The Scholars

Son of Śrī U.Ve. Prof. M.A. Lakṣmīthāthāchārya Swami, Dr. Alwar grew up deep within the Nāthamuni Sampradāya, formed by the same exacting standards of Vedic education and śāstric learning that have shaped this lineage for generations. He is Senior Professor at the Mahārāja's Sanskrit College, Mysore, and Managing Trustee of the Saṃskṛti Foundation.

He does not teach these texts as literature or philosophy from the outside. He transmits them as they have been understood within this paramparā for nearly a millennium — with the depth, precision, and warmth of a scholar who has lived inside them his entire life. To study the Bhagavad Gītā with Dr. Alwar is to receive it through the same philosophical understanding that guided Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya, and that has shaped the yoga the world now practices.

Trained in both traditional gurukula and modern academic settings, Dr. Nagaraja Rao has taught at the University of Chicago, held a fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and been honoured by the Sahitya Akademi for his contributions to translation. He is honorary editor of Sudharma, the world's only daily newspaper published in Sanskrit.

Now in his eighties, he continues to teach the Yoga Sūtras, the Upaniṣads, and the Sāṅkhya Kārikā with undiminished clarity and warmth. His particular gift is making the subtle clear without making it simple — bringing philosophical precision while communicating in fluent English with an accessibility rare among Sanskrit scholars of his stature.

Trained in traditional gurukula education in Vedas, Vedānta, and Yogaśāstra at Veda Vijñāna Gurukulam, Bengaluru, Dr. Jayaraman subsequently earned a PhD in Sanskrit from the University of Madras, specialising in Tantrayukti — ancient Indian methods of textual construction and methodology. He served for over a decade as Director of Research at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, Chennai.

He is currently Professor and Dean in the Division of Yoga and Spirituality at SVYASA Deemed University, and the author of twenty books and nineteen peer-reviewed articles on yoga and Sanskrit literature. He is also the creator of Yoga-Vaiśāradī, a searchable digital repository of classical yoga texts, and Yogasya Bhāṣā, a self-learning program in Sanskrit and yoga.