Seeds of Future Past Krishnamacharya’s Savvy Yoga Rahasya
By Eric Shaw
T. Krishnamacharya 1888-1989
Nathamuni c. 824 - 924
Many students of the th e yoga tradition know that Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888 - 1989) is credited with being the father f ather of modern yoga, but most remain foggy about the details of his life and even foggier about the books he wrote. It is understandable why his writings are not n ot widely known. Many of his treatises t reatises haven’t seen publication in the West, and some have not been re-rendered in English. The compositions themselves are opaque: Krishnamacharya (I’ll sometimes call him “K”) was a hybrid of the old yogi and new and often composed his treatises in the ancient style; his language is suggestive rather than explicit, elliptical rather than direct.
Reading him takes time to understand. Over the Christmas holidays a few years’ back , I had that time. Years earlier, I’d ordered the Yoga Rahasya (“The Secret of Yoga”) from the publishing house of K’s son, son, T. K. V. Desikachar. I wanted to know all of Krishnamacharya’s wri written works deeply, for his personal authority carries more weight with modern yogis than any other “traditional” writer, except the except the trinity of Vyasa (“The Compiler”) credited with the circa 325 circa 325 Bhagavad Gita (BG), our well-known Patanjali, author of c. 375 The Yoga Sutras (YS) and Svatmarama, author of the c. 1450 Hatha Yoga Pradipika (HYP). The Yoga Rahasya (YR) is one of eight books b y K 1. One is an untranslated autobiography in Tamil, one is a commentary on the Yoga Sutras,2 two are books of spiritual poetry of about 30 slokas 1 each, and four are compositions on yoga practice. The Yoga Rahasya belongs to the latter group. K claims to have “channeled” the Yoga Rahasya at the age of sixteen when he met an incarnation of the 1100-year-old saint, Nathamun i, but comments by his students, his son, 1
In their most formal rendition, slokas are couplets of sixteen syllables. 2
Desikachar, and analyses by scholars reveal that this is a modern work. 3 K seems seems to offer offer a halfconfession of this in his prelude, where he says, says, “I construct the essence of Yoga Rahasya to please the learned . . . I present here whatever I can recollect ” (my italics). We have records of him teaching from the Rahasya as early as 1954, 4 but he probably composed it after experiencing childrearing and e xperimentation with postures for five or more years while supported by the king of Mysore. 1937 is a probable composition date. Publication happened in 1998 — nine nine years after his death. As I said, K ’s ’s writing is a is a haphazard echo of pre-modern yoga Classics. Leaving aside some quotes, the commentary, and the opening invocation, the Yoga Rahasya consists of 277 slokas. These are boxed in 4 chapters, reminiscent of the Yoga Sutras and the Pradipika. Reminiscent of the Gita, chapters often change their subject abruptly and circle back to repeat what’s been talked of before before — nearly nearly word for word. Some believe this technique is an aid to memorization. It remains a useful technique for teaching. Three aspects of this quasi-classic text make it novel for its era and provocative for us today.
1) It names a great number of poses. poses. Many of which are strenuously athletic, much like today’s books on yoga. The era of the Rahaysa was pivotal in Hatha Yoga’s history, Yoga’s history, and a vastly creative period for K. Krishnamacharya belonged to a cadre of Indian physical culturists formulating a pareddown Hatha Yoga focusing on the therapeutic and athletic benefits of asana in the 1920s and 30s. The aforementioned Hatha Yoga Pradipika — the the go-to Hatha text from pre-modern India — has — at at most — — 24 24 poses (depending how you count). The Gheranda Samhita, a sister text from th the 17 century, has — at at most — — 39 39 (also, depending on how you count!). Looking to contemporary books, Iyengar’s seminal 1966, Light on Yoga has 200-plus poses, Dharma Mittra’s simple 2002 picture book, Asanas has 608 poses. Our greatest pose compendium to date, Gharote’s 2007 Encyclopedia of Traditional Asanas, has more than 900. K’s Rahasya has 69. From a historical historical perspective, this number isn’t unheard isn’t unheard of , but it’s it’s enough to make our our eyes open a bit wide. Not only did the Pradipika and Gheranda have a restricted number nu mber of poses, but they devoted much of their discussion to non-asana aspects of Hatha practice. K knew he was going out on a limb by making a great number of (often complex) postures central to his method so — good good scholar that he was — he he sought historical “cover ” for his approach. 3
In two blunt passages, he tells us Shiva supports su pports him and his nay-sayers are ignorant: 1:48: Eminent yogis have only shown a few asana-s as examples. In the Dhyana Bindu asana -s as there are living species.” Upanisad, Lord Siva tells Parvati “There are as many asana1:49: Therefore, who who has the authority authority to count count the number number of asana-s? If someone says says 5 that this is the number of asana-s, it is a reflection of his lack of knowledge. knowledge.
