Yoga is supposed to be about spiritual and physical health, not trademark battles. Unfortunately, the proliferation of studios, videos, books, equipment and clothing has led to legal battles over various versions of yoga that have popped up in response to yoga's growing popularity.

As explained in this story recently distributed by the Washington Post, at issue are the various names applied to the various versions of Yoga. The most famous of these is Birkam Yoga, which was trademarked in 1994 by Bikram Choudhury.

India's Traditional Knowledge Digital Library is fighting back by scanning the ancient texts upon which yoga was based on and making them free for public consumption in multiple languages. A listing of texts currently available can be found here. An overview of TKDL is available here.

We support their efforts of TKDL.