International Yoga Day 2024: Remembering BKS Iyengar Who Sparked Global Yoga Craze

The International Yoga Day which fosters global awareness of yoga and its multifaceted benefits for physical and mental well-being, will be observed across the world on June 21. While yoga has now become quite popular and mainstream among foreigners and celebrities alike, the practice was once unheard of in the West until Indian yoga guru BKS Iyengar popularised it globally. 

Often called the ''father of modern yoga'', Mr Iyengar was credited with spreading the practice of yoga to about 60 countries which he visited carrying the message from the East to the West.

In 2002, the New York Times wrote in an article, "Perhaps no one has done more than Mr. Iyengar to bring yoga to the West. Long before Christy Turlington was gracing magazine covers, decades before power yoga was a multimillion-dollar business, Mr. Iyengar was teaching Americans, among others, the virtues of asanas and breath control.''

Guruji, as BKS Iyengar was known, believed that yoga is much more than a physical practice, it is an art, a science and a philosophy. 

How BKS Iyengar took Yoga to the West

It was an encounter with the American-British violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who came across Mr Iyengar during a trip to Mumbai in the 1950s, that prompted his move to take his practice global. As per New York Times, Mr Menuhin, who visited India in 1952, heard of his practice and asked for a five-minute meeting with him. He was so impressed that the session went on for more than three hours.

Mr Menuhin, who believed that practicing yoga improved his playing, brought Mr Iyengar with him to Switzerland and then to London, and introduced him to other influential people who further publicised yoga's benefits, as per a BBC report. 

Initially, not many were interested in yoga during Mr Iyengar's first visit to New York in 1956. It was not until the next decade that he began to attract crowds. He then went on to eventually open yoga institutes in six continents. The yoga guru also famously taught Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, 85 at the time, to stand on her head.

''We were just coming out of the '60s change-your-consciousness thing, and many of us were in our heads, and wanting to meditate, and reach Samadhi, or enlightenment. Iyengar was, like, 'Stand on your feet. Feel your feet. He was so practical. His famous quote was, 'How can you know God if you don't know your big toe?'', Patricia Walden, a longtime student of Mr. Iyengar's, said in an interview in 2000.

In 1966 he published his first book, Light on Yoga (1966), which became an international best-seller.

Who Was BKS Iyengar?

Mr Iyengar was born on December 14, 1918, in Bellur in Karnataka. He came to Pune in Maharashtra in 1937 and founded his yoga style known as 'Iyengar Yoga'. Notably, he credited yoga with saving his life after he survived tuberculosis, typhoid and malaria as a child. 

Poses in Iyengar yoga are held longer, and students focus on precisely aligning their bodies, unlike more acrobatic or fast-paced styles like ashtanga or vinyasa. Iyengar yoga also promotes the use of props like blocks and straps to help students get into poses.

After spreading knowledge of yoga, he set up his own 'Yogavidya' institute in 1975, which he later expanded to various branches across the country and abroad.

He was regarded as one of the best yoga gurus in the world and has authored several books on yoga including 'Light on Yoga', 'Light on Pranayama', and 'Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali'. Hailed as a "modern rishi", Mr Iyengar set up over 100 branches of his institute in different countries.

The internationally acclaimed yoga guru also taught 'yogasanas' to many prominent personalities along with commoners. Among those whom he introduced to yoga were eminent socialist leader Jayprakash Narayan, and famous philosopher J Krishnamurti.

His insistence on perfecting the poses won him a huge following, among them celebrity fans ranging from actress Kareena Kapoor, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, actress Annette Bening, designer Donna Karanto and writer Aldous Huxley.

For his immense contribution to yoga, he was awarded the Padma Shri in 1991, the Padma Bhushan in 2002 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2014. In 2004 he was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. On 20 August 2014, Mr Iyengar died in Pune from heart failure and renal failure. He was 95 years old.