After this, the pose descriptions begin (with many suggested variations!). Why the dodgy debate technique? What made Krishnamacharya Krishnamacharya think he stood on slippery ground? In leaning on posture p osture so heavily, K had few precedents prec edents to follow. We see this when we review books that had 69 or more poses before the YR. Some contemporary people think Hatha Yoga before our day leaned primarily on poses for its method, but it didn’t. didn’ t. Initiation, pranayama, internal cleansings and practices of unusual physical control received more emphasis much of the time. Of the texts existing in K’s day that foregrounded asana through sheer pose number, some were published books with greater or lesser circulation and some existed only in manuscript form. We’ll We’ll walk through these from most poses to le ast. The c. 1840 Sri Tattvanidhi, pictured 121 poses and was both owned and produced by the Mysore potentate K worked for.6 Around 1650, the Yogachintamani with 110 poses was composed, and the Marathi Eighty-Four Asanas of 1899 actually had 97 asanas. Many traditional texts adhering to an 84 84-pose -pose list exist, but they are — like like Eighty-Four Asanas — mostly mostly crowded near the modern period. The main exception is the Khecarividya of Adinatha composed near 1400. Srinivasa Batta’s Hatha Ratnavali (circa 1650) looked at 84 poses, and both the 1737 Jogapradipika and c. 1850 Hastamudra Caurashi Asana of Nepal did, too. The Eighty-Four Asanas was bookprinted, but probably had a narrow circulation. K probably didn’t see it. 7 The Tattvanidhi, Jogapradipika and Hastamudra were manuscripts. Their number and distribution were even more highly restrictive, and we can tentatively guess that even a polymath like K was ignorant of all but the Tattvanidhi. From the list I have given, only the Tattvanidhi is found in the bibliography of his 1934 1 934 8 Yoga Makaranda. The books of his contemporaries which he is likely to have known about are also absent,9 but he probably left them unmentioned because they seemed unworthy of scholarly regard (see below).
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We’ll look a bit more closely at this bibliography because it has been a topic of debate by some researchers and because it offers some insights into the history behind K’s knowledge of pose breadth and his presentation of vinyasa yoga. The Makaranda’s booklist was probably produced shortly before the Rahaysa was composed 10 and many of its titles aren’t known to known to modern scholarship. Norman Sjoman said in 1996 that the Makaranda’s Makaranda’s bibliography was a “padded [one] with works . . . that have nothing to do with the tradition he is teaching in,” in,”11 but in a recent interview, the Sanskritist, Christopher Tompkins, reported , “I have uncovered evidence that these six Tantras [referenced in K’s Makaranda bibliography] contained the specialized and now largely lost ‘Vinyasa‘Vinyasa -Krama’ that Krishnamacharya attempted to revive.” 12 Including an insight into vinyasa’s vinyasa’s history, history, we might guess that a new record of pose-breadth is revealed in these books, too, but — — unexpectedly unexpectedly — Tompkins Tompkins says we find only onl y 6 different poses in these early 13 sequences. It is possible that other texts from the Makaranda’s or that K knew Makaranda’s tally are pose-heavy — or of pose-rich pose-rich texts he didn’t bother to mention me ntion (ones also unknown to today’s mainstream scholarship) — that that helped him put together 69 for the Rahasya. In the Makaranda, he claims to have learned 700 asanas from his guru.14 He also may have invented a pose here and there. Whatever their origin, the complex inversions, arm ba lances, and standing poses in the Rahasya make up an altogether more athletic compendium than any preceding classic yoga text we know of — besides the Sri Tattvanidhi.15 Outside the classics, some popular-consumption, pose-rich texts produced by K ’s colleagues also offered richly athletic posture-cycles; but the se poses are less athletic on the whole than those of the YR. The Rahasya likely post-dates these books16 so K could have sought “cover” from them for his pose-focus like he did from Shiva, but the “Secret of Yoga” traveled Yoga” traveled under the guise of being ancient, and if K acknowledged the works of his contemporaries, he would have confessed the YR ’s true timeframe.
