I feel myself lucky to come across this book. It’s the first book I read about Yoga and I’m happy that Pharma Sutra was that first book, as it really helped me gain lot of knowledge about the subject.
Yoga is something in which many people believe in and you may hear the word each and every day when you are among the crowd. For an ancient practice which is a popular and vast subject the author has done a great job in compressing the most appropriate part of it to this book.
The writing style was lucid had a smooth flow that I didn’t have to force myself to turn the next page. The examples to explain the history, importance and the methods were really good and remarkable. I felt that the book is written in such a way that anybody from any education standard could read and understand. The moment I saw the table of contents I was impressed about the book. The topics were well chosen and chapters well planned and aligned to discuss the subject thoroughly. Psychologically it ensured me that the book is worth reading.
The slow and steady approach of the book to the main fact which is “yoga as medication for various diseases” is appreciative. The author has given a very informative introduction other than rushing to the main topic like we find in many other books nowadays. The first part of the book gives too many details to make the reader believe in the reality of yoga and its effect. If anyone starts practicing yoga after reading this book would actually have proper understanding about what he/she is doing.
However, partially I feel that “How to use the book” section would have been better to be presented a little earlier than it is now, as no matter how good the book is people who are not looking for what it contains could be notified about the content quite early. Even the people who have knowledge about yoga prior to reading the book and has chosen this as a guide for the specific ailments could simply jump to the appropriate topics than fooling around with the already known details in the introduction.
The minus point which I see in the book is lack of proper images. Images with real people’s posture provide good insight, but few more sketches for the same asana would have been a better add-on. Though I loved the feature of specific benefits and contradictions for each asana and amused with the great deal of details author has given, I strongly believe that the simple sketches would have been a better and much more effective explanation. This way the book has lost the practical touch of the subject.
It’s nice to go through the list of reference which confirms the fact to the reader that the content is true and no bluff is mixed in order to fill the pages. If there’s no restriction due to copyright laws, a collection of the images at the end would have been better than the list of the links as provided. Also, I didn’t like the main title “Pharma Sutra” as it doesn’t quite define yoga and if not for the tag line to the main title I actually wouldn’t have find any connection with the book with yoga and feel that it would be the same scenario with most of the people who come across the book. (just my opinion)
Being very generous in rating the books as always I’m tempted to give this 5 stars. Though I feel that lack of proper images and guidance would be quite a disappointment to the readers, 3 stars would be great injustice and under estimating the good work. So I would settle with 4 stars. All in all, the book is really awesome. It developed an interest in me about yoga and I’m certainly excited to learn more about the subject.
0 comments:
Post a Comment