Tirumalai Krishnamacharya

Krishnamacharya was born on 18 November 1888 in Muchukundapura, situated in the Chitradurga district of present-day Karnataka, in South India, to an orthodox Iyengar family. His first language was the Dravidian language Telugu,[13] which means that according to Telugu name style, "Tirumalai" is the family name, which is usually abbreviated, and "Krishnamacharya" the significant given name. His parents were Sri Tirumalai Srinivasa Tatacharya, a well-known teacher of the Vedas, and Shrimati Ranganayakiamma.[14] Krishnamacharya was the eldest of six children. He had two brothers and three sisters. At the age of six, he underwent upanayana. He then began learning to speak and write Sanskrit, from texts such as the Amarakosha and to chant the Vedas under the strict tutelage of his father.[2]

When Krishnamacharya was ten, his father died,[15] and the family had to move to Mysore, the second largest city in Karnataka, where Krishnamcharya's great-grandfather H.H. Sri Srinivasa Brahmatantra Parakala Swami, was the head of the Parakala Math.[16]

Krishnamacharya spent much of his youth traveling through India studying the six darśana or Indian philosophies: vaiśeṣika, nyāya, sāṃkhya, yoga, mīmāṃsā and vedānta.[17] In 1906, at the age of eighteen, Krishnamacharya left Mysore to attend university at Benares, also known as Vārānasī, a city of hundreds of temples and a highly regarded North Indian center of traditional learning.[18] While at university, he studied logic and Sanskrit, working with Brahmashri Shivakumar Shastry, "one of the greatest grammarians of the age".[19] He also learned the Mimamsa from Brahmasri Trilinga Rama Shastri.[2]

In 1914, he once again left for Benares to attend classes at Queens College, where he eventually earned a number of teaching certificates. During the first year he had little or no financial support from his family. In order to eat, he followed the rules that were laid down for religious beggars: he was to approach only seven households each day and offer a prayer "in return for wheat flour to mix with water for cakes".[20] Krishnamacharya eventually left Queens College to study the ṣaḍdarśana (six darshanas) in Vedic philosophy at Patna University, in Bihar, a state in eastern India. He received a scholarship to study Ayurveda under Vaidya Krishnakumar of Bengal.[2]

Krishnamacharya was invited to the coronation of the Rajah of Dikkanghat (a principality within Darbhanga), at which he defeated a scholar called Bihari Lal in a debate, and received rewards and honors from the Rajah.[21] His stay in Benares lasted 11 years.

He studied with the yoga master Sri Babu Bhagavan Das and passed the Samkhya Yoga Examination of Patna.[2] Many of his instructors recognized his outstanding abilities in the study and practice of yoga and supported his progress. Some asked that he teach their children.[22]

Krishnamacharya claimed that he had spent seven and a half years at the foot of the sacred Mount Kailash in Tibet, learning the Yoga Korunta in the Gurkha language of Nepal.

Krishnamacharya told his pupils, including Iyengar, "an imagined history, it turns out, of thousands of asanas".[23] Mark Singleton and Tara Fraser note that he provided contradictory descriptions of the facts of his own life, sometimes denying tales he had told earlier, and sometimes mischievously[24] adding new versions.[24] According to one such tale, recounted by Mohan, during the vacations, which would last about three months, Krishnamacharya made pilgrimages into the Himalayas.[22] Krishnamacharya claimed in his Yoga Makaranda that at the suggestion of Gaṅgānāth Jhā, he sought to further his yoga studies by seeking a master named Yogeshwara Ramamohana Brahmachari, who was rumored to live in the mountains beyond Nepal and had supposedly mastered 7000 asanas.[25] For this venture, Krishnamacharya had to obtain the permission of the Viceroy in Simla, Lord Irwin, who was then suffering from diabetes.[22] At the request of the Viceroy, Krishnamacharya travelled to Simla and taught him yogic practices for six months. The viceroy's health improved and he developed respect and affection for Krishnamacharya.[26] In 1919, the Viceroy made arrangements for Krishnamacharya's travel to Tibet, supplying three aides and taking care of the expenses. After two and a half months of walking, Krishnamacharya arrived at Sri Brahmachari's school, supposedly a cave at the foot of Mount Kailash, where the master lived with his wife and three children.[5] Under Brahmachari's tutelage, Krishnamacharya claimed to have spent seven and a half years[27] studying the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, learning asanas and pranayama, and studying the therapeutic aspects of yoga.[5] He was supposedly made to memorize the whole of the Yoga Korunta in the Gurkha language, though no evidence of that text exists. As tradition holds, at the end of his studies with the guru, Krishnamacharya asked what his payment would be. The master responded that Krishnamacharya was to "take a wife, raise children and be a teacher of Yoga".[28][29]