K understood understood a guru’s gamesmanship well; hence, he revealed the secret of the Rahasya’ s birthdate only obliquely — with with caveats of “essences “essences,” and “memories.” Like many of his colleagues, K justified his guruship by proving himself a malla (an athlete) in public exhibitions17 but his pile of university degrees distinguished him as a jnana (a scholar, or one seeking the Absolute through knowing), too. The Rahasya speaks to both demographics. dem ographics.
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predilections, he probably undertook the chore of composing Consistent with K’s lifelong predilections, a modern work supported by ancient authorities to serve the need in his day for an athletic, therapeutic and and health-maintenance-oriented yoga, as readily as to make a novel declaration within yoga’s centuries-old centuries-old tradition of scholastic debate.
2) The Rahaysa is probably the first book to discuss yoga for women. It specifically specifically addresses women’s needs and gives us a yoga for pregnancy. The Rahasya is not as glamorous a Shiva Rea’s 2000 Prenatal Yoga DVD or even Geeta Iyengar’s 2010 Iyengar’s 2010 tome, Iyengar Yoga for Motherhood, but K supplies unique and an d trustworthy advice in this vein, and his focus on women is meaningful historically. His attention to infancy and women also helps us guess when the text was composed. Before he took B. K. S. Iyengar under his wing in 1934, K had taught two of the future master’s older master’s older sisters: Jaya18 and Ammagiriama — whom whom K had married in 1925.19 K also taught taught 20 yoga to his first two children, daughters, Pundarikavalli (b. 1931) and Alamelu (b. 1933). His son, T. K. V. Desikachar, quoted K as saying, "I think that if we do not encourage women, the great Indian traditions will die because the men are not following the Vedic rules and regulations. They are all becoming business business people.” 21 Similarly, Rahasya, 1:14, says, “Women, when compared to men, have a special right to practice yoga. This is because it is women who are responsible for the continuity of the lineage [sic].” To support this conviction, he devotes 58 of the book’s 277 teaching teaching slokas (21%) to reflections on women, infants and pregnancy. K’s emphases in the Rahasya, his public statements, and his teaching a ctivities situate him prominently within the company of Swami Vivekananda, Swami Abhedananda, Pierre Bernard, Sri Yogendra, Mollie Bagot Stack, Sita Devi Yogendra and Cajzoran Ali as the modern era’s most prominent early advocates of yoga for women. K’s prodigality K’s prodigality gave him personal acquaintance with women’ women’s pregnancy. He fathered six kids! He started raising them as he labor ed ed in yoga’s avant garde athletic movement of the 1930s; hence, he would naturally have reflections —in —in K’s case, deep reflections—on yoga’s best practices for mothering, birthing, and the gestation process. Despite his admirable focus, if we look specifically at the YR’s material on infants, much of it is pessimistic and absurd. K uses the c. 4th century Vishnu Purana (VP) as a part-source, and probably takes cues from statements with a similar coloring from the c. 8th century BCE Garbha Upanishad. 6
The stylistic particulars stylistic particulars of K’s dark K’s dark view of infant in fant life will be familiar to readers of the 2 mukhya upanishads and other old texts where the body is described a s a site for worms, feces, pain, and other unpleasantries. Citing the Vishnu Purana, K writes, “Unable to extend or contract its limbs, [the fetus] lies tormented in a mire of excreta and a nd urine.”22 Other quotes from the the VP attribute the infant with unbelievable philosophical reflections, e.g. “Covered by the darkness of ignorance it questions . . . By what am I bound? What is and what is not the cause? What is my action and what is not my action? What must I speak and what must I not speak?”23 His material on women and/or pregnancy pregnanc y is more practical and easier to digest. Seventeen slokas discuss pregnancy. He recommends helpful poses and gives particular attention to pranayama for pregnancy.24 Before the Rahaysa, discussions of women’s needs are almost universally absent from yoga books. The Rahasya’s nearest timely nearest timely relation is distinguished as both the first modern yoga text authored by a woman, and the first text devoted to to yoga for females: Sita Devi Yogendra’s Yoga Physical Education for Women of 1934. It likely pre-dated the Rahasya by three years. Though we have ample stories of female gurus and yoginis, it goes without sa ying that yoga mostly belonged to the society of male sannyasins and householders before the 20th century. Both health a nd spiritual advice in yoga texts had been either explicitly or implicitly addressed to men.
