Norman Sjoman

Norman Sjoman is a Canadian painter, writer, yoga teacher and Sanskritist. He has published on art and art history, the techniques of yoga, and also lectured on these subjects as well as Sanskrit at universities in various countries.

Biography

Born July 6, 1944 in Mission City, British Columbia, Sjoman has a BA Honours from the University of British Columbia , a Filosofie Kandidat from Stockholm University.

He has a PhD from the Centre of Advanced Studies in Sanskrit at Pune University, a pandit degree from the Mysore Maharaja’s Mahapathasala and a Diploma from Alberta College of Art. Over a 14-year period in India he studied four different sastras (traditional philosophical disciplines), in Sanskrit, with several individual pandits. From 1970-1976 Sjoman studied yoga under B.K.S. Iyengar.

Sjoman has taught yoga in several countries and is accredited by yoga studios in Canada, the Netherlands and Japan. In 1982 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Yoga by the Nippon Yoga Gakkei. At present he resides mainly in Calgary, Canada, while making frequent visits to India, Europe, Mexico and South America.

As a visual artist, Sjoman has illustrated his own books and books by others. He has prepared exhibition catalogues for various artists, including Druvinka,^[1] Shehan Madawela, and Raghupati Bhatta.

In 2006 Sjoman was invited to the first^{[citation needed]} panel on yoga at the American Academy of Religion in Washington, DC, where he presented a paper entitled Summary of Research on Yoga.^[2] In 2006 he presented a monograph "The Yoga Tradition" at India's Lonavla Yoga Institute.

Selected Publications

• An Introduction to South Indian Music (with H.V. Dattatreya). Publication accompanied by approximately 75 hours of recorded Carnatic music. Saraswati Project, Netherlands. 1986.
• The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace Abhinav Publications. New Delhi, India. 1996, 1999. ISBN 8170173892.
• A South Indian Treatise on the Kamasastra (with Swami Sivapriyananda). Abhinav Publications. New Delhi, India. 2000. ISBN 8170173884.
• Yoga Touchstone (with H.V. Dattatreya). Black Lotus Books. Calgary, Canada. 2004. ISBN 0-9736162-0-2
• Artists in Mysore (under the pseudonym Naramani Somanath). Black Lotus Books. Calgary, Canada. 2006. ISBN 0-9736162-1-0
• Dead Birds (with H.V. Dattatreya on accompanying DVD). Black Lotus Books. Calgary, Canada. 2007. ISBN 0973616229
• Art: The Dark Side. Black Lotus Books. Calgary, Canada. 2010. ISBN 978-0-9736162-3-1

Selected References

• Jagannātha's Definition of Poetry: An Analysis of the Introductory Verses of Rasagangādhara and the Definition of Poetry. Journal of Indian Philosophy. Volume 9, Number 14. Delhi, India. 1981.
• The Memory Eye: An examination of memory in traditional knowledge systems. Journal of Indian Philosophy. Volume 14, Number 2. Delhi, India. 1986.
• Yogis and Mendicants. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bombay. Vol. 70. Bombay, India. 1995.
• The Necessity of Holy Cows: Contemporary Master Artists in Indian Folk and Tribal Arts. The Triangle Gallery of Visual Arts. Calgary, Canada. 2001.
• Yoga in Modern India: The Body between Science and Philosophy by Joseph Alter. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey, USA. 2004. ISBN 13: 978-0-691-11874-1
• History of Modern Yoga: Patanjali and Western Esotericism by Elizabeth de Michelis. Continuum. London, England. 2005. ISBN 0826487726
• Encyclopedia of Traditional Asanas. Lonavla Yoga Institute. Bombay, India. 2006. ISBN 8190161725.
• Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, Vol. XII. Yoga: India’s Philosophy of Meditation. Delhi, India. 2008.
• Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice by Mark Singleton. Oxford University Press. Oxford, England. 2010. ISBN 978-0-19-539535-8
• Learned reviews of the Sritattvanidhi ("The Illustrious Treasure of Realities"), an iconographic treatise written in the 19th century in Karnataka by the then Maharaja of Mysore, credit Norman Sjoman with having written one of the more important works on the genre covered, namely his book The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace.
• Not as Old as You Think by Meera Nanda. OPEN magazine. February 12, 2011.

Notes

1. ^ http://www.artsrilanka.org/online/druvinka/index.html
2. ^ http://www.blacklotusbooks.com/events/gate.htm

External links

• Inaugural Fridhandler Lecture on Non-Western Art
• Indian Tribal Arts
• The Yoga Studio of Calgary
• New Light on Yoga The Yoga Journal, by Anne Cushman.
• Black Lotus Books

Persondata
Name	Sjoman, Norman
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Date of birth	1944
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