Name	Indra Devi
Caption	Indra Devi, upper left; Anne T. Hill, bottom center (record album cover)
Birth date	May 12, 1899
Birth place	Riga, Latvia
Death date	April 25, 2002 (age 102)
Death place	Buenos Aires, Argentina
Other names	Eugenie Peterson
Occupation	yoga teacher
Spouse	Jan Strakaty (1930-1946, his death)Siegrid Knauer (1953-1977, his death)

Indra Devi ( (Indra Devi); May 12, 1899 – April 25, 2002), born as Eugenie Peterson in Riga, Livonia, was an early disciple of Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, and herself became a renowned yoga teacher. Born in Riga, she also acted in some Hindi films.

Early Years

Born in Riga to Vasili Peterson, a Swedish bank director and Alejandra Labunskaia, a Russian noblewoman, Eugenie attended drama school in Moscow as a girl and escaped to Berlin with her mother as Bolsheviks came to power in 1917. In Berlin, she became an actress and dancer.

India

Devi's fascination with India began at 15, when she read a book by poet-philosopher Rabindranath Tagore and a yoga instruction book by Yogi Ramacharaka. In 1927, she sailed for India and adopted a stage name that would sound (using "dev", the Hindi root for "god") and acted in Indian films. In 1930, she married Jan Strakaty, a commercial attache to the Czechoslovak consulate in Bombay.

Los Angeles and Mexico

In the 1960s and 70s, Indra Devi was very much a presence in Los Angeles and Mexico, and was very close to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Traveling from LA (and her retreat in Mexico) to Bangalore and Puttaparthi, she was greatly honored by him.

Later Years and Death

In 1982 she moved to Argentina. In 1987 she was elected president of honor of the International Yoga Federation http://www.internationalyogafederation.net (former International Yoga Teachers Federation) and Latin American Union of Yoga under the presidenceship of Swami Maitreyananda at Montevideo, Uruguay. She died in Buenos Aires.

References

External links

Indra Devi foundation

A portrait of the First Lady of Yoga, Russia&India; Report

A life-sketch of Indra Devi and her contribution to yoga

Category:1899 births Category:2002 deaths Category:Yogis Category:People from Riga Category:People from Livonia Category:Indian centenarians Category:Converts to Hinduism

Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya{Kannada:ಶ್ರೀ ತಿರುಮಲೈ ಕೃಷ್ಣಮಾಚಾರ್ಯ } (November 18, 1888 – November 3, 1989) was an influential Indian Yoga teacher, healer and scholar. Some of his students include many of today’s most influential teachers: B.K.S. Iyengar, the late K. Pattabhi Jois, the late Indra Devi, Srivatsa Ramaswami, A.G. Mohan, and Krishnamacharya’s wife Mrs. Namagririammal, sons T.K. Srinivasan, T.K.V. Desikachar, T.K. Sribhashyam and daughters Srimathi Pundarikavalli, Srimathi T. Alamelu Sheshadri and Srimathi Shubha Mohan Kumar.

Biography

Early life

Krishnamacharya was born on 18 November 1888 in Muchukundapuram, in Chitradurga district of Karnataka state in India, to an orthodox Iyengar family. His parents were Sri Tirumalai Srivinasa Tattacharya, a well-known teacher of the Vedas, and Shrimati Ranganayakamma. He was the eldest with two brothers and three sisters. At the age of six, he underwent upanayana. He then began learning to speak and write Sanskrit, texts such as the Amarakosha and to chant the Vedas under the strict tutelage of his father.

At the age of sixteen, Krishnamacharya had a strange dream in which his ancestor, the legendary yogi and Sri Vaishnava saint Nathamuni directed him to go to the town of Alvar Tirunagari, in the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. Krishnamacharya obeyed the dream and traveled there. As he later told, when he arrived at his destination, he fell into trance and found himself in the presence of three sages. He requested them to instruct him in the Yoga Rahasya, a long lost yogic treatise by Nathamuni. One of the sages, whom he later identified as Nathamuni himself, started to recite the text. When Krishnamacharya later woke up from the trance, he could recall every single verse of this legendary treatise lost long ago.