3) The Rahasya provides a window on the historical moment of yoga’s yoga ’s shift from a spiritual technology to a health technology Though asanas had been used in the health science of Ayurveda before the 20th century, beginning in the 1920s Krishnamacharya and others25 redirected a spiritually-focused Hatha Yoga toward the near-exclusive goals of fitness and health. To understand K ’s particular ’s particular approach to this , we’ll we’ll compare the topos of modern yoga given there with that of two high-profile contemporaries. Yogacharya Sundaram was part of an emerging movement to blend yoga with body building. He was known to K, and had a gym and great following in nea rby Bangalore during the years K was active in Mysore.
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Mukhya—the texts of Vedanta, c. 800 BCE to 200 CE, consisting of 10 – 17 books (depending on who counts) in which we get our first descriptions of yoga.
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Few could match K in eloquence and textual knowledge, and Sundaram was not even in the running. With fun punctuation, odd capitalizations, strange spellings, far-out phrases and erratic syntax, he creates a mythic scene to introduce his yoga-for-fitness in The Secret of Happiness or, Yogic Physical Culture [sic] from 1928: It is a curious name, this Yoga-Asana, wonderful as its sylvan inventors, the sages of India. . . this Yoga-asana . . . perfects the human body . . . and prepares it for . . becoming the God-man, the Jivan-Muktha. Whatever the object of the sages the perfection of the human body as a means to . . . Godrealisation . . . could they not utilise it as a system of physical culture? [all sic].26
With better writing, Swami Kuvalayananda’s 1931 Popular Yoga Asanas also juxtaposes old and new for a modern yoga typology. It does so by offering a classification of yoga prac tice. Yoga for health (aimed at “ physiological results”) results”) he labels “Cultural” and “Cultural” and pre-modern yoga, (aimed at accommodating “the spiritual force called Kundalini”) Kundalini”) he labels as “Meditative:” Asanas are divided into . . . Cultural and Meditative Meditative . . . In trying to obtain physiological results by the practice of the cultural poses, both spiritual culturalists as well as physical culturalists culturalists wish to maintain the nervous and the endocrine systems . . . A student of spiritual culture [however] . . . undertakes the practices of the cultural poses with a larger object in view. He wants the nervous nervous system to be . . . trained . . . [to] bear the interaction interaction of the spiritual force 27 called Kundalini . . .
Krishnamacharya introduces a new yoga-for-the-body yoga-for-the-body a different way. Sundaram speaks as an athlete and Kuvalayananda — who who did laboratory work on yoga — speaks speaks as a scientist. 28
Krishnamacharya speaks as an athlete, a devotee and a scholar. Like Kuvalayananda, he creates a classification system. He provides styles of practice attuned to the practitioner’s the practitioner’s age. In the quote below, below, K’s Brahmachari refers to the state of youth, his Grhastha refers to adulthood, and Sanyasi, refers to old age:3 Yoga . . . can be divided into three types of practice.
