36 Biography of a YogiLike the pious Yógi of the East one, so long motionless whilst gazing on
the sun that knotty plants encircled his neck and the cast snake- skin his
loins, and the birds built their nests upon his shoulders, this seer and natu-
ralist seemed by equal consecration to have become a part of the field and
forest amid which he dwelt.^39The imagery is striking in its subtle differences from earlier accounts of Yogi fig-
ures. No mention is made of the Yogi’s emaciated limbs, filthy skin, or the nails
that grow so long from neglect that they come to hang down or even pierce his
skin, though one can certainly imagine that all of these conditions must be pres-
ent if the plants have had time to accommodate him in their growth patterns.
Instead, the Yogi becomes literally one with nature, which carries an altogether
different connotation from the “unnatural” neglect of their bodies undertaken by
the ascetics of other accounts. Through this shift in focus, Thoreau becomes the
first symbol of a Yogi who, ragged as he may be, symbolizes something other than
ignorant superstition. In turn, by being absorbed into the discourse of a nature-
oriented Romanticism, the Yogi becomes more comprehensible to cultural elites
for whom this ideolog y holds capital. It is important to note that while the “mys-
tical Orient” was in many ways still a characterization that was used to devalue
Indian culture by painting it as passive, introverted, and ultimately irrational,^40 it
also proved to be a powerful point of attraction to those for whom mysticism did
not hold such negative valences.
Even more influential, however, was Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia, which
brought Indian religion to a far broader audience and colored the way in which
Westerners saw Asia for decades to come. First published in 1876 but ultimately
going through over a hundred editions in England and America, the text was
a novella- length narrative poem recounting the life of the historical Buddha.
Highly sympathetic, the account depicted him as almost Christ- like in his
purity and enlightenment.^41 This was the first exposure that many Westerners
would have had to Buddhism of any kind, but it is crucial to note that this was
an Indian Buddhism and thus Arnold’s narrative employed many of the tropes
that Westerns audiences would have recognized from depictions of India in
general. Among these was an account of the familiarly grotesque Yogi ascetics,
whose ways the Buddha comes to reject as not only overly extreme but ultimately
deluded:
Midway on Ratnagiru’s groves of calm,
Beyond the city, below the caves,
Lodged such as hold the body foe to soul,
And flesh a beast which men must chain and tame