The philosophy that made
your practice
Academic collaboration with Saṃskṛti Foundation, Mysore
What you find here is a collection of education gathered over many years, offered in service to students and in gratitude to the teachers who made it possible.
What is this lineage? →Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya, the scholar whom many call the father of modern yoga, taught Pattabhi Jois, B.K.S. Iyengar, T.K.V. Desikachar, and Indra Devi. Their lineages together account for the vast majority of postural yoga practiced anywhere in the world today.
Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya was formed within the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition from childhood and continued his education at the Parakāla Maṭha in Mysore. The scholarly tradition of Mysore is alive today as it has been for hundreds of years. The courses gathered here are taught by scholars who carry that same Sanskrit tradition, reading these texts as they have long been understood within it. We share them simply because students abroad rarely have the chance to study this way, and we are grateful to be able to offer it.
What follows are the ways you can study within this tradition, from the open door of the video library to focused study of a single text. Wherever you begin, the same scholars and the same tradition stand behind it.
"The Indian tradition is essentially a human tradition."
Śrī U.Ve. Prof. M.A. Lakṣmīthāthāchārya Swami
The Library
The simplest way inside this tradition. A growing video library of teachings recorded with the scholars of Mysore, organized by text and by teacher, open to you for as long as you are a member.
Membership opens the full recorded library: talks and teaching sessions on the Yoga Sūtras, the Bhagavad Gita, Sankhya, prāṇāyāma, chanting, and the philosophy that holds them together. New material is added over time. Everything is arranged by text and by scholar, so you can follow a single teacher, study one text in depth, or simply wander.
It is the low, open door. You do not have to decide what you want to study or commit to a single course. You step inside the world first, learn from the scholars at your own pace, and go deeper into a specific text whenever you are ready.
Note: the library is its own membership. It does not include the focused flagship courses below, which are purchased individually and yours to keep.
The Texts
For those who want to own a teaching rather than rent the library. Each course is a complete, focused study of one text with the scholar who carries it, purchased once and yours to keep.
The prāṇāyāma you encounter in modern yoga traces back through Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya to the Haṭha Yoga texts, above all the Haṭhayogapradīpikā. Most practitioners learn these practices in fragments, without the techniques, descriptions, or context the classical tradition preserves. This course returns to the source.
Dr. Jayaraman leads participants through the Aṣṭa Kumbhakas, the eight classical prāṇāyāma practices of Haṭha Yoga, drawing on his own critical edition of the Haṭhayogapradīpikā and the Jyotsnā Sanskrit commentary. Students leave with a complete working foundation in prāṇāyāma and enough knowledge to continue on their own.
- Aṣṭa Kumbhakas in full
- Classical Haṭhayogapradīpikā sources
- Nāḍī Śodhana & Kapālabhāti
- Complete daily practice sequence
- Saṃskṛti Foundation certificate
- Yoga Alliance CEUs
The Yoga Sūtras are the philosophical backbone of everything you practice. Every breath linked to movement, every instruction to still the mind, every idea of what yoga is actually for, all of it traces back to this text. Yet most practitioners have never studied it directly, verse by verse, with a scholar who has spent a lifetime inside it.
Dr. Nagaraj Rao takes the entire text verse by verse, weaving in Sankhya, the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavad Gita, and allied commentaries to show how the Sūtras actually work: in the mind, in relationships, in daily life. His gift is making the subtle clear without making it simple.
It is the text as this lineage has always read it.
- Complete verse-by-verse study
- Video, audio & written notes
- Permanent access
- Study at your own pace
- Saṃskṛti Foundation certificate
- Yoga Alliance CEUs
The Bhagavad Gita is the most widely read philosophical text in the yoga world, and the most frequently misunderstood. Stripped of its context, it becomes a collection of inspiring passages. Studied within its tradition, it is something far more precise: a complete teaching on the nature of action, devotion, knowledge, and liberation, addressed to a practitioner standing at the threshold of practice.
Dr. M. A. Alwar does not teach the Gita as literature or philosophy from the outside. He transmits it as it has been understood within this paramparā for more than a millennium, with the depth, precision, and warmth of a scholar who has lived inside this text his entire life.
- Complete study of all 18 chapters
- Video, audio & written notes
- Permanent access
- Study at your own pace
- Saṃskṛti Foundation certificate
- Yoga Alliance CEUs
Sankhya is the philosophical system that underlies the Yoga Sūtras, the Bhagavad Gita, and virtually every other foundational text in the tradition. Its vocabulary (puruṣa, prakṛti, the three guṇas, buddhi, ahaṃkāra) runs through everything you practice. This course gives you that foundation, verse by verse through the Sankhya Kārikā.
Sankhya is the theory of yoga. Yoga is its practical application. You cannot fully understand one without the other. Dr. Rao makes this technically precise system genuinely clear, with examples, metaphors, and the kind of depth that only a scholar formed inside the tradition can offer.
- Verse-by-verse Sankhya Kārikā
- 12 hours video & audio
- Written summaries every lesson
- Downloadable original text
- Private 1-on-1 with Andrew Eppler
- Permanent access
- Saṃskṛti Foundation certificate
- Yoga Alliance CEUs
The Yoga Sūtras, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Sankhya Kārikā are not three separate texts. They are three angles on a single integrated understanding, one that the tradition has always taught together. The Trilogy brings them into conversation with one another, taught by the scholars who have spent their lives inside all three.
If you want to understand not just what these texts say but how they form a complete system of practice, philosophy, and liberation, this is where that study begins.
The 200-Hour Training
We are building a full 200-hour RYT training with Mysore Yoga Traditions, online and self-paced, so that students anywhere can study at their own rhythm. It is taking the care such a thing deserves, and we are glad to be making it.
It will open here before long. If you would like word when it does, write to us at andrew@ashtangayogastudio.com.
All courses are offered in collaboration with the Saṃskṛti Foundation, Mysore. Certificates are issued by the Saṃskṛti Foundation and recognised by Yoga Alliance as Continuing Education.
This work is offered in service to students and in gratitude to the teachers who carry the tradition, not as a business first. We do not believe a sincere student should be kept from this study by money. If a fee is a genuine difficulty, write to us and we will find a way.
These courses are an invitation to understand the world you have been practicing in. The texts are precise. The tradition is living. The scholars are generous. Come as you are, with whatever background, whatever questions, whatever gaps in your knowledge. That is exactly who these teachings are for.
Questions? Reach Andrew Eppler at andrew@ashtangayogastudio.com or on WhatsApp +1 (405) 503-7779.