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In this K is following the classic Ashramas, which give us four stages of life, Brahamacharya, Grhastha, Vanaprastha (forest monk) and Parivajaka (wandering monk). monk). These last two are subsumed under his rubric of “Sanyasi.” Depending on which authority we follow, each stage is said to extend 20 – 25 years.
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Understanding that Srsti Krama [Releasing Practice] is for the Brahmachari [student], Sthiti Krama [Strength or Health Practice] for the Grhastha [householder] and Samhara Krama [Withdrawing Practice] for the Sanyasi [renunciant], [renunciant], yoga must be accordingly practiced .29
Elsewhere, he gives us two outcomes outcome s for these practice types, but only one is “approved by the scriptures:” scriptures:” The fruits of yoga . . . can be material (bhukti) or freedom from suffering ( mukti). Those who are devotees of the Lord, praise Hari [the sustainer god, Vishnu] for the purpose of mukti. Others seek material benefit, which is not approved by the Sastra-s [scriptures].30
In other words, no matter what kind of yoga you are doing in whatever whate ver stage of life, if you adore the Highest while practicing, you will gain the fruit of mukti (liberation), but if you forget the Lord in practice, your fruits will be only material (like Kuvalayananda’s “Cultural” yoga); you’ll you’ll miss the big boat. K wants you to keep Hari in mind, so that whether you are a youth doing yoga for athletics, or an adult doing yoga for health-maintenance, you’ you’ll still acquire the fruits of the old o ld folks yoga-ing for liberation K unifies the categories of modern practice p ractice by subsuming them under the category c ategory of bhakti yoga (first firmly articulated in the Bhagavad Gita.) Consistent with his promotion of the householder path throughout his career, K explains that you can adjust yoga to whatever stage of life you find yourself in and still get the fruit of more ultimate practices. The Rahasya speaks as the Gita does in several ways. 1) It delimits the many yogas it describes b y saying bhakti yoga is best, 2) It guarantees liberation through this method, and 3) It is particularly attuned to the life of the householde r. Hence, the shift to a b ody-focused yoga that K both articulates articu lates and justifies in the Rahasya is only a partial shift away from pre-modern forms. Unlike Sundaram and Kuvalayananda, Krishnamacharya’s yoga of health did not cut any part of the practice off from more existential goals.
Conclusions Throughout K’s “Secret of Yoga” he foreshadows today’s practice while practice while remaining faithful to yoga’s traditional yoga’s traditional aim of liberation. There The re is a breadth, freshness and faithfulness to the received tradition in K’s writing. These make the Rahaysa a compelling patchwork of old and new, and a special window window into Krishnamacharya’s thoughts in thoughts in the period he wrote. The Rahasya is “secret” (rahasya) like a seed; the progeny progen y of a great yogi, it contains yoga’s soon-to-be-prominent soon-to-be-prominent concerns in embryonic form. It contributes to our modern
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emphasis on athleticism, posture, and yoga yoga for women. Speaking the language of the past, it addresses the pressing concerns of our living practice .
