Tirumalai Krishnamacharaya
Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (November 18, 1888 – February 28, 1989) was an Indian yoga teacher, ayurvedic healer and scholar.
Often referred to as "the father of modern yoga,"Krishnamacharya is widely regarded as one of the most influential yoga teachers of the 20th century.
Like earlier pioneers influenced by physical culture such as Yogendra and Kuvalayananda, he contributed to the revival of hatha yoga.
Krishnamacharya held degrees in all the six Vedic darśanas, or Indian philosophies.
While under the patronage of the King of Mysore, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV, Krishnamacharya traveled around India giving lectures and demonstrations to promote yoga,
including such feats as stopping his heartbeat.
He is widely considered as the architect of vinyāsa, in the sense of combining breathing with movement; the style of yoga he created has come to be called Viniyoga or Vinyasa Krama Yoga.
Underlying all of Krishnamacharya's teachings was the principle "Teach what is appropriate for an individual." While he is revered in other parts of the world as a yogi, in India Krishnamacharya is mainly known as a healer who drew from both ayurvedic and yogic traditions to restore health and well-being to those he treated.
He authored four books on yoga—Yoga Makaranda (1934), Yogaasanagalu (c. 1941),Yoga Rahasya, and Yogavalli (Chapter 1 – 1988)—as well as several essays and poetic compositions.
Krishnamacharya's students included many of yoga's most renowned teachers: Indra Devi,
K. Pattabhi Jois , B. K. S. Iyengar , T. K. V. Desikachar, Srivatsa Ramaswami, and A. G. Mohan . Iyengar, his brother-in-law and founder of Iyengar Yoga, credits Krishnamacharya with encouraging him to learn yoga as a boy in 1934.