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| That is the walk from Mysore to the Temple. Walking time: one month? |
In the dream he was directed to travel to a particular Vishnu temple in the very south of India.
And so he went on pilgrim to the Shrine at Alvar Tirungari, under the hot Indian sun, with what -I am assuming- would have been very little money, and pressumably on foot? - see map.
Upon arrival he found a door keeper and asked where could he find his ancestor, the man pointed in the direction of a mango tree and told him to go there but only after bathing in the river -the Tamraparani (which I cannot find in the Wikkipedia list of rivers of India).
As he came out of the river, Krishnamacharia fell into a trance (I think I would too, at least collapse, after walking for that long under the sun).It was in this trance that he found himself inside the tree with a wise man and three disciples. The wise man recited verses which he listened to carefully.
Upon awakening the man at the entrance -which looked just like the wise sage in the vision- told him he was lucky to have been instructed on the Yoga Rahasya.
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| T.K. Handwritting - 1965 |
Dersikachar, who translated it says that he heard his father recite verses from it often and also tried teaching it to him but he never paid much attention to it, until one day, circa 1965, Tirumalai wrote it down himself and committed his knowledge to paper.
The book addresses pregnancy in detail, pranayama and asanas. It is easy to read as it is mostly "slokas" or sentences which are then explained, followed by Desikachar's translation.
The asanas are coincidentally very much all the ones you find in the first, second and third series of Ashtanga yoga:
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How deep does the rabbit hole go?
RELATED POSTS:
Krishnamacharya: 8 Stories That Reveal What Kind of Man He Was
My Favorite Krishnamacharya Story
Yogi's Guide to Visiting Mysore, in South India
You have this too, Amazon must love you Claudia : )
ReplyDeleteWe studied this with Ramaswami along with the yoga Makaranda on his Krishnamacharya course. R gave us a translation, his own I think, but I found a 1st edition of the TKV Deskichar translation in an old hippy bookstore in Santa monica. The cover has the same picture but it's orange not green and the pictures inside ( there are 38, how many in yours?) are a mixture of different people, some are Krishnamacharya himself. Interestingly the translation is a little different than yours, going by the pictures you posted.
Hi Grimmly, yes actually James bought it for me, he is into Krishnamacharya now!... That is interesting that you found that first edition, I seem torecall you had a post about that? Maybe I am mixing things. I will look in the book and let you know how many, not near it right now... Will browse through your labels see if you posted pix of the orange book
ReplyDeleteHi Claudia,
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if this is still relevant but since you mentioned that Krishnamacharya went all the way to the south of India, then if I am not wrong yes Tamraparani (ThamiraBarani) is a river in Tamil Nadu, India. Here is the wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thamirabarani_River
By the way, my mother tongue is Tamil and my roots go back to Tamil Nadu, though I am a Malaysian. That's why I think Tamraparani and Thamirabarani could be the same river.
Deepa
(Malaysia)
That is great Deepa, I appreciate you going through the trouble of researching that! :)
ReplyDeleteTampraparni is the sanskrit original for the river tamira barani (tamil)(parni corrupted as barani). Tampra (sanskrit) or tamiram(tamil) refer to copper. The river water is known to contain higher quantities of copper and hence the name. I am from Tamil Nadu by the way.
ReplyDelete