According to the tale, Krishnamacharya then returned to Varanasi. The Maharajah of Jaipur called him to serve as principal of the Vidyā Śālā in Jaipur; but as he did not like being answerable to many people, Krishnamacharya shortly returned to Varanasi. In accordance with his guru's wish that he live the life of a householder, Krishnamacharya married Namagiriamma in 1925. After his marriage, Krishnamacharya was forced by circumstance to work in a coffee plantation in the Hasan district. It was after a lecture on the Upanishads in Mysore town hall in 1931 that he attracted the attention as a learned scholar that eventually led to his employment at the palace.[29]

Krishnamacharya in a yoga demonstration

In 1926, the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV (1884–1940) was in Varanasi to celebrate his mother's 60th birthday and heard about Krishnamacharya's learning and skill as a yoga therapist.[30] The Maharaja met Krishnamacharya and was so impressed by the young man's demeanor, authority, and scholarship that he engaged Krishnamacharya to teach him and his family.[30] Initially, Krishnamacharya taught yoga at the Mysore Palace.[31] He soon became a trusted advisor of the Maharajah, and was given the recognition of Asthana Vidwan — the intelligentsia of the palace.[32]

During the 1920s, Krishnamacharya held many demonstrations to stimulate popular interest in yoga. These included suspending his pulse, stopping cars with his bare hands, performing difficult asanas, and lifting heavy objects with his teeth.[5] The Palace archive records show that the Maharaja was interested in the promotion of yoga and continually sent Krishnamacharya around the country to give lectures and demonstrations.[33]

In 1931, Krishnamacharya was invited to teach at the Sanskrit College in Mysore. The Maharaja, who felt that yoga had helped cure his many ailments, asked Krishnamacharya to open a yoga school under his patronage[5][34] and was subsequently given the wing of a nearby palace, the Jaganmohan Palace, to start the Yogashala, an independent yoga institution,[31] which opened on 11 August 1933.[30][35]

Gajasana, hand-drawn illustration in Sritattvanidhi, 19th century Mysore Palace manuscript. The scholar Norman Sjoman suggests that Krishnamacharya was influenced by the yoga poses in the manuscript.[36]

In 1934, he wrote the book Yoga Makaranda ("Essence of Yoga"), which was published by Mysore University. In the introduction to Yoga Makaranda, Krishnamacharya lists the Sritattvanidhi, a 19th-century treatise containing a yoga section by Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar III (1794–1868) as one of the sources for his book. In The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace, Norman Sjoman asserts that Krishnamacharya was influenced by the Sritattvanidhi and by the Vyayama Dipika, a Western-based gymnastics manual written by the Mysore Palace gymnasts.[36] Mark Singleton argues that he was influenced by the 20th century yoga pioneers Yogendra and Kuvalayananda, and that all three "seamlessly incorporate[d] elements of physical culture into their systems of 'yoga'."[6]

Krishnamacharya, unlike earlier yoga gurus such as Yogendra, "severely criticized his students" including his young brother-in-law, B. K. S. Iyengar.[37] He was equally bad-tempered at home with his family. In the view of the historian of yoga Elliott Goldberg, Iyengar "would never recover from or anywhere near comprehend the damage inflicted on him by Krishnamacharya's abuse" during his teenage years.[38]

In 1940, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV died. His nephew and successor, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974), less interested in yoga, no longer provided support for publishing texts and sending teams of teachers to surrounding areas.[39] Following political changes in 1946, around the time that India gained independence, a new government came into being and the powers of the maharajas were curtailed. Funding for the yoga school was cut off,[40] and Krishnamacharya struggled to maintain the school. At the age of 60 (1948), Krishnamacharya was forced to travel extensively to find students and provide for his family.[40] The yogashala in Mysore was ordered to be closed by K.C. Reddy, the first Chief Minister of Mysore State, and the school eventually closed in 1950.[5]

After leaving Mysore, Krishnamacharya moved to Bangalore for a couple of years[41] and then was invited in 1952 to relocate to Madras, by a well-known lawyer who sought Krishnamacharya's help in healing from a stroke. By now, Krishnamacharya was in his sixties, and his reputation for being a strict and intimidating teacher had mellowed somewhat.

