Last week I was asked about the girl in Kurmasana in Krishnamacharya's Yoga Makaranda, this time I've been asked if the boy demonstrating chakrasana ( or Triyangamukha Uttanasana) might be the young BKS Iyengar.
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Yoga Makaranda was first published in Mysore in 1934 and in the text Krishnamacharya directs the reader to study the photos carefully. Either the photos were taken for the book, which seems most likely or some had been taken previously, a possibility as some of the photos seem to have been taken separately.
It seems unlikely that BKS Iyengar is the boy in any of the photos, Krishnamacharya did supposedly bring his brother-in-law BKS Iyenger to Mysore in 1934 but he was said to be a sickly, unhealthy boy at that time.
Krishnamacharya's Mysore School has been described by BKS himself, I believe, as a school for yoga asana demonstrators, think modern Shaolin Kung Fu and the international Kung Fu demonstrations the kids and young men present around the world. Krishnamacharya was charged by the Maharaja of Mysore with the promotion of yoga throughout India and he used the boys of the palace to grab the attention while he gave his lectures on Yoga. This perhaps explains why Krishnamacharya was said to be so strict in the Mysore period, he was not so much teaching yoga as perhaps running a factory, churning out asana demonstrators for the presentations put on in Mysore by the Maharaja or the demonstrations he would give around the country. Pattabhi Jois was one of those young demonstrators and also, later, one of Krishnamacharya's assistants running the young boys of the palace through their asana drills.
The demonstration tradition has continued to this day of course, Pattbhi Jois seeing benefit perhaps in the discipline they engendered, preparation for yoga, taught those same drills in his slight reordering of Krishnamacharya's early asana lists, teaching them as fixed sequences rather than flexible groups of asana, this is what has come to be known as Ashtanga Vinyasa.
It was the jumping from asana to asana that first caught the young Pattabhi Jois' eye on seeing Krishnamacharya give a presentation in Hassan in the 1920s and it was Pattabhi Jois' own demonstrations of asana that led to him being given the yoga class at the Sanskrit college. Years later it was Pattabhi Jois son Manju giving an advanced asana demonstration in Rishikesh, jumping from asana to asana that caught the eye of David Williams and Norman Allan and brought them to Mysore and no doubt what brought their own students to study with them when they returned to the US. It is the asana demonstrations on YouTube and instagramme that continue to bring students into the Shalas and later perhaps to make the trip to Mysore to study with Pattabhi Jois grandson Sharat, who it is said on his website is the only person to be able to do all six series of asana sequences.
This focus on the public demonstration of asana at the Mysore palace yoga school may well explain why Pattabhi Jois failed to carry over elements of practice Krishnamacharya stressed in his early Mysore works Yoga Makaranda (1934) and Yogasanagalu (1941) such as kumbhka, longer stays in asana and long slow breathing. Pattabhi Jois' son Manju has said however that in his own practice his father would practice long stays in asana with long slow breathing.
Krishnamacharya was passionate about yoga, he would give lectures in his home and the young Pattabhi Jois and no doubt other students would come to hear him talk, he would stress the study of the yoga sutras and entreat his students and young family to practice the other limbs of yoga, not just asana. While Pattabhi Jois would perhaps run the young boys through their asana drills Krishnamacharya would often teach privately in a side room, treating patients, giving individual lessons in yoga as well as presenting palace lectures on different aspects of the subject.
Pattabhi Jois would also offer lectures in Yoga philosophy although few would turn up, Sharath, today in Mysore, encourages the study of chanting, the yoga sutras and awareness of yama and niyama as does his uncle Manju who also teaches Pranayama.
Who then was the young boy demonstrating chakrasana in the Yoga
Makaranda photo? It may have been Iyengar's friend at the school and Krishnamacharya's "star" or "pet" student, Keshava Murthy.
BKS Iyengar tells a story in which he mentions that Krishnamacharya's pet student Keshava Murthy had disappeared one morning forcing Krishnamacharya to use the young Iyengar for a demonstration of Hanumanasana, an asana Iyengar had never attempted before. Iyengar tried to get out of the asana by saying his shorts were too tight, Krishnamacharya just called for a pair of scissors forcing Iyengar to successfully perform the asana but tearing his hamstring in the process.
Pattabhi Jois also mentions Keshava Murthy, when the Mysore Palace school finally closed due to lack of funding and support from the new government after the British left, he says that only two of Krishnamacharya's students remained, himself and Krishna Murthy.
We will probably never know who the boy in the photo actually was but it is unlikely to have been BNS Iyengar.
Other possibilities are perhaps TRS Shama (although surely he would have been too young in 1934), Srinivasa Rangacar and Mahadev Bhat who along with Krishnamav Murthy, BNS Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois were all known to be students of Krishnamacharya in Mysore.
