[7] His legal colleagues did not know that he was revered as a yoga guru; in 1949, a retired high court judge was astonished to see Sundaram being seen off at Madras's Central Railway Station by a crowd of wealthy and powerful people, prostrating before the garlanded figure of the man he knew as a lawyer.

[5] In 1928 he published Yogic Physical Culture, describing a modernised hatha yoga reworked as a combination of gymnastics, bodybuilding, and hygiene, illustrated with photographs.

[9] It introduces a procedural innovation, too, creating stages in the adoption of each asana, something entirely missing from medieval texts like the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

[10] In Elliott Goldberg's view, Sundaram's detailed instructions moved the practice of asanas from what had "in all likelihood" been perfunctory and haphazard towards the precision of modern yoga, in which close attention is paid to the tensions in individual muscles.

This approach, Goldberg argues, led to executing the asanas slowly and under control, observing one's body and making necessary adjustments accordingly to achieve correct alignment.