Scholastic Education

Krishnamacharya spent much of his youth traveling through India studying the six darśana or Indian philosophies: vaiśeṣika, nyāya, sāṃkhya, yoga, mīmāṃsā and vedānta. In 1906, at the age of eighteen, Krishnamacharya left Mysore to attend at the university of Benares, a city of hundreds of temples also known as Vārāṇasī. While at the university, he focused his studies on logic and Sanskrit, working with Brahmashri Shivakumar Shastry, "one of the greatest grammarians of the age". He also learnt the Mimamsa from Brahmasri Trilinga Rama Shastri.

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 so in order to eat he followed the rules that were laid down for religious beggars: only approaching seven households each day and offering a prayer "in return for wheat flour to mix with water for cakes". Krishnamacharya eventually left Queens College to study the ṣaḍdarśana (six darshanas) in Vedic philosophy at Patna University. He also got a scholarship to study Ayurveda under Vaidya Krishnakumar of Bengal. His stay in Kāśi lasted 11 years.

Education in Yoga

During all this time Krishnamacharya continued to practice the yoga that his father had taught him as a young boy. Krishnamacharya had also learnt Yoga from shri Babu Bhagwan Das, and passed the Sankhya Yoga Examination of Patna. He was made to memorize the whole of the Yoga Kuruntha in the Gurkha language. As tradition holds, at the end of his studies with Sri Ramamohan, Krishnamacharya asked what payment would be – Ramamohan responded that Krishnamacharya was to "take a wife, raise children and be a teacher of Yoga".

He then returned to Vārāṇasī. Mahārāja 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, he again returned to Vārāṇasī shortly. Impressed with his mastery, Amarnātha Jhā, the son of Gaṅgānāth Jhā, introduced him to various monarchs and he was widely honoured. In accordance with his Guru's wishes that he should live a life of a householder - he married Namagiriammal in 1925.

Yogashala in Mysore

The Maharaja of Mysore, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV was in Varanasi to celebrate the 60th birthday of his mother. The Maharaja was impressed by the young man's demeanor, authority and scholarship. In 1924 he was asked by the Maharaja, a man who looked to yoga to help cure his many ailments, to open a yoga school where he taught until 1955. The Maharajah was so impressed with Krishnamacharya that he was hired to teach the royal family and given the wing of a nearby palace to start the Yogashala or yoga school. At the Maharaja's request, he wrote several books including Yoga Makaranda, Yoganjali, and Yogasanalu.

Unwilling to fall under the obligation of the Maharaja, Krishnamacharya was forced to take a job as a foreman at a coffee plantation. Krishnamacharya held many demonstrations to stimulate popular interest in the subject. These included suspending his pulse, stopping cars with his bare hands, performing difficult asanas, and lifting heavy objects with his teeth.

At the age of 96, he slipped on a damp stone while checking the mail, and fractured his hip. Refusing surgery, he treated himself and designed a course of practice that he could do in bed.

Approach to Healing

Krishnamacharya “believed Yoga to be India’s greatest gift to the world” – although many people approach it as a spiritual practice he also incorporated a great deal of physical healing because it is difficult for a person to grow if they have a great deal of discomfort from illness. Through the teachings Krishnamacharya received from his father and other instructors he realized that every person is “absolutely unique” and he felt that the most important part of teaching yoga was that the student must be “taught according to his or her individual capacity at any given time”. This means that the path of yoga will mean different things for different people and each person must be taught in a manner that they understand clearly. Because of this individualized approach, it is impossible to explain Krishnamacharya’s process of teaching in full.

