interest in yoga. Universities and research institutes examined its effects on both physical and mental health. Initial studies showed that yoga reduces stress, improves cardiovascular health and can help with anxiety disorders. Yoga thus found its way into the healthcare system, where physiotherapists increasingly worked side by side with yoga instructors.

International yoga seminar in the great outdoors at Moléson (FR), 1971. SRF

Commercialisation

Yoga, a tradition that originated in India, is now practised by 250 to 300 million people the world over. Whereas in India yoga is closely bound up with spirituality and philosophy, the focus in Europe and the United States has increasingly shifted towards physical fitness. In some of its forms, yoga is more akin to a sport than a spiritual practice – one example being the Swiss Yoga Championship. The commercialisation of yoga cannot be overlooked: yoga mats, designer clothing, books and even playlists have turned yoga into a billion dollar industry. But it often bears very little resemblance to the spiritual lifestyle that first emerged in India thousands of years ago.

Swiss Sports History

This text was produced in collaboration with Swiss Sports History, the portal for the history of sports in Switzerland. The portal focuses on education in schools and information for the media, researchers and the general public. Find out more at sportshistory.ch

More of: Classical antiquity Modern Age 20th / 21st century Colonialism Sports Swiss Sports History

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