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
Kirtan Hindu scriptures such as the "Bhagavad-gita" where Krishna describes multiple paths to spiritual freedom, including karma marga (way of works), jnana marga (way of knowledge) and bhakti marga (way of loving devotion to god). "Kirtan" relates to the bhakti marga tradition of Hinduism. References to "Kirtan" as a musical recitation are also found in the Bhagavata Purana, an important Vaishnava text. Kirtan is often practiced as a kind of theatrical folk song with call-and-response chanting or antiphon. The ancient sage Narada revered as a musical genius, is called a "kirtankar" (singer of kirtan) in the Padma Purana. The famous story