© 2019 Patrick McCartney

Patrick McCartney, Phd

JSPS Post-Doctoral Fellow

Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

psdmccartney@protonmail.com

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3222-9366

Impaling the Yogi

Filtering a genealogical search for proto-Mallkhamb

(“Pole Yoga”) through Reverse Orientalize-mosis

© 2019 Patrick McCartney

Synopsis:

Mallkhamb (Malla-khāṁb; wrestler-pole), otherwise known as ‘Pole Yoga,’ is recognized as the

so-called, ‘Authentic Indian Sport;’ which also doubles as the ‘authentic’ and ‘original’ yoga.
Some admirers claim it could be between 5000, to as much as many millions of, years old through
asserting that its original name is Śiva-stambha (Shiva’s Pole).
The aim of this paper is to historicize Mallkhamb through a focused compendium of known
and possible avenues for further enquiry. While also looking for any clues regarding commensalic
relations regarding the development of haṭhayoga’s bodily regimes. The problem is that the
information available to us is slim and vague.
While the earliest attestation of Mallkhamb is located in the Mānasollāsa (12th century),
both ‘poles’ and ‘wrestlers’ have been in South Asia for centuries prior to this. Is there any profit
to be had in looking further afield? So too, wrestling has been a fundamental part of surrounding
and otherwise influential cultures that had historical links, both culturally and economically, with
South Asia. Is it possible that Mallkhamb, or some unknown analogue, by another name, could
have been imported to South Asia prior to its mention in the Mānasollāsa? Do we dare to enquire?
Where should we look?
Beginning with an anthropological enquiry regarding the relevant truth claims that various
supporters and promoters of Mallkhamb assert, today, we find a growing interest in Mallkhamb;
which, in 2018 saw the inception of its own World Championships and incorporation into the Circe
du Soleil franchise. Mallkhamb becomes another soft power instrument filtered through Reverse
Orientalism for the Indian state to leverage its cultural capital.
We then explore down through the centuries via various texts in which Mallkhamb is
mentioned, explicitly, as well as, tentatively. This exploration goes back to the Vedic Period and
beyond to provide a prospective genealogical survey of ‘poles’ and ‘wrestling’ attested in literary
and archaeological records. And explores cultural and economic links between cultures further
afield, or simply coincidences in the ways in which poles and wrestlers are mentioned, such as
Ancient Mesopotamia, Harappa and Egypt. While also looking for clues across other domains for
the different ways in which poles and various ideas around wrestling have been used, such as, in:
architecture, metaphor, performance, ritual, festival, magic and the expression of state power.

Key Words:

Mallakhāṃba, Mallastambha, Mallkhamb, Pole Yoga, Indian Sport, Reverse Orientalism

© 2019 Patrick McCartney

They show off to us, though they drink cattle piss and then depart, people of their
team; We shall bend into two and three, get our “poles” all erect, and thrust them
up their asses; We shall bend into two and three, get our “poles” all erect, and thrust
them up their asses. (Obeyesekere, 1984, p. 416)i

Alter (1992, p. 18) explains that there are, regrettably, only scattered fragments detailing a more
an opaque historical story of wrestling.ii Yet, in its own right, it is interesting. Even if we do not
have a complete picture. To the best of my knowledge, there has not been a systematic study
excavating deeper into the potential origins of Mallkhamb (Malla-khāṃba; wrestler-pole); which
has come to be more popularly known as “pole yoga.” Mallkhambiii is part of the training program
that wrestlers would, and still do, to some extent, undergo. By climbing up and down the pole, the
wrestler-in-training accumulates strength, agility and endurance. This paper is a humble
contribution to historicize Mallakhamb.iv It begins with the taken-for-granted assumptions around
Mallakhamb’s historicity—which are particularly frustrating, mostly due to any lack of evidence.
It is anticipated that this contribution will possibly lead us to a more nuanced idea of proto-
Mallakhamb.
The current lack of historiographical details regarding Mallakhamb is frustrating. It allows
minds to wander and enables Mallakhamb to be filtered, just like Yoga, Āyurveda and Bhārata
Nāṭyam, through a type of reverse orientalised-mosis,v toward being, yet, another meaningful
accoutrement in the post-colonial, moral imaginary-scape.vi
I am emboldened to try and write against the pervasive legacy of Orientalism. Even though
Orientialist scholars of the past, just as much as consumers and producers of yoga-inflected
lifestyles, today, come to rely upon the same colonially-constructed, Orientalist-imagined
narratives, I hope to look beyond the concern with philosophy, mysticism, magic, religion, and
metaphysics to find potential clues regarding “the mundane physics of physical fitness and
physiology” related to the historicity of pole yoga by questioning many of the assumptions about
Mallakhamb, and, “by extension, to question assumptions about civilization, modernity, and
nationalism,” as well as memory, itself (Alter, 2004, p. 7, 15).
© 2019 Patrick McCartney

