In loving memory of U.Ve. Prof. M.A. Lakṣmīthāthācārya Swami · Āchārya Puruṣa · Teacher of teachers
Mysore Yoga Traditions
The Mysore Yoga Paramparā
A living tradition behind the yoga the world practices
This page is offered for students who wish to understand the living tradition from which Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya came — the philosophical and devotional world that shaped the yoga the world now practices, and from which the Mysore Yoga Traditions program draws its scholars.
Why this lineage matters to yoga
The yoga practiced in studios across the world today did not emerge in isolation. It came from a particular place, a particular community, and a particular philosophical tradition — one that has been transmitted without interruption for nearly a thousand years in the city of Mysore and the surrounding region of Karnataka. That tradition is the Māṇḍyam Śrīvaiṣṇava Sampradāya.
He came from a specific place, a specific community, and a specific philosophical tradition. He was formed within the philosophical and devotional world of Śrīvaiṣṇavism. The Yoga Sūtras, the Bhagavad Gītā, the Upaniṣads — these were not texts he encountered as an academic. They were the living inheritance of his community, transmitted teacher to student across generations in an unbroken chain.
Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya — whose students include Pattabhi Jois, B.K.S. Iyengar, T.K.V. Desikachar, and Indra Devi — was himself a direct descendant of Nāthamuni, the ninth-century Śrīvaiṣṇava ācārya who stands near the root of the paramparā documented here. The Āchārya Puruṣa Paramparā descends from Rāmānuja through Ananthacharya, through the Wodeyar royal patronage of Mysore, and through five unbroken generations of Lakṣmīthāthācārya and Alvār Swāmis to U.Ve. Prof. M.A. Lakṣmīthāthācārya Swami — the last recognised Svayam Āchārya Puruṣa of the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition.
This page is an attempt to document that tradition honestly. It exists here for a simple reason: curiosity. The practice of yoga is powerful — anyone who has practiced seriously knows this. But power without understanding is incomplete, and understanding requires knowing where something actually comes from. Not a generalised "ancient India," but a specific lineage of specific teachers, rooted in a specific philosophy, shaped by a specific community whose history can be traced, documented, and honoured.
What follows is what we have learned so far.
The teachers whose lineage is documented here are my own teachers, or the teachers of my teachers. I came to this study as a practitioner, drawn forward by the practice itself — wanting to understand the philosophical ground beneath it, the world that produced it, the tradition that shaped the men who gave it to the world. That study led me to Guruji B.N.S. Iyengar, to U.Ve. Prof. M.A. Lakṣmīthāthācārya Swami, to Dr. M.A. Alwar, to Dr. Rao, to Jayaraman, and to others whose generosity as teachers has been the great privilege of this work.
This is research — not hagiography, not institutional promotion, not a claim of affiliation with the tradition described. The information comes primarily from the community itself: from articles and research by U.Ve. Prof. M.A. Lakṣmīthāthācārya Swami, from records compiled by his students and śiṣyas, from epigraphic evidence, and from the generosity of Dr. M.A. Alwar, who believes — as a matter of deep conviction rooted in the tradition itself — that knowledge is meant to be shared. This is their story. It deserves to be told carefully, and it deserves to be heard.