Yoga Makaranda was first published in Mysore in 1934 and in the text Krishnamacharya directs the reader to study the photos carefully. Either the photos were taken for the book, which seems most likely or some had been taken previously, a possibility as some of the photos seem to have been taken separately.
It seems unlikely that BKS Iyengar is the boy in any of the photos, Krishnamacharya did supposedly bring his brother-in-law BKS Iyenger to Mysore in 1934 but he was said to be a sickly, unhealthy boy at that time.
Krishnamacharya's Mysore School has been described by BKS himself, I believe, as a school for yoga asana demonstrators, think modern Shaolin Kung Fu and the international Kung Fu demonstrations the kids and young men present around the world. Krishnamacharya was charged by the Maharaja of Mysore with the promotion of yoga throughout India and he used the boys of the palace to grab the attention while he gave his lectures on Yoga. This perhaps explains why Krishnamacharya was said to be so strict in the Mysore period, he was not so much teaching yoga as perhaps running a factory, churning out asana demonstrators for the presentations put on in Mysore by the Maharaja or the demonstrations he would give around the country. Pattabhi Jois was one of those young demonstrators and also, later, one of Krishnamacharya's assistants running the young boys of the palace through their asana drills.
The demonstration tradition has continued to this day of course, Pattbhi Jois seeing benefit perhaps in the discipline they engendered, preparation for yoga, taught those same drills in his slight reordering of Krishnamacharya's early asana lists, teaching them as fixed sequences rather than flexible groups of asana, this is what has come to be known as Ashtanga Vinyasa.
It was the jumping from asana to asana that first caught the young Pattabhi Jois' eye on seeing Krishnamacharya give a presentation in Hassan in the 1920s and it was Pattabhi Jois' own demonstrations of asana that led to him being given the yoga class at the Sanskrit college. Years later it was Pattabhi Jois son Manju giving an advanced asana demonstration in Rishikesh, jumping from asana to asana that caught the eye of David Williams and Norman Allan and brought them to Mysore and no doubt what brought their own students to study with them when they returned to the US. It is the asana demonstrations on YouTube and instagramme that continue to bring students into the Shalas and later perhaps to make the trip to Mysore to study with Pattabhi Jois grandson Sharat, who it is said on his website is the only person to be able to do all six series of asana sequences.
This focus on the public demonstration of asana at the Mysore palace yoga school may well explain why Pattabhi Jois failed to carry over elements of practice Krishnamacharya stressed in his early Mysore works Yoga Makaranda (1934) and Yogasanagalu (1941) such as kumbhka, longer stays in asana and long slow breathing. Pattabhi Jois' son Manju has said however that in his own practice his father would practice long stays in asana with long slow breathing.
Krishnamacharya was passionate about yoga, he would give lectures in his home and the young Pattabhi Jois and no doubt other students would come to hear him talk, he would stress the study of the yoga sutras and entreat his students and young family to practice the other limbs of yoga, not just asana. While Pattabhi Jois would perhaps run the young boys through their asana drills Krishnamacharya would often teach privately in a side room, treating patients, giving individual lessons in yoga as well as presenting palace lectures on different aspects of the subject.
Pattabhi Jois would also offer lectures in Yoga philosophy although few would turn up, Sharath, today in Mysore, encourages the study of chanting, the yoga sutras and awareness of yama and niyama as does his uncle Manju who also teaches Pranayama.
Who then was the young boy demonstrating chakrasana in the Yoga
Makaranda photo? It may have been Iyengar's friend at the school and Krishnamacharya's "star" or "pet" student, Keshava Murthy.
BKS Iyengar tells a story in which he mentions that Krishnamacharya's pet student Keshava Murthy had disappeared one morning forcing Krishnamacharya to use the young Iyengar for a demonstration of Hanumanasana, an asana Iyengar had never attempted before. Iyengar tried to get out of the asana by saying his shorts were too tight, Krishnamacharya just called for a pair of scissors forcing Iyengar to successfully perform the asana but tearing his hamstring in the process.
Pattabhi Jois also mentions Keshava Murthy, when the Mysore Palace school finally closed due to lack of funding and support from the new government after the British left, he says that only two of Krishnamacharya's students remained, himself and Krishna Murthy.
We will probably never know who the boy in the photo actually was but it is unlikely to have been BNS Iyengar.
Other possibilities are perhaps TRS Shama (although surely he would have been too young in 1934), Srinivasa Rangacar and Mahadev Bhat who along with Krishnamav Murthy, BNS Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois were all known to be students of Krishnamacharya in Mysore.