Preamble :-
CBO has just finished a prestigious website redevelopment project for Prempuri Ashram Trust of Mumbai.
The trust runs Prempuri Ashram, an age-old institution of great repute, dedicated to the promotion of Indian spiritual learning in the revered Vedantic tradition.
Innumerable wise scholars, philosophers and saints of contemporary India have resided, lectured and an taught in the august precincts of the Prempuri Ashram over the last three decades.
The Ashram is a prime centre of Bharatiya Sanatan Dharma (Eternal Religion of India) in the city and the spiritual lectures and discourses on Vedanta philosophy that take place there on a daily basis are held in high regard by the Satsangi fraternity not only in Mumbai but all over India.
Since about a decade, the Ashram had been recording these lectures and discourses on audio cassettes which today run into thousands in number.
About a year and a half ago under the advice and guidance of a senior member of CBO, the Ashram took up the herculean task of conversion of the audio cassette collection into MP3 format that could go first on CDs and finally to the internet.
Project Obective and Focus :
The Prempuri Website project is the logical culmination of this ambition to make the knowledge and wisdom that is preserved in the custody of Prempuri Ashram available anywhere in the whole world at any moment at the click of a button.
As per the revered Indian tradition, the proper and prescribed way to gain spiritual knowledge is not reading, but hearing. "Guru-vaakya Shravan" (Hearing of the words uttered by the Guru) is a sine-qua-non of the process of enlightenment. So the singular focus in this project has been on delivering the Audio archives of Prempuri online, to a world-wide audience via the medium of the Internet.
Since about a decade, the Ashram had been recording these lectures and discourses on audio cassettes which today run into thousands in number.
About a year and a half ago under the advice and guidance of a senior member of CBO, the Ashram took up the herculean task of conversion of the audio cassette collection into MP3 format that could go first on CDs and finally to the internet.
Project Obective and Focus :
The Prempuri Website project is the logical culmination of this ambition to make the knowledge and wisdom that is preserved in the custody of Prempuri Ashram available anywhere in the whole world at any moment at the click of a button.
As per the revered Indian tradition, the proper and prescribed way to gain spiritual knowledge is not reading, but hearing. "Guru-vaakya Shravan" (Hearing of the words uttered by the Guru) is a sine-qua-non of the process of enlightenment. So the singular focus in this project has been on delivering the Audio archives of Prempuri online, to a world-wide audience via the medium of the Internet.
The Main Challenge:-
The main challenge of the project lay in setting up not just a website but a bi-lingual content management system, that was easy enough to be used on a day-to-day basis by the staff of the Ashram who have just basic computer literacy.
The only way to get daily discourses and lectures online on a timely basis was to train the resident service staff and non-resident administrative staff of the Ashram in the process of digital audio processing and conversion and then to equip them with an absolutely user-friendly yet powerful online web-authoring interface that would allow categorised uploads of the daily audio files to an ever-growing online database. CBO rose to this task and delivered a working solution that has been well received by the Ashram administration which decided to launch the site right away.
Launch :
The site was inaugurated on the occasion of the commencement of the annual Bhagwat Saptah function at the Ashram premises at Babulnath, Mumbai, on the 30th of November by the honourable Shri Morari Bapu.
The only way to get daily discourses and lectures online on a timely basis was to train the resident service staff and non-resident administrative staff of the Ashram in the process of digital audio processing and conversion and then to equip them with an absolutely user-friendly yet powerful online web-authoring interface that would allow categorised uploads of the daily audio files to an ever-growing online database. CBO rose to this task and delivered a working solution that has been well received by the Ashram administration which decided to launch the site right away.
Significant features of the site are :-
Streaming online audio and video; Automated and controlled User registrations; e-commerce enabled subscription plans for different types of membership; e-commerce enabled web-shop for selling MP3 CDs, Bilingual site structure and content with possibility for multilingual extension; Front-end content editing with access control; Comprehensive backend administration panel.
Streaming online audio and video; Automated and controlled User registrations; e-commerce enabled subscription plans for different types of membership; e-commerce enabled web-shop for selling MP3 CDs, Bilingual site structure and content with possibility for multilingual extension; Front-end content editing with access control; Comprehensive backend administration panel.
Launch :
The site was inaugurated on the occasion of the commencement of the annual Bhagwat Saptah function at the Ashram premises at Babulnath, Mumbai, on the 30th of November by the honourable Shri Morari Bapu.
Remember to keep your computer audio switched ON at an audible level before visiting the site else you will miss something wonderful :-)
Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi !
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