Yoga teachers in the West misuse the word ‘namaste’; this is known to bother many Indians. In this post, I attempt to understand their reasons for doing so, offer counter-arguments, highlight how doing so is potentially emblematic of a bigger issue and propose a way to deal with it.
I need to explain a few terms that are usually taken for granted. Please don’t skip over this section, if people really knew what was here then there would be no issue in the first place.
‘Namaste’ is an ancient, Sanskrit word. It’s pronounced as follows:
So altogether: ‘nu-mus-te’. Specifically, ‘namas’ does not rhyme with ‘llamas’. Simple, isn’t it?
What does it mean? It’s a combination of two parts
So altogether: ‘bow to you’ (as is common, and beautiful, in Sanskrit, the ‘I’ of the speaker is left implicit). These days, native Hindi speakers typically use it as a formal greeting. You may hear it used in religious settings or when addressing someone famous, elders, a group of people… Generally anyone you wish to show respect. The key point is that it is a greeting, it is rarely used at the end of an encounter. In modern parlance, ‘namaste’ is the equivalent of a (formal) ‘hello’.
But I thought…
You thought wrong. Sorry. Beyond ‘hello’ in Hindi and ‘bow to you’ (as a literal meaning) in Sanskrit, other meanings are merely connotations or interpretations. The burden of proof is on anyone who thinks otherwise to find a consistent set of uses from credible sources, because as far as I understand, the speakers and scholars of Hindi and Sanskrit have yet to discover them. I don’t know where the flowery phrases you typically hear associated with ‘namaste’ originated but later on I guess at why they’ve perpetuated so persistently.
‘Yoga’ is also, an ancient, Sanskrit word. It is pronounced:
So altogether, ‘yo-guh’. Simple, isn’t it?
What does it mean? Well, there are two derivations:
Yoga is one of the Āstika philosophies in classical Hinduism, based on the above two ideas. It is a system of thought whose foundational text is the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali. There have been many, many texts and commentaries and developments in yoga since the sutras were (estimated) to be composed in the 4th century BC.
As a system of thought, a philosophy, yoga consists of mental, physical and spiritual practices, based on its particular views on the nature, qualities and relationship of ātman and paramātmā. Hence yoga includes, but is not limited to, the postural yoga that is common today around the world.
In purva paksha (former/opponent’s argument), one makes a good-faith attempt to articulate the opposing argument.
Following discussions with a few yoga teachers and reading Yoga Spy’s article on the issue, I have surmised the following, in no particular order, reasons they give to continue saying ‘namaste’ at the end of a yoga session, once they’re made aware of its actual meaning and cultural context:
Before I move on, I want to make clear that I don’t blame them for being ignorant or misguided (as James O’Brien says, “compassion for the conned, contempt for the conmen”). But in my experience, these are the justifications for continuing the practice once they are presented with the facts.
In uttar (or apara) paksha, I respond with my counter-arguments.
I say illogical because saying ‘namaste’ at the end of a session is equivalent to saying ‘greetings’ or ‘salutations’. Or like wearing a kilt to the gym: unnecessarily formal and inappropriate for the time and place.
I say disrespectful because it is a form of cultural hubris to act as if your experience in the however many years you’ve been doing yoga, or yoga has spread to the West, outweighs the cultural context of how ‘namaste’ was used and ‘yoga’ has been taught for millennia. At best, native Hindi speakers appreciate the misguided effort to connect with their culture (whilst being too polite, or feeling too culturally inferior, to point out the issue). At worst, it is a cringe-worthy experience leading to well-documented discomfort and frustration on seeing something familiar from their culture perverted in a disingenuous and lackadaisical way.
If teachers still wish to add a veneer of spirituality, perhaps they could search for some prayers in Sanskrit, or even, commision and patronise their own Sanskrit prayers (now that would be excellent cultural exchange). A quick search online for “yoga prayers” shows some results, one called Invocation to Patanjali. If they really don’t want to let go of ‘namaste’, they could just use it in the beginning instead, where it would at least make sense.
And if teachers wish to add some superficial ties to India, they could use and explain the Sanskrit names of the poses when teaching. Lastly, if they’re just looking for a nice ending ritual, and they don’t want to bother with prayers, or long Sanskrit names, they could just say ‘dhanyavaad’ (meaning ‘thank you’). They get and give something authentic; native Hindi speakers get something sensible.
If I have missed some reasons, or glossed over some nuance in the purva paksha, I want to know, genuinely. I’m a little puzzled by why there seems to be any resistance to changing at all: yoga teachers are people who have spent years dedicated to the practice. If they don’t care at all for its roots, then why say ‘namaste’ at the end in the first place? And if they do, then why not immediately correct themselves in light of new information?
Ages ago, I used to do Judo; I like to think if I had dedicated enough time to become a Judo teacher and respect its Japanese cultural context, I’d be embarrassed to find out I was doing something silly like saying ‘konnichi wa’ at the end of every session whilst assuming it was a profound and meaningful ritual. And forgive me this moment of pure, unsubstantiated speculation, but I can’t shake the feeling this would not be such a widespread yet unremarked problem if it was any other culture (Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Indigenous American) being appropriated.
Perhaps it’s as simple as people don’t like being told they’re wrong. I was listening to the Infinite Monkey Cage on conspiracy theories recently, and around the 16:03 mark, Prof Karen Douglas said:
They [conspiracy theories] start off really big, so people believe “there must be a big explanation for this”, they can’t believe something simple […] because there must be big answer to something that was so big.
To which Shazia Mirza added:
Yeah that’s definitely true, people just don’t seem to be satisfied with a mundane, every day kind of explanation […] it’s just boring, a large event requires a large explanation.
Perhaps, in addition to big conspiracy theories, people search for meaning in cultures they don’t understand but admire and exoticise from afar; reflecting, without realising, everything they want a culture to mean into a part of it they know nothing about. Hence it’s up to others to say: “Hey… that spot? It’s kind of already taken. Sorry.”.
Or, I could reach for a simpler explanation: selfishness and apathy. I dislike automatically assuming the worst of people, but I think it’s a useful exercise.
Inspired by Baratunde’s TED Talk How to Deconstruct Racism, One Headline at a Time, I wondered if there might be any structural similarities to things I’ve observed in the past:
[Group] co-opt ancient Indian [concept],
disregard its original meaning of [idea],
project onto it their meaning of [new],
because it serves them by [benefit].
Correct Western Yoga teachers with kindness and compassion, and if they refuse to change their ways, educate their students directly. People generally don’t intentionally set out to do wrong, they are usually ignorant of the implications of their actions and/or the harm they cause. And it is up to people who do know, to make the case for both.
A useful framework, to rein in emotions and give people the benefit of the doubt, is the four stages/escalations of upayas (diplomacy):
NPR: How ‘Namaste’ Flew Away From Us
Yoga Spy: Ending Yoga Classes with ‘Namaste’
Allusionist: Namaste
This (rather blunt) Twitter thread
I haven’t read the following books but I suspect they’ll be relevant and useful deeper dives: Selling Yoga: From Counter Culture to Pop Culture and Roots of Yoga.
Still, sadly, there is no guarantee any of this will work. Much to my dismay, Yoga Spy already had all the information, including reactions from Indian students (which ranged from tepid to “I find it extremely weird”), but decided to continue with the practice.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
To end, here’s a well articulated excerpt from the Wikipedia page on cultural appropriation:
cultural appropriation differs from […] equal cultural exchange […] cultural elements are copied from a minority culture by members of a dominant culture, these elements are used outside of their original cultural context — sometimes even against the expressly stated wishes of members of the originating culture.