Tirumalai Krishnamacharya: The Man Who Taught Yoga to the World

Have you ever wondered how yoga is now adopted as a catalyst for maintaining good health and attaining tranquility? Not only in its native place India but worldwide. The practice of yoga has been thought to date back to pre-vedic Indian traditions possibly in the Indus valley Did yoga gain such popularity earlier that it has gained today? The yoga sutras of Patanjali dated from 2nd century BC gained prominence in the west in the 20th century after first being introduced by Swami Vivekananda. The new tradition in this modern world of curing oneself naturally by performing various yoga postures or asanas is now being admired by many people throughout the world. But behind today's success and popularity of yoga lies the determination and hard work of a person who struggled throughout his life to promote and teach yoga. The man who was born in India and decided to never leave his country. The man who is regarded as one of the most influential yoga teachers of the 20th century like earlier pioneers in the scientific foundations of yoga. The man who is known as the father of modern yoga Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. Krishnamacharya was a physician of ayurvedic medicine. He possessed enormous knowledge of nutrition, herbal medicine, the use of oils and other remedies. Krishnamacharya believed yoga to be India's greatest gift to the world. His yoga instructions reflected his convictions that yoga could be both a spiritual practice and a mode of physical healing. He is widely considered as the architect of vinyasa in the sense of combining breathing with movements. His style of yoga is known as vinyasa karma yoga. Ayyangar, his brother-in-law and founder of Ayyangar yoga, credited Krishnamacharya for encouraging him to learn yoga as a boy in 1934. While Krishnamacharya is known and remembered as a yogi throughout the world, in India, he is mainly known as the healer who drew ayurvedic and yogic traditions to restore health and well-being of those he treated. He also has authored four books on yoga. Krishnamacharya claimed that he had spent seven and a half years at the foot of the sacred Mount Kailash in Tibet, learning the yoga Kurunta in the Gurkha language of Nepal. According to one tale recounted by Mohan, during the vacations which would last about three months, Krishnamacharya claimed in his Yoga Makrandha that at the suggestion of Ganga Nacha, he sought to further do his yoga studies by seeking a master named Yogeshwara Ramamohana Brahmachari, who was rumoured to live in the mountains beyond Nepal and has supposedly mastered 7,000 asanas. For this venture, Krishnamacharya had to obtain the permission of the Viceroy in Shimla, Lord Irwin, who was then suffering from diabetes. At the request of the Viceroy, Krishnamacharya travelled to Shimla to teach him yogic practices for about six months. The Viceroy's health improved and he developed respect and affection towards Krishnamacharya. In 1919, the Viceroy made arrangements for Krishnamacharya's travel to Tibet, supplying three aids and taking care of the expenses. Then he arrived at the foot of Mount Kailash where the master lived with his wife and three children. Under Brahmacharya's tutelage, he claimed to have spent seven and a half years studying the yoga sutras of Patanjali, learning asana and pranayama, and studying the therapeutic aspects of yoga. He was supposedly made to memorise the whole of Yogacarita in Gurkha language, though no evidence of the tale exists. Krishnamacharya was born in a Brahmin family on November 18, 1888, in Muchikundapura, situated in Chitradurga district of present-day Karnataka in South India. His father was Shri Tirumalai Shrinivas Tattacharya, a well-known teacher of Vedas, and his mother was Shrimati Rangniyakiyamma. He was the eldest among their six children. He then began learning to speak and write Sanskrit from texts such as Amarkosha and to chant the Vedas under the strict tutelage of his father. When Krishnamacharya was ten, his father died, and the family had to move to Mysore, the second-largest city in Karnataka, where his great-grandfather Shri Shrinivasana Brahmatantra Parakala Swami was the head of Parakala Math. Krishnamacharya spent much of his youth travelling through India studying the six darsanas or Indian philosophies – Vaisesika, Nyaya, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimasa and Vedanta. In 1906, at the age of 18, Krishnamacharya left Mysore to attend university at Benaras, also known as Varanasi, a city of hundreds of temples and highly regarded North Indian centre of traditional learning. While being at the university, he studied logic and Sanskrit, working with Brahmashri Shivkumar Shastri, one of the greatest grammarians of the age. He also learned Mimasa from Brahmashri Trilinga. In 1914, he left Benaras to attend classes at the Queen's College, where he eventually earned a number of teaching certificates. During the first year, he had a little financial support from his family. In order to eat food, he followed the rules that were laid down for beggars. He was to approach only seven households each day and offer a prayer. Krishnamacharya eventually left Queen's College to study the sadarsana in Vedic philosophy at Patna University in Bihar. He received a scholarship to study Ayurveda under Vaidya Krishnakumar of Bengal. He studied with the yoga master Shri Babubhagwan Das and passed the Samkhya Yoga examination of Patna. Many of his instructors recognized his outstanding abilities in the study and practice of yoga and supported his progress. It's been a fact that every failure brings in with the seeds of an equivalent success, but only a few keep fighting on from their weaknesses. Only a few rise again to walk on the path of success. They don't give up on their challenges thrown up by life, but they know challenges and certainly know success. Practical dreamers never quit. Later after his education, the Maharaja of Jaipur called him to serve as the principal of Vidyasala in Jaipur. But as he didn't like to be answerable to many people, Krishnamacharya shortly returned to Varanasi. In accordance with his Guru's wish that he would live a life of a householder, Krishnamacharya married Namagiriyamma in 1925. After his marriage, he was forced by circumstances to work in a coffee plantation in Hassan district. But for a person with a pure heart, a person who is filled with dharma, a person who never takes decisions leaving the path of teachings given by his Gurus, a person who is always all might, for that person a repugnant time can never last forever but for a moment. In 1926, the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV was in Varanasi to celebrate his mother's 68th birthday and heard about Krishnamacharya's learnings and skills as a yoga therapist. 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. He soon became a trusted advisor of the Maharaja and was given the recognition of Ashtan Vidvan, the intelligence of the palace. Maharaja was interested in promotion of yoga and continually sent Krishnamacharya around the country to give lectures. But unfortunately, in the later 1940s, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV died. His nephew and successor, Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar no longer supported for publishing texts and sent teams of teachers to surrounding areas. Later, when India gained independence, a new government came into existence and the power of the Maharajas was cut off. Krishnamacharya struggled to maintain the school and a yoga shala in Mysore was ordered to be closed by K.C. Reddy, the first CM of Mysore state. The school was eventually closed in 1950. Once again, life threw a challenge at him to lose everything that he had built up, to pass his teachings to people, to teach people the importance of truth, dharma, purity and yoga. But he didn't give up on his life. Instead, later in Madras, he accepted a job as a lecturer at Vivekananda College. Many considered him a yoga master but he continued to call himself a student because he felt that he was always studying, exploring and experimenting. He never took credit for his innovative teachings and attributed this knowledge to his gurus or to ancient texts. But whoever has born in this land will have to die one day. No one is immortal no matter how great, pure and knowledgeable he is. At the age of 96, he fractured his hip. He refused surgery and treated himself designing the practices he could do in bed. He lived and continued to teach in Chennai until he slipped into coma. Then he died in 1989. Krishnamacharya died but his teachings did not. This story of a person who followed the rules of the Vedas even for begging and filling up his belly has a lot to teach us. The story of a person who is admired by millions of people nevertheless still is unknown. And the story that has never been told ends here.