The Language of Yoga is a
rather unusual book and CD package that demonstrates the pronunciation of terms
frequently found in yoga, and gives some frequent yoga chants.  The first CD
starts with seven chants.  The shortest is Siva Mantra, which is chanted at the
beginning of a yoga practice.  It has four lines, which translate at

Salutations to Siva, the teacher

whose form is truth, consciousness,
and bliss,

who is without deceit, tranquil,

independent and illuminating

The rest of the first CD is a set of yoga terms, divided
into 22 sections, including animals, body parts, deities and sages, numbers,
and elements.  The book gives short descriptions of each section, the terms and
their meanings.  For sections such as the mudras, which are hand gestures,
there are line diagrams to illustrate the meanings of terms.  The second CD
starts with one invocation chant and then proceeds to list the names of most of
the yoga poses.  Each pose is illustrated with a small diagram showing the
pose. 

The book is hardbound, and has a
spiral bounding, so it is easy to flip from page to page and search for terms
one is looking for.  I cannot judge the accuracy of Bachman’s pronunciation on
the CDs or even of the information given in the book, but there’s no reason to
doubt his competence.  The quality of production of the CD and book are high. 
Occasionally, his pronunciation seems rather stilted, but that is probably true
of all such pronunciation guides, in any language. 

The main question is who would ever
want to learn just the Sanskrit terms and pronunciations for yoga terms,
without learning other linguistic terms.  I can only imagine that this is aimed
at yoga experts who want to get their terminology right.  Everyday yoga
practitioners don’t really need to know these terms, and they can pick up the
commonly-used ones from listening to regular yoga audio CDs and DVDs which lead
the listener through yoga flows.  However, there must be some people who are
interested in learning these yoga terms or the publisher would not have gone to
the trouble of producing this book.  They form a highly specialized group, but The
Language of Yoga should be helpful to them. 

Link: Sounds
True

© 2006 Christian Perring. All
rights reserved.

Christian
Perring, Ph.D., is Academic Chair of the Arts & Humanities
Division and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island. He is also
editor of Metapsychology Online Review.  His main research is on
philosophical issues in medicine, psychiatry and psychology.

Categories: AudioBooks, General