Bishnu Charan Ghosh

Bishnu Charan Ghosh (24 June 1903 – 9 July 1970) was an Indian bodybuilder and Hathayogi. He was the younger brother of yogi Paramahansa Yogananda, who wrote the 1946 book Autobiography of a Yogi. In 1923, he founded the College of Physical Education, Calcutta. His writings influenced the development of modern yoga as exercise in India and Bikram Choudhury founded Bikram Yoga based on his teachings.

Annual yoga championships in Los Angeles are named the Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup in his honour.

Life Bishnu Charan Ghosh was born in a well to do Bengali family in Lahore, the youngest of eight children of Bhagabati Charan Ghosh (1853–1942) and brother of Mukunda Lal Ghosh, better known by his spiritual name, Paramahansa Yogananda.

In 1930, he published his book Muscle Control, which relied heavily on the German bodybuilder Maxick (Max Sick)'s 1913 book of the same name.

In 1939, Ghosh went to America and taught at Columbia University, New York. In 1968, he went on a lecture tour of Japan. This "Body Perfection by Will" relied on the use of weights and special apparatus for musclebuilding. Added to this was the weaving in of traditional asanas from Hatha yoga; he became well known in India as a Hathayogi, teaching a yoga that was "a fusion of asanas, physical culture, and the muscle manipulation techniques that Ghosh had first learned from his brother".

The yoga researcher Mark Singleton has argued that Ghosh's method contributed significantly to the development of modern postural yoga. It has been stated that Ghosh also influenced the development of Sivananda Yoga's sequence of 12 basic asanas.

Legacy

Ghosh's Yoga College in North Kolkata continues to offer training in therapeutic yoga in the 21st century.

Bikram Choudhury, creator of Bikram Yoga, claimed to have been taught by Ghosh from the age of five. However, he did not become a regular student at Bishnu's gymnasium until 1962 at the age of 18. At that time Bikram was a bodybuilder. His system of yoga was based on Ghosh's teachings. Choudhury named the Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup, awarded annually at the International Yoga Asana Championships in Los Angeles, in Ghosh's honor.

Pupils Reba Rakshit (1933–2010), who could withstand the weight of cars and elephants driven over her chest. Monotosh Roy (1917–2005), who in 1951 became the first Indian bodybuilder to win the title of Mr. Universe.

Works B.C. Ghosh and K.C. Sen Gupta: Muscle Control and Barbell Exercise. College of Physical Education, Calcutta, 1930.