Hatha yoga who famously studied with the yogis and other mystics. Hatha yoga remained popular in rural India. Negative impression for the Hatha yogis continued during the British colonial rule era. According to Mark Singleton, this historical negativity and colonial antipathy likely motivated Swami Vivekananda to make an emphatic distinction between "merely physical exercises of Hatha yoga" and the "higher spiritual path of Raja yoga". This common disdain by the officials and intellectuals slowed the study and adoption of Hatha yoga. Modern hatha yoga, of the type seen in the West, has been greatly influenced by the school of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who
Vedas and "Know your Ātman" their thematic focus. The Upanishads are the foundation of Hindu philosophical thought and its diverse traditions. Of the Vedic corpus, they alone are widely known, and the central ideas of the Upanishads have influenced the diverse traditions of Hinduism. "Aranyakas" are sometimes identified as "karma-kanda" (ritualistic section), while the Upanishads are identified as "jnana-kanda" (spirituality section). In an alternate classification, the early part of Vedas are called Samhitas and the commentary are called the Brahmanas which together are identified as the ceremonial "karma-kanda", while "Aranyakas" and "Upanishads" are referred to as the "jnana-kanda". The Vedangas developed