Perhaps naively, I assume that, while evidence of fighting with fists (muṣṭi-yuddha) is
attested in the ṚV,vii and that engravings exist going back to the fourth century BCE show figures
engaged in wrestling bouts (Sen, 2015); the use of poles in ritual, as well, to climb them in ritual
is well attested (Staal, 1993), that there just might be some sort of connection, at some point in
time, beyond mere coincidence. Particularly, if we keep an open mind and consider how well
attested in South Asian sources wrestlers, jugglers and acrobats appear in stories climbing poles
as part of a king’s demonstration of power and legitimacy at ceremonial events during festive
seasons, and, also, for amusement of the public (Hopkins, 1889; Joshi, 1957; Kuiper, 1979; Meyer,
1937; Das 1985; Staal, 1993; Deshpande, 1993). But, also, in cultures across Ancient Mesopotamia
and Egypt. While the assertion is not, necessarily, that “pole yoga” was imported into South Asia—
since we do not know where, when and how Mallakhamb originated, prior to its first mention in
the 12th century Mānasollāsa—we are left to ponder, just how old is it?
As an anthropologist, who has training in historical linguistics, classical philology and
archaeology, I generally prefer to focus on contemporary contexts, people who are still alive, and
what they do and say about particular texts; rather than focusing more specifically in what I
attempt, below. Particularly, as I stretch myself into times, places and languages that, while not
beyond my interest, are rather beyond levels of familiarity. All of this, however, is done to
hopefully point us toward a clearer path to understanding more about Mallakhamb’s opaque, yet,
fascinating, story.
The outline of this paper begins with the present moment and provides the reasons why
this research has been conducted. In the sections that follow, we will move further back in time to
the deeper recesses of our knowledge by looking at the middle-modern period in Section 2, the
early-modern period in Section 3, the medieval period in Section 4, the classical period in Section
5, the vedic period in Section 6, and, finally, the pre-Vedic period in Section 7.

i
As Obeyesekere (1984, pp. 483-486) explains, the songs that form part of the aṅkeḷiya ritual is one such
event that enables within it a homosocial space for adolescent boys and post-adolescent men to vicariously
express their sexual desires (Ruwanapura, 2011, p. 12).
ii
My gratitude is extended to Andrey Klebanov, Jason Birch, Fred Smith, Philip Lutgendorf and Somadev
Vasudeva.
iii
The etymology of Mallakhamb is that it is a portmanteau of the Sanskrit malla (wrestler) with the Marathi
khāṁba or khāmbā (post). Khāṁba derives from Sanskrit stambha, which ultimately derives from √stabh
“to support.” I will use the diacritic free Mallakhamb throughout the rest of the paper.
© 2019 Patrick McCartney

Fred Smith explained in a private conversation 24 August 2019 that the s->kh transitioned is observed in
the Śuklayajurveda.
iv
“Another problem with using the Hatha Yoga literature as a gold standard is that one would have to
discount a significant percentage of what counts for Yoga today, including a common procedure known as
surya namaskar (salutation to the sun), which is not mentioned as a physical exercise in any of the standard
texts published or printed earlier than the nineteenth century. What appears to be a headstand is mentioned
in the Yogatattva Upanisad (see Ayyangar 1952) as well as later Hatha Yoga texts, but it is also mentioned
in the Mallapurana, a sixteenth-century text, as one of the exercises in the regimen of medieval wrestlers.
This presents a further problem as to what counts as Yoga, and whether or not all headstands can or should
be counted as the same thing in fact. In other words, the well-recognized problem that Yoga has multiple
meanings is magnified considerably when dealing with different elements of practice—where do you draw
the line between deep breathing, pranayama, and certain kinds of rhythmic prayer?19 Here as well there is
the problem of what counts as “classical” texts delineating a timeless, coherent tradition, and other texts
that bring that tradition into a more delineated but multivectoral historical framework. Does the
Mallapurana count, for example? As N. E. Sjoman notes, it is possible to trace the history of ideas about
Yoga philosophy through time, and possible to follow the development of pranayama from puranic times
up to the present, but there is virtually nothing that allows for the construction of a history of asana practice.
Clearly this signals the need for ongoing research. Sjoman’s analysis (1996) of the Sritattvanidhi and
Mallapurana texts in relation to some of the earliest efforts at Yoga revival manifest in the Vyayamdipika
(Bhardwaj 1896) and the Yogamakaranda (Krishnamachariya 1935) is directly relevant. But the paucity of
any clear history of practice in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries should raise a red flag of sorts
concerning the putative antiquity of everything that is now counted as Hatha Yoga” (Alter, 2004, p.24).
v
Reverse Orientalism, according to Chizuko (2005) is the two-step filter which others the Orient. In step
one, the peripheral Orient is othered from the Eurocentric perspective. In step two, this internalized othering
is then projected onto Orient from groups who have previously been othered. An example of this is below
in the Mallkhamb India (2017) quote, it is explained how the birthplace of Mallakhamb is, “even today”
“very peaceful & really ‘Untouched’ by the perversed modernisation.” This projection of purity and
tradition is typical of the reverse orientalism that re-orientalizes the Orient.
vi
This is also reminiscent of the factoids that re-occur in Imagining Sanskrit Land and my work on
“Sanskrit-speaking” villages (McCartney, 2017a,b,c, 2018, Forthcoming, a,b,c), as well as my ongoing
interest in charting the narrative economics of both Yoga and Sanskrit’s biographies (Shiller, 2019).
vii
ṚV 07,031.026a āsīt keśaparāmarśo muṣṭiyuddhaṃ ca dāruṇam; ṚV 08,019.065a muṣṭiyuddhaṃ mahac
cāsīd yodhānāṃ tatra bhārata; ṚV 08,033.060c muṣṭiyuddhaṃ niyuddhaṃ ca dehapāpmavināśanam.