Yoga is an authentic Indian cultural construct. Discuss in relation to Joseph Alters' ethnography of modern yoga in India. The Indian construct of yoga has long served as a hallmark of Indian culture. This icon of Indian culture has always been considered quintessentially Indian and has been considered in the past to be a timeless and unchanging tradition in its form. However, in Yoga in Modern India, Joseph Alter challenges this view. Alter offers insights into ancient and modern yoga texts and challenges the view of unchanging yoga through its emergence in popular culture and its changing form and meaning. In this, yoga ceases to be only a construction of the East due to its changing form and its Western influence which emphasizes health values, science and medicine. Yoga has moved beyond its roots of transcendence and magical powers alone and now has a basis in the studies of biology, physiology, and medicine (Alter 2004). In this, yoga now goes well beyond the stereotypical analysis that yoga in India has maintained its spirituality, while yoga in the West is entirely based on materialism. To address this black-and-white thinking, Yoga in Modern India focuses its attention on “how Yoga has taken on meaning over the last century” (Alter 2004: xiv). In this, Alter does not claim that yoga is an authentic Indian cultural construct. Instead, Alter offers insight into the creation of knowledge about yoga in 20th-century texts and in late 20th-century practice in India (Alter 2004). Yoga can then be understood as a transnational construction resulting from multiple influences, such as colonialism and Hindu nationalism. Additionally, the multiple influences on the practice of yoga also intersect, as...... middle of article.. ....r, despite the attempted nationalism of Hindu groups, yoga defies the definition of Hindu alone through its philosophy of practice (Alter 2004: 142-177). In this way, yoga does not belong to any nationality. In conclusion, yoga in modern India serves to demonstrate that the practice of yoga is more than Eastern or Western, but instead is truly transnational. Alter illustrates that yoga is an ever-evolving practice and is both historically and politically constructed. Ultimately, yoga is more than an authentically Indian cultural construct. The history of yoga, understanding of the body, use of science, medicine and politics transcends boundaries and instead encompasses the knowledge, practice and beliefs of its many global followers and contributors. Works Cited Alter, Joseph. 2004. Yoga in modern India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.