Shri Krishna Pattabhi Jois, the highlyrespected guru of the intense vinyasa flow style known as Ashtanga Yoga, died at 2:30 A.M. local time in Mysore, India, on Monday, May 18, 2009, at the age of 93. Jois was among the most influential, prominent and beloved figures in the Western Yoga community. Along with B.K.S. Iyengar and T.K.V. Desikachar, Jois can be credited with carrying along the lineage of Shri T. Krishnamacharya, who is largely regarded as one of the founders of modern Yoga practice. Jois’ Ashtanga Yoga, a vigorous, six-series system taught to him by his guru, Shri T. Krishnamacharya, is now practiced in nearly every continent and has influenced many of the other forms of vinyasabased Hatha Yoga practiced today.
Jois taught thousands of students over nearly four decades at his Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute (AYRI) in Mysore, India (known today as the Shri K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute, or KPJAYI.) Several of Jois’ students are among today’s well-respected and known Western teachers. They include Richard Freeman, Tim Miller, Annie Pace, Chuck Miller, Maty Ezraty, Eddie Stern, David Swenson, Lino Miele and many more.
Shri K. Pattabhi Jois was born July 26, 1915, in the village of Kowshika, South India. He met and began his studies with Shri T. Krishnamacharya in 1927, at the age of twelve. Upon the request of the Maharaja of Mysore, Jois began teaching Ashtanga Yoga at the Mysore Sanskrit College in 1937. He continued this teaching position for nearly forty years, during which time he concurrently became a professor of Sanskrit studies. He established the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in the Lakshmipuram neighborhood of Mysore in 1948. In 1973, Jois left his position at the Mysore Sanskrit College in order to teach Yoga at AYRI full-time.
In 1962, Jois published Yoga Mala, which was translated into English in 1999 and became a core yogic tome for numerous Western Yoga practitioners shortly thereafter. Today Yoga Mala can be found alongside B.K.S. Iyengar’s classics Light on Yoga and Light on Life on many a yogi’s bookshelf.
The first Westerner to study with Jois was a Belgian named Andre van Lysebeth, who arrived at the AYRI in 1964.The first Americans (including Norman Allen, featured in the recent film Enlighten Up) came eight years later, marking the beginning of a tradition which endures to this day wherein dedicated students of this style make a pilgrimage to Mysore for sustained practice periods at Jois’ AYRI (known today as the KPJAYI).
By 1975, Jois had gained enough of a following in the States to make his first teaching trip to the US at the age of sixty. The influence of Ashtanga Yoga grew steadily from that point on, achieving significant popularity throughout much of the world within a mere few decades.
With his wife Savitramma, whom he married in 1937, Jois fathered three children: Manju, Saraswathi and Ramesh. Manju is now a well-known US-based Ashtanga Yoga teacher. Saraswathi has been devotedly teaching Ashtanga with her father in Mysore since 2002. Saraswathi’s son Sharath Rangaswamy studied Yoga under the tutelage of his grandfather from an early age. He eventually became the assistant director of the AYRI (now known as the KPJAYI) as well as one of the world’s most advanced Ashtanga Yoga students.
Sharath is expected to take on the role of director of the KPJAYI – and therefore assume the figurehead position of Ashtanga Yoga vacated by his grandfather’s death.
Testifying to his influence, obituaries for Jois have run in mainstream publications including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. In communities around the world, classes and other commemorative services honoring Guruji are being held. As of this writing, a memorial service has been scheduled for Sri K. Pattabhi Jois in Mysore, India on May 31.
Jenni Rawlings is the owner of Drishti in Santa Barbara, CA: drishtiyoga.com.
From the Drishti community: We are personally extremely thankful for Guruji’s many years of faithfully passing along the teachings of his guru, and we are deeply saddened by the news of his passing. For several of us at Drishti, Ashtanga has been our primary practice for many years. Our Yoga practices would not have been as meaningful or powerful to us today without the existence of beloved Guruji. We would like to express our deepest condolences to Guruji’s family in Mysore and to the Ashtanga community at-large for this historic loss.
LA YOGA is inviting personal remembrances of Guruji from the community to be submitted for print and the website. Feel free to write: edit@layogamagazine.com
