[nandm]

The ancient science of yoga developed in more than one wise old civilization, but under different names, of course. Archeological discoveries have confirmed forms of yoga in ancient Chinese and Mayan cultures, as well as in India and Tibet.

Thousands of years ago, highly evolved humans in each of these civilizations created the system of yoga. Through their own personal experience of yoga this ancient science developed and eventually was passed on from master to student, from generation to generation.

Although forms of yoga have been discovered in various cultures, it was along the ancient Indus River that this body/mind/spirit science was first fully developed and preserved. Imagine an advanced culture flourishing along the banks of the Indus and Saraswati rivers: Multistory baked brick buildings abound; there is a huge public bath waterproofed with bitumen; the brick roads are laid out in geometric pattersn; and the sewage system is so advanced it rivals that of the Roman Empire. All of this, dating from somewhere between 3,000 - 1,900 BC!

Within the Rig-Veda, there are references to the Saraswati River, which is belived to have dried up around or before 1,900 BC. This means that this ancient text must have been contemporary with the Indus-Saraswati culture, where yoga first developed.

I may say that yoga developed thousands of years ago, but it could be as much as tens of thousands of years ago. No one really knows the absolute beginning of yoga, but ancient scrolls found in Tibet dating as far back as 40,000 BC describe recognizable forms of yoga.

Yoga's birth date of somewhere around 3,000 - 19,000 BC has been confirmed by references in the RIg-Veda, which is the oldest known text in any Indo-European language. Parts of it were composed in the third or even fourth millennium BC.

Books made of palm leaves were used for the writings of Inana yoga, one of the number of different yoga paths.