Mysore Yoga Traditions
Melkote Yoga Immersion
Eight Days in a Living Tradition
The Mysore village that shaped Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya's yoga.
Melkote is a temple village an hour from Mysore where the philosophical and devotional roots of yoga have been alive and cared for over a thousand years. The tradition that most deeply shaped Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya's teaching still thrives here. This immersion is an invitation to spend eight days practicing, studying, and living inside that heritage.
What You Will Experience
Sunrise on the sacred hill. Āsana in a thousand-year-old temple.
Each morning begins before dawn. You climb the sacred hill to the Yoga Narasimhan Temple for sunrise mantra chanting, led by Śrī Yatindra, Dr. Alwar's nephew and disciple, himself in deep traditional training. Practice then moves to the thousand-year-old Kalyani Temple, built in the time of Rāmānuja, for āsana, prāṇāyāma, mudrā, and meditation.
Afternoons are spent with Dr. Alwar, exploring the temples and holy places of Melkote that most visitors never find. We take part in the rituals, hear the stories, and receive detailed explanations of the history and philosophy behind each place from scholars who grew up inside this tradition. Each evening includes a short mantra chanting session with Vidyā, Dr. Alwar's wife: a quiet and beautiful close to the day.
All levels of experience are welcome.
Dr. Alwar & the Living Tradition
The yoga the world practices grew from roots that run through here.
Over a thousand years ago, the sage Rāmānuja appointed seventy-four guardians of a sacred tradition and gave them a name, Iyengars, the keepers of five rituals. Their role was to preserve and transmit a living lineage of philosophy, devotion, and practice. That transmission has continued, unbroken, to this day.
Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya was himself an Iyengar, born into this same lineage, shaped by its philosophy, and formed by the temple culture of Melkote. The yoga he gave to the world, which now accounts for a significant portion of all postural practice globally, grew from roots that run directly through this tradition. Most practitioners have never known this. Coming to Melkote is a chance to encounter it directly.
Our guide here is Dr. M.A. Alwar, whose family has carried this teaching across generations within Melkote. The philosophy we engage with during the immersion is not academic. It is the worldview from which the practice you love actually emerged, studied in the place where it has always been kept alive, with one of the few people on earth qualified to teach it.
What is this lineage? →Melkote & Its Significance
One of the great centres of yogic and Vedantic knowledge in South India.
Melkote is an ancient temple village an hour and twenty minutes from Mysore. It has been patronised by the Royal Family of Mysore for over four hundred years and carries an unbroken tradition of scholarship, temple worship, and sacred practice. The philosophical and devotional foundations of Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya's teaching were deeply rooted in the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition centred here.
To come to Melkote is to encounter that background directly, not through books or lectures, but through the living atmosphere of a place that has been in continuous practice for over a thousand years.
Meals & Accommodation
Two meals a day, prepared as a sacred act.
Accommodation is at SV Comforts Hotel in Melkote: clean, comfortable, and well situated for the week ahead. Two meals are provided each day, along with tea and snacks in the afternoon.
The food is prasādam, offered to the divine before it is served, prepared by Śrī Ramapriya and Śrī Rangapriya, pujārīs of the Cheluva Narayana temple whose family arrived in Melkote in the 12th century with Rāmānuja. For them, cooking is a sacred act, and it shows in every meal.
A Day in Melkote
Daily Schedule
Timings may vary from day to day depending on outings and the natural rhythm of the week. Check-in at SV Comforts Hotel begins at noon on February 1st. We meet at the hotel at 3 pm for our first outing together.
Practical Information
From the moment you decide to come.
We are here to help you plan every step of the journey: visa application, flights, ground transportation, dietary needs, what to pack.
Most students arrive through Bengaluru International Airport (BLR), though direct flights to Mysore are sometimes available and worth checking. We recommend taking a taxi directly rather than connecting onward after a long flight, and we are happy to arrange reliable drivers. If you are travelling from Mysore to Melkote, we can help arrange that as well. It is a beautiful hour-and-twenty-minute drive through the Karnataka countryside.
Visas are required for most nationalities; begin that process well in advance and we will guide you through it. If you would like to arrive early and take time to rest, extra nights of accommodation can be arranged in both Mysore and Melkote.
All meals are vegetarian, with vegan and gluten-free options available. Please let us know your dietary requirements in advance. Wifi is available at the hotel. Bring any medications, supplements, or vitamins you take regularly. We are happy to answer any questions about health, safety, and packing.
The Teachers
Two lives within one tradition.
Dr. Alwar was born and raised in Melkote, son of the late Śrī Lakshmithathacharya Swami. He has studied the philosophy, rituals, and sacred texts of this tradition since childhood, not as an academic pursuit, but as a way of life inherited from birth.
He knows every temple, every sacred pond, every story and every ceremony with the intimacy of someone for whom this is not the past but the present. When he moves through these places, something shifts. The tradition comes alive through him, and knowledge that exists in no book becomes suddenly and directly accessible.
Accompanying us is his nephew and disciple Śrī Yatindra, a young man of deep traditional training, walking the same path and preparing to carry this knowledge forward into the next generation.
To spend eight days in their company is a rare gift. We do not take it lightly, and neither do they.
Read more about the Parampara →
Andrew has been practicing and teaching Ashtanga Yoga for over forty years, and has spent much of that time returning to Mysore to study with the teachers and scholars who shaped his own understanding of the practice. His connection with Dr. Alwar and the Nāthamuni Sampradāya is long-standing and rooted in genuine study and mutual respect. It is that connection which makes the access this immersion offers possible.
I offer this immersion because I want sincere students to encounter the wider world behind the practice directly, not only through āsana, but through philosophy, sacred place, and living tradition. I will be with you every step of the way, on the mat each morning and beside you in the temples each afternoon.
What happens in Melkote is difficult to describe to someone who has not been there. The temples, the teachings, the food, the dawn chanting on the sacred hill, it settles into you in a way that is hard to explain and impossible to forget. If it is calling you, come.
Pricing & Payment
An offering, fairly priced.
Eight days including all teachings, accommodation, meals, and transportation within Melkote.
Early registration · $1,500 after October 1, 2026
A $300 deposit reserves your place; balance due before the immersion begins.
As a gesture of gratitude to our conference community, attendees of the Mysore Yoga Conference receive 20% off the full immersion. Mention your conference registration when you sign up.
Joining us from Mysore for the day? Meet us in Melkote at 3 pm, join the afternoon outing with Dr. Alwar, and stay for a delicious evening meal prepared by the pujārīs of the Cheluva Narayana temple before heading back to Mysore. A remarkable afternoon.
A 50% discount is available for Indian citizens. Please enquire for details.
Melkote in Photographs