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Appendix The Bibliography of the Yoga Makaranda 1. Rajayoga Ratnakaram 2. Hathayoga Pradipika 3. Yoga Saravalli 4. Yoga Balaprathipikai 5. Ravana Nadi (Nadi Pariksa of Ravana) 6. Bhairava Kalpam 7. Sri Tattvanidhi 8. Yoga Ratnakarandam 9. Mano Narayaneeyam 10. Rudrayameelam (Rudrayamalam) 11. Brahmayameelam 12. Atharvana Rahasyam vii 13. Patanjala Yogadarshanam 14. Kapilasutram 15. Yogayajnavalkyam 16. Gheranda Samhita 17. Narada Pancharatra Samhita 18. Satvata Samhita 19. Siva Samhita 20. Dhyana Bindu Upanishad 21. Chandilya Upanishad 22. Yoga Shika Upanishad 23. Yoga Kundalya Upanishad 24. Ahir Buddhniya Samhita 25. Nada Bindu Upanishad 26. Amrita Bindu Upanishad 27. Garbha Upanishad
The poses of the Yoga Rahaysa (all Rahasya citations by pada and sloka) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Astavakrasana, 1.50-51 Bherundasana, 2.18 Bhekasana, 2.19 Baddha Konasana, 1.73, 2.13, 3.23 Baddha Padmasana, 2.13 Bakasana, 2.19 Bhadrasana, 1.73 Bharadvajasana, 2.16, 3.10 Bhujangasana, 2.14 11
10. Brahmasana, 1.73 11. Cakorasana, 2.14 12. Catuspadapitham, 2.14 13. Dandasana 1.53-54, 1.74, 2.13, 3.10 14. Dhanurasana, 2.17 15. Dvipdapitham, 3.19 16. Ganda Bherundasana, 2.18 17. Garbhapindasana, 2.15 18. Garudasana, 2.16 19. Gomukhasana, 2.16 20. Kapotasana, 2.21 21. Konasana, 2.20 22. Halasana, 2.17 23. Jathara Parivrtti, 1.52, 2.17 24. Kaundinyasana, 1.50-51 25. Krauncasana, 1.50-51, 1.74, 2.14 26. Kukkutasana, 2.15 27. Kurmasana, 2.15 28. Mahamudra, 2.13, 3.23 29. Makrasana, 2.19 30. Maricyasana, 1.50-51, 2.17 31. Matsyasana, 2.17, 2.19 32. Matsyendrasana, 2.19 33. Mayurasana, 2.15 34. Mulabhandasana, 1.73 35. Natarajasana, 35. Natarajasana, 1.50-51, 2.18 36. Parvatasana, 2.22 37. Pascimatanasana, 2.13 38. Padmasana, 1.73, 2.15, 3.10, 3.20 39. Pincha Mayurasana, 2.15 40. Purvatansana, 2.14 41. Salabhasana, 2.14, 2.18 Sarvangasana, 3.11, 1.53-54 42. Setubhandasana, 1.50-51 43. Siddhasana, 1.73, 2.24 44. Simhasana, 2.16 45. Sirsasana, 3.11, 1.53-54, 2.13 46. Sirsa Dandasana, 2.18 47. Svastikasana, 1.73, 2.24 48. Supta padangusthasana, 1.50-51 49. Supta Prasarita Padangusthasana, 1.50-51 50. Tadakamudra, 2.13 51. Tadasana, 3.23 52. Trikoasana, 1.50-51 53. Trivikramasana, 2.16 54. Unmukha pitham, 3.18 12
55. Urdhvakukkutasana, 1.50-51, 2.17 56. Ustrasana, 2.21 57. Uttana Kurmasana, 2.16 58. Uttana Mayurasana, 1.50-51 59. Uttanapadasana, 1.50-51 60. Uttanasana, 3.23 61. Uttanashiki (Uttana Mayurasana), 2.23 62. Vajrasana, 1.73, 2.14, 3.10 63. Vasisthasana, 1.50-51, 2.17 64. Vatayanasana, 2.16 65. Viparita Dandasana, 1.53-54 66. Virabhadrasana, 1.50-51 67. Virasana, 1.74, 3.10 68. Vrscikasana, 2.14, 2.19 69. Yoga Nrsimhasana, 2.15
The pranyamas of the Yoga Rahaysa 1. Andoli, 1.100 2. Bhramari, 1.100 3. Bhastrika, 1.100-101, 3.14 4. Kapalabhati, 1.100-101, 3.14 5. Lahari, 1.100 6. Nadi Shodana, 1.100, 1.103, 2.61, 3.16 3 .16 7. Sama Vrtti, 1.94 8. Sitkari, 1.100 9. Surya Bhedana, 1.100, 2.61, 3.16 10. Sithali, 1.100, 2.61, 3.16 11. Ujjayi, 1.33, 1.100, 2.61
The bhandas of the Yoga Rahaysa Jalamdhara, 1.60, 1.71-78, 1.80-1.83 1.101, 2.50, 2.52, 3.15 Mulabhanda, 1.60, 1.62, 2.50-51, 3.14 Uddiyana, 1.60, 1.64-70, 2.50, 2.52, 3.14
The vayus of the Yoga Rahaysa Apana Vayu, 3.15
