The Indian government is furious that yoga practices dating back thousands of years are being ‘stolen’ by gurus and fitness instructors in Europe and the U.S. Foreign practitioners are said to have claimed hundreds of patents and copyrights on poses and techniques lifted straight from classical Indian yoga treatises.

In an effort to protect India’s heritage, a taskforce constituted by the Indian government to fight yoga piracy has begun documenting 1,500 yoga postures drawn from classical yoga texts - including the writings of the Indian sage Patanjali, the first man to codify the art of yoga. The data is being stored in the Indian government’s Digital Traditional Knowledge Library whose computerized contents will soon be made available to patents offices worldwide.

The library, set up at a cost of $3.4 million, will have information in five international languages. According to ministry officials, yoga is a $225 billion market in the West. Over 15 prominent yoga schools, including the Bihar School of Yoga in Munger, B K S Iyengar School along with Kaivalyadham schools in Pune; and the Vivekananda Yoga Kendra in Bangalore are helping the government in this project.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued 134 patents on yoga accessories, 150 yoga-related copyrights and 2,315 yoga trademarks, says the Indian taskforce. It also claims that Britain has approved at least 10 trademarks relating to yoga training aids that are mentioned in ancient texts. India has to claim back what is rightfully hers.