Krishnamacharya teaching a child

In Madras, Krishnamacharya accepted a job as a lecturer at Vivekananda College. He also began to acquire yoga students from diverse backgrounds and in various physical conditions, which required him to adapt his teaching to each student's abilities. For the remainder of his teaching life, Krishnamacharya continued to refine this individualized approach, which came to be known as Viniyoga.[5][42] Many considered Krishnamacharya a yoga master, but he continued to call himself a student because he felt that he was always "studying, exploring and experimenting" with the practice.[43] Throughout his life, Krishnamacharya refused to take credit for his innovative teachings but instead attributed the knowledge to his guru or to ancient texts.[5]

At the age of 96, Krishnamacharya fractured his hip. Refusing surgery, he treated himself and designed a course of practice that he could do in bed. Krishnamacharya lived and taught in Chennai until he slipped into a coma and died in 1989, at one hundred years of age. His cognitive faculties remained sharp until his death; and he continued to teach and heal whenever the situation arose.

Although his knowledge and teaching has influenced yoga throughout the world, Krishnamacharya never left his native India. Yoga Journal wrote:

You may never have heard of him but Tirumalai Krishnamacharya influenced or perhaps even invented your yoga. Whether you practice the dynamic series of Pattabhi Jois, the refined alignments of B. K. S. Iyengar, the classical postures of Indra Devi, or the customized vinyasa of Viniyoga, your practice stems from one source: a five-foot, two-inch Brahmin born more than one hundred years ago in a small South Indian village.[5]

By developing and refining different approaches, Krishnamacharya made yoga accessible to millions around the world.[5]

• Desikachar, T. K. V.; Cravens, Richard H. (1998). Health, Healing & Beyond : Yoga and the living tradition of Krishnamacharya. Aperture. ISBN 0-89381-941-7.
• Goldberg, Elliott (2016). The Path of Modern Yoga : the history of an embodied spiritual practice. Inner Traditions. ISBN 978-1-62055-567-5. OCLC 926062252.
• Iyengar, B.K.S. (2000). Astadala Yogamala. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers. ISBN 978-8177640465.
• Iyengar, B. K. S. (2006). Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom. Rodale. ISBN 978-1594865244.
• Mohan, A. G. (2010). Krishnamacharya: His Life and Teachings. Boston: Shambhala. ISBN 978-1-59030-800-4.
• Pagés Ruiz, Fernando (2001). "Krishnamacharya's Legacy". Yoga Journal (May/June 2001).
• Singleton, Mark (2010). Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-539534-1.
• Singleton, Mark; Fraser, Tara (2014). Singleton, Mark; Goldberg, Ellen (eds.). Chapter 4. T. Krishnamacharya, Father of Modern Yoga. Gurus of Modern Yoga. Oxford University Press. pp. 83–106. ISBN 978-0-19-993871-1.
• Sjoman, N.E. (1999) [1996]. The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace (2nd ed.). New Delhi, India: Abhinav Publications. ISBN 81-7017-389-2.
• Smith, Frederick M.; White, Joan (2014). Singleton, Mark; Goldberg, Ellen (eds.). Chapter 6. Becoming an Icon: B. K. S. Iyengar as a Yoga Teacher and a Yoga Guru. Gurus of Modern Yoga. Oxford University Press. pp. 122–146. ISBN 978-0-19-993871-1.
• Srivatsan, Mala (1997) Śrī Krishnamacharya the pūrnācārya. Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram. OCLC 39292632.

• Dars, Jean-François (Director); Papillault, Anne (Director) (1989). Hundred Years of Beatitude (Documentary). CNRS.
• Wadiyar, Krishna Raja (Sponsor) (1989) [1938]. T. Krishnamacharya Asanas (Film). Archived from the original on 14 December 2013. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
• Schmidt-Garre, Jan (Director) (2012). Breath of the Gods: A Journey to the Origins of Modern Yoga (Documentary). PARS Media.