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The poses of the 1931Popular 1931 Popular Yoga Asanas by Swami Kuvalayananda compared 1. Ardha-Matsyendrasana, p. 80 2. Bhujangasana, p. 72 3. Dhanurasana, p. 78 4. Halsana, p. 69 5. Matsyasana, p. 83 6. Mayurasana, p. 95 7. Padmasana, p. 48 8. Paschimatana, p. 82, 91 9. Salabhasana, p. 76 10. Samasana, p. 54 11. Sarvangasana, p. 65 12. Savasana, p. 97 13. Siddhasana, p. 50 14. Simhasana, p. 84 15. Sirshasana, p. 56 16. Supta-Vajrasana, p. 89 17. Svastikasana, p. 52 18. Vajrasana, p. 87 19. Vakrasana, p. 83 20. Viparita Karani, p. 105 21. Yogi Mudra, p. 101
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ENDNOTES 1
Though thirty-nine works are attributed to K by some sources (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ http://en.wi kipedia.org/wiki/Tirumalai_Krishn Tirumalai_Krishnamacharya amacharya and http://krishnamacharya.net/works http://krishnamacharya.net/works,, accessed on 6 Sept. 2016) many many of these appear to be pamphlets pamphlets and the like. Of his books, three of the eight, the Yogavalli (chapter 1, nd), the Rahasya (1998--posthumous), (1998--posthumous), and the Yoga Makaranda (1934) have become hardcopy books in English. English. His pose-focused pose-focused Yogasanagalu (1940), has seen partial English translation online (http://grimm http://grimmly2007.blogspot.c ly2007.blogspot.com/p/yo om/p/yogasanagalu-transla gasanagalu-translation-project.html tion-project.html ), a bootleg book of of asana lecture lecture notes by K titled, Salutations to the Eternal One circulates circulates among yoga students in the know, and there is an autobiography in Tamil. Krishnamacharya Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram has also translated and published two chapbooks of K’s spiritual poetry titled Yoganjalisaram (1995) and Dhyanamalika (1998). 2 Apparently, chapter 1 of the Yogavalli.was published in Sanskrit in 1988, see Mohan, A. G., 2010, Krishnamacharya: His Life and Work , Boston: Shambhala, p. p. 134-6. 3 Posture Practice, New York: See Singleton, Mark, 2010, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture York: Oxford University University Press, p. 185, and Srivatsa Ramaswami , 2000, Yoga for the Three Stages of Life , Rochester Rochester Vermont: Inner Traditions, p. 18, and Mohan, p. 46, 120. For Desikachar’s comments on the book, see White, David Gordon, 2014, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A Biography, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 232. 4 Ramaswami, p. 6, 18. 5 Krishnamacharya, Krishnamacharya, Tirumalai, 2003 (1998), Nathamuni’s Yoga Rahasya, T. K. V. Desikachar , trans., Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India: India: K Yoga Mandiram, Mandiram, p. 5. 6 King Wadiyar IV. See Sjoman, Norman, 1999 (1996), The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace, New Delhi: Abhinav, passim. 7 Printworld, p. 36, 39, 39, Buhnemann, Gudrun , Eighty-Four Asanas in Yoga: A Survey of Traditions, New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 65. 8 Krishnamacharya, Krishnamacharya, Tirumalai, 2011 (1934), Yoga Makaranda, T. K. V. Desikachar and E. R. Ramaswamy Iyengar , trans., Kausthub Desikachar , ed., Chennai: Chennai: Media Garuda, p. p. 42. Please see the appendix appendix for the titles of the Makaranda’s bibliography. 9 We know he knew of these men, partly because he tells the story of a failed plan to gather them all in a mid1930s conference to stanadardize India’s India’s yoga practices. See Mohan, p. 80. 10 It is worth noting that we can trace K. Pattabhi Jois’ Ashtanga Yoga to the po se sequences found in the Makaranda. 11 Sjoman, p. 66. 