Introducing "Like a Tree Universally Spread Sri Sabhapati Swami and Śivarājayoga", Keith Cantú, Author

Sri Sabhapati Swami, a nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Tamil yogin named Sri Sabhapati Swami (Śrī Sabhāpati Svāmī, Capāpati Cuvāmikaḷ, ca. 1828–1923/4), had a significant impact on the development of modern yoga as well as modern occultism yet whose historical context and literature remains little-understood. Sabhapati’s works introduced elements of Tamil Śaiva cosmology to North India (especially British Punjab and Bengal), and he pioneered a yogic system that—on the surface—anticipates one later popularized by Swami Vivekananda, about whom by contrast there are enough books published to fill an entire personal library. In my book, I recount Sabhapati Swami’s personal meeting with the founders of the Theosophical Society, Helena Blavatsky and Henry Olcott, as well as how his teachings on yoga were integrated into Theosophy, New Thought, and other esoteric / new religious movements, such as Thelema.

Speaking of which, I first came across the name Sabhapati Swami while a high school student in the teachings of Aleister Crowley (1875–1947). Crowley was an occult author and founder of the religious philosophy Thelema who had been introduced to Sabhapati Swami’s works during a visit to Madurai around 1901. Crowley published Sabhapati’s name in several of his works, including in instructions in The Equinox, a British journal that ran in the early twentieth century, issues of which were freely available as PDF files online by the 2000s. After finishing college and returning from a Fulbright fellowship in Bangladesh, I began learning Sanskrit and was encouraged by some well-read Thelemite friends and colleagues in the Pacific Northwest to revisit this relatively unknown swami and his verses on samādhi, a kind of yogic “composure,” “trance,” or “ecstasy.” This led to my rediscovery of Sabhapati’s books in Tamil, Hindi, and Bengali, none of which had been analyzed by scholars throughout the century following their publication—the study of these languages and works would go on to consume my graduate research first at the University of Washington and then UC Santa Barbara. In my years-long research work, I relied on primary texts, secondary academic literature, biographical accounts, archival data, ethnographic fieldwork and recorded interviews, photographic evidence, nineteenth-century temple epigraphic inscriptions, colonial-era geography and missionary records, religious art history, and other related sources to trace his life and works.

This research has resulted in the first book ever published on Sri Sabhapati Swami and on how his unique teachings on a system of yoga known as Śivarājayoga (Tamil: civarājayōkam), or the “Royal Yoga for Śiva” spread across India as well as in the literature of modern occultism. The book’s organization is such that the division into thematic chapters makes it easy for any reader to access the information that most interests them, whether it is on yoga or occultism or philosophy or music or visual diagrams, and there are many illustrations and figures. The use of diacritical marks for Sanskrit and Tamil terms as well as common names and spellings provided also renders the book readable to both lay readers and Indologists alike, and affords the opportunity for Sabhapati’s vocabulary to be compared with the wider terminology of other popular works on yoga.

My book was intended to fill a major gap in scholarship by providing a meticulous examination of the contents of Sabhapati’s teachings and publications not only in their local Tamil settings but also across South Asia and abroad in Europe and North America. To this goal, I have utilized all sources currently available to present a holistic portrait of Sabhapati’s life, literature, and engagement with many actors who are already well-known to readers familiar with the development of modern religions and cultural histories. I hope you will find the book to be thorough and informative, and welcome your questions and comments during the upcoming book launch event on November 15!