Dr Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar was born on 14 December 1918 was a versatile Indian teacher of yoga and author. He is the founder of the style of yoga as exercise, known as “Iyengar Yoga“, and was considered one of the foremost yoga gurus in the world.
BKS Iyengar was one of the earliest students of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who is often referred to as “the father of modern yoga”. He has been credited with popularizing yoga, first in India and then around the world.
BKS Iyengar was the author of many books on yoga practice and philosophy including Light on Yoga (1966), Light on Pranayama, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and Light on Life. His book Light on Yoga (often called Bible of Yoga) became an international best-seller. It is translated into 23 languages (including Chinese, Czech, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish), and sold more than 30 lakhs copies.
The Indian government awarded Iyengar the Padma Vibhushan in 2014. In 2004, Iyengar was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
He taught yoga to several celebrities including Krishnamurti and Jayaprakash Narayan.
He taught Shirsaasana to Elisabeth, Queen of Belgium when she was 80. Among his other devotees were the novelist Aldous Huxley, the actress Annette Bening, the film maker Mira Nair and the designer Donna Karan, as well as prominent Indian figures, including the cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and the Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor.
Iyengar made his first visit to the United States in 1956, when he taught in Ann Arbor, Michigan and gave several lecture-demonstrations; he came back to Ann Arbor in 1973, 1974, and 1976.
In 1975, Iyengar opened the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, in memory of his late wife. He officially retired from teaching in 1984, but continued to be active in the world of Iyengar Yoga, teaching special classes, giving lectures, and writing books.
Iyengar reported in interviews that, at age 90, he continued to practice asanas for three hours and pranayamas for an hour daily.He died on 20 August 2014 at the age 95.
