SAN FRANCISCO -- It's gone way beyond your neighborhood yoga studio. Google and Twitter offer yoga classes to employees. The Giants have Yoga Day at AT&T Park, inviting fans to practice their downward dog in center field before the game. There's also yoga on the South Lawn of the White House at the annual Easter Egg Roll.

About 20.4 million Americans practice yoga, according to a survey by Yoga Journal. With that boom in popularity has come an explosion of scholarship -- and an exhibit at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco titled "Yoga: The Art of Transformation," which opens Friday. It surveys yoga's 2,500-year history -- a quest for an enlightened mind and supple body that began among wandering Indian ascetics. It is billed as the first major art exhibition on yoga, and the Asian Art Museum is its only West Coast venue.

A sculpture titled "Brahmani" is part of the new exhibit "Yoga: The Art of Transformation" at the Asian Art Museum Wednesday morning, Feb. 19, 2014, in San Francisco, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

The exhibit debuted in October in Washington, D.C., at the Smithsonian Institution's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.

"But it had to go to California," said Debra Diamond, the show's organizing curator, who has flown out for the opening in San Francisco. "I think the percentage of people who do yoga and care deeply about yoga -- it's the place. Yoga and Indian culture are deeply embedded."

At the museum, the story is told through sculpture and painting, manuscripts and film. India's greatest artists have long grappled with yogic themes, it turns out, and the exhibit is a visual feast. It should appeal even to those who don't tote yoga mats along with their decaf lattes.

Watercolors are brushed with ground gold to shimmering effect. Sculptures of sages and divine figures have hips that appear to sway alluringly. One 13th-century figure drips with snakes that fool the eye; they look more like vines heavy with blossoms, intricately carved. And protruding from his lips are two deadly fangs.

"And just look at this beautiful bejeweled woman," said Qamar Adamjee, the Asian Art Museum's associate curator of South Asian art, during a preopening tour. She stood before an 11th-century sandstone figure that spells feminine power: "I love this sculpture. See the softness of the belly, and there's her voluptuous body, and yet she's holding a sword and a shield, and she has teeth," more typically associated with demons in Indian art.

This yogini -- part mortal, part goddess -- sits spread-legged on an owl and is about to take flight. Her pointer fingers are inserted into her mouth as she prepares to emit a war whistle. Historically, yoga has not been only about peace; ancient Indian kings called upon yoginis -- embodiments of secret yogic powers -- to wage battle and expand their kingdoms, according to legend and belief.

Debra Diamond, a Smithsonian associate curator of south and southeast Asian art, leads a tour through the new exhibit "Yoga: The Art of Transformation" at the Asian Art Museum Wednesday morning, Feb. 19, 2014, in San Francisco, Calif. The exhibit was first displayed at the Smithsonian. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

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Yoga as art?