Late in the 19 Century the modernist medical discourse took the form of developing regiments of health, diets and hygiene. These discourses also found their way into the existing holistic body discourses outlined above. All this finally coalesced into the discourse of physical culture , which I discuss in the chapter on Colonial yoga. (We see there how bodybuilding for instance emerged and entered the Indian middle classes.)
Its history combines sacred geometry with modern physics and Hindu mythology Yoga poses animals with common sense. And, like its sister science, voga, Vastu’s history reaches back Yoga poses animals thousands of years. Vastu is the Vedic science of architecture and interior design.
The collected wisdom of the Hindu Vedas was put into writing at least 5,000 years ago. The Vedas are divided into four texts Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva and describe the sacred laws of nature, the creative energies of the universe, and the mythology of the Vedic gods and goddesses. Ayurveda, the world’s first science of health, was first expounded in the Vedas. Yoga, a sister science of Ayurveda, was also first articulated here, as was Vastu. The Vedas teach us that we stay in good health when we live in a state of harmony with nature.