12 http://www.sutrajournal.com http://www.sutr ajournal.com/christopher-tompkin /christopher-tompkins-on-the-origins-ofs-on-the-origins-of-vinyasa vinyasa accessed 9 June, 2016. 13 Personal correspondence with the author. 14 Krishnamacharya, 2011 (1934), p. 32. 15 Sjoman says these were influenced by European athletics, passim. 16 K’s colleague, Yogacharya Sundaram published his Yogic Physical Culture in 1928. Sri Yogendra published asana books in 1928 and ’31; Swami Kuvalayananda published manuals in 1931, ’33, ’35 and ’36; and K. V. Iyer published asana texts in 1930, ’36, ’37 & ’40. 17 Singleton, 2010, p. 193 18 81; and Iyengar, B. K. S., Kadetsky, Elizabeth , 2004, First There is a Mountain , Boston: Little, Brown and Co., p. 81; Astadala Yogamala, vol. 1, 2007 (2000), New Delhi: Allied Publishers, Limited, p. 54; and Desikachar, Kausthub , 2005, The Yoga of the Yogi, Chennai, Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, p. 99. 19 Iyengar, B. K. S., Astadala Yogamala, vol. 6, 2010, New Delhi: Allied Publishers, Limited, p. 108, and Desikachar, K., Ibid. He also taught yoga to his sons, of course. Sri T.K. Srinivasan, (b. 1936) was well-versed in Yoga, and became an authority on the Indian philosophies of Nyaya and Mimamsa. His other sons are Sri T.K.V. Desikachar (b. 1938) and Sri T.K. Sribhashyam (b. 1940). 1940). He had a third daughter, Shubha, after 1940. 20 As can be seen in the well-known, 1938 Film of K and Iyengar. This clip shows K his daughters doing asana asana on his own and with his assists: http://www.you http://www.youtube.com/wa tube.com/watch?v=b1eX tch?v=b1eXiTiTm5HY&feature=share&list=PLF60F76F5E8449C60 , 12/14/2012. 12/14/2012. See also Desikachar, K., Ibid. 21 Sri Tirumalai. Krishnamacarya quoted from memory by his son, T. K. V. Desikachar, in Desai, Gita, Director, 2004, Yoga Unveiled: The Evolution and Essence of a Spiritual Tradition, (DVD), yogaunveiled.com. yogaunveiled.com.
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For this reason, his storied resistance to teaching the Latvian, Indra Devi beginning in 1938, could not be because she was a woman—as is often claimed. Her European birth put him off, as well as his caste rule as a male Brahmin to refrain from instructing women outside his circle of family. His politics also mitigated against it. He believed that yoga should remain in the hands of Indians. (See his quotes on this topic, Krishnamacharya, 2011 (1934), p. 83.) That said, we know he did relent and teach Devi—on the orders of his king and benefactor, Wadiyar IV— and he came to have love her dearly. 22 Krishnamacharya, 2003, p. 32. 23 Ibid., p. 35. 24 This pranayama talk reflects a wider emphasis. Seventy-six slokas (27%) of the text in toto concern themselves with breath practice, its locks ( bandhas), holds (kumbhakas), cadences, and aims. 25 Mainly Sri Yogendra, Swami Kuvalayananda Kuvalayananda and their guru, Sri Madhava Dasa Ji. See, Goldberg, Elliot, 2016, The Path of Modern Yoga, Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, passim. 26 Sundaram, Yogacharya, 2000 (1928), The Secret of Happiness or, Yogic Physical Culture , Coimbitore, Tamil Nadu, India: The Yoga Publishing House, p. 3. 27
Kuvalayananda, Swami, 1964 (1931), Popular Yoga: Asanas, Bombay (Mumbai): Popular Prakashan, p. 33-34. See Joseph Alter’s fine exploration of Kuvalayananda in Yoga in Modern India, 2004, Princeton: Princeto n: Princeton University Press, p. 73-108. 29 Krishnamacharya, 2003, p. 100. 30 Ibid, p. 21. Bhukti indicates the pleasures of this life. 28
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