Krishnamacharya was not only a yoga instructor, he was also considered a physician of Ayurvedic medicine and “possessed enormous knowledge of nutrition, herbal medicine, the use of oils, and other remedies”. This gave him the ability to approach an individual’s problem in a well-informed manner. When he began working with a person he would conduct a very detailed examination to determine the most efficient path to take. He would take the persons pulse, examine the color of the skin, listen to the quality of the breath, among many other things. During the time of diagnosis, Krishnamacharya would look for what “upset or hindered the harmonious union of the body, mind, and spirit” – even though a disease is focused in a particular area, he knew that it would affect many other systems in the body, both mental and physical. At some point during or after the initial examination, he would eventually ask the person, if he or she will be able to follow his guidance. This question was asked because he knew that if the person could not trust him fully there was little chance of being healed. If the answer was “yes” the “healing relationship would begin” but if the person showed hesitation he would send him or her away.

Once a person began seeing Krishnamacharya, he would work with him or her on a number of levels including adjusting their diet; creating herbal medicines; and setting up a series of yoga postures that would be most beneficial. When instructing a person on the practice of yoga, Krishnamacharya particularly stressed the importance of combining breath work (pranayama) with the postures (asanas) of yoga and meditation (dhyana) to reach the desired goal. He would continue to see the person approximately once a week to monitor the progress until he or she was healed.

Approach to Yoga

Krishnamacharya was known to be able to voluntarily stop his visible heart beat/ pulse for over two minutes, probably by drastically reducing venous return to the heart.

Krishnamacharya taught Yoga to people of all religions. He always took time to understand the religion and the culture of the people he taught. For example, when he was invited to teach the Nizam of Hyderabad, he spoke to him in Urdu. The Nizam was so impressed that his entire family practiced Yoga.

Accomplishment as a scholar

Krishnamacharya was also well regarded as a scholar; he was twice offered the position of an important Acharya in the Srivaishnava sampradaya, but he declined in order to stay with his family.

He also had excellent knowledge of orthodox Hindu rituals. In fact, the current seer of the Parakala Mutt underwent Upanayana under his supervision.

Due to his great scholarship in various darshanas of orthodox Hindu philosophy, he was acquired titles such as Sāṃkhya-yoga-śikhāmaṇi, Mīmāṃsā-ratna, Mīmāṃsā-thīrtha, Nyāyācārya, Vedāntavāgīśa, Veda-kesari and Yogācārya.

Legacy

Although his knowledge and teaching has influenced yoga throughout the world he never left his native India over the course of his life. As Ruiz says: "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."

References

Sources

Desikachar, Kausthub. "Our Teacher." Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram.

Desikachar, Kausthub. The Yoga of the Yogi : The legacy of T Krishnamacharya. Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, 2005.

Desikachar, T.K.V. The Heart of Yoga : Developing a personal practice. Inner Traditions India, 1st ed., 1995. ISBN 0-89281-533-7

Desikachar, T.K.V. & Cravens, R.H. Health, Healing & Beyond : Yoga and the living tradition of Krishnamacharya. Aperture, 1998. ISBN 0-89381-941-7

Mohan, A.G. [www.svastha.com Yoga for body breath and mind]

Kazlev, M. Alan. Kheper - The Six Darshanas. uploaded 27 May 1998, most recent update 10 July 2006.

Ruiz, Fernando Pagés. "Krishnamacharya's Legacy." Yoga Journal. Yogajournal.com.

External references

5 minute video on Krishnamacharya's life

Krishnamachrya Healing & Yoga Foundation

Krishnamachrya Yoga Mandiram

Tradición de krishnamacharya en Argentina

"Yogakshemam" Sri T. K. Sribhashyam's School of traditional teaching of Indian Philosophy, Ayurveda and Yoga

Website of Srivatsa Ramaswami

a collection of articles from Desikichar and Ramaswami

Website of A.G. Mohan and family

Yoga Makaranda of Krishnamacarya

Alternate time-line based on A.G. Mohan's book

See also

Krishnamacharya's yoga

Category:Indian centenarians Category:1888 births Category:1989 deaths Category:Yogis Category:People from Chitradurga