Yoga on CD

Patanjali's Yoga Sutra: an Exploration; a CD- ROM by T.K.V. Desikachar; audio recital by Mekhala Desikachar; produced by Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, 31 Fourth Cross Street, R.K. Nagar, Chennai- 600028.

AN ASPIRANT seeking to study the six Astika Darsanas or the orthodox philosophical systems of India is usually drawn to the Yoga Darsana as a convenient point of entry and amongst the texts expounding this Darsana, are readily drawn to the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali.

In today's world, one must acknowledge that very few of us possess the time or the energy or even the commitment to study a text in the traditional way, under the guidance of an intellectually refined teacher, leisurely imbibing every shade of literal meaning and eventually experiencing and realising first hand the spirit of the words. In keeping with these tension- filled times, it is appropriate that the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram has produced the Yoga sutras of Patanjali in the electronic CD-ROM format. This modern medium, in fact, is an ideal one with which one may read, recite, print, ponder over, write notes and ultimately comprehend the terse aphorisms of Patanjali as taught by the late preceptor T. Krishnamacharya.

As students of Yoga around the world know and appreciate, his teachings have been beautifully reproduced in the many unique publications of the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram. One such book which embodies the spirit of the late master is ``Patanjali Yoga Sutras - An Introduction'', written by T.K.V. Desikachar, his son, and published by East West Press Ltd. With the assistance of Swathi Soft Solutions, the perishable print format of paper and ink has now been converted into the virtually indestructible electronic format. The CD-ROM makes for delightful browsing. The sutras are arranged in the traditional manner of the four padahs or chapters covering the 195 sutras in a series of visually appealing screen pages boosted by user friendly navigation features. These allow the reader to browse through the whole text sequentially or at random, navigating forwards or backwards.The versatility of multi media of course has allowed Mekhala Desikachar to recite the individual sutras in both normal and classical style, though sometimes, an untrained ear may find it difficult to differentiate between the two. Other features of the presentation include printing facilities and word search capability.

Indeed the classical definition of a sutra is that it is brief, clear, definite, faultless and comprehensive to be able to sustain the oral tradition of study. One cannot but wonder how appropriate these descriptions are to the present effort of T.K.V. Desikachar to combine the traditional oral, with the modern recorded mode of study.

DR. UMA KRISHNASWAMY

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