Tirumalai Krishnamacharya

Indian yoga teacher, scholar, Ayurvedic healer, and the man widely called 'the father of modern yoga' — the source teacher whose three best-known students (B. K. S. Iyengar, K. Pattabhi Jois, and Indra Devi) carried his synthesis of asana, breath, and Sanskrit scripture to virtually every corner of the postural-yoga world. Born 1888 in Karnataka into a long Sri Vaishnava lineage tracing to the saint Nathamuni, Krishnamacharya was a polymath: he held seven degrees, mastered six Indian darśanas, was fluent in Sanskrit and several Indian languages, was a celebrated Vedic chanter, and a deeply trained Ayurvedic practitioner. From 1933 to 1955 he served as yoga teacher in residence at the Mysore Palace, where he developed the dynamic vinyasa-based asana practice that became the seed of modern yoga. After 1955 he taught privately in Madras (Chennai) until his death in 1989 at age 100, transmitting an increasingly therapeutic, individualized form of yoga to his son T. K. V. Desikachar and other students.