K. Pattabhi Jois

K. Pattabhi Jois (26 July 1915 – 18 May 2009) was a Shaivite Indian yoga guru and who developed and popularized the flowing style of yoga as exercise known as Ashtanga (vinyasa) yoga. In 1948, Jois established the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, India. Pattabhi Jois is one of a short list of Indians instrumental in establishing modern yoga as exercise in the 20th century, along with B. K. S. Iyengar, another pupil of Krishnamacharya in Mysore. Jois sexually abused some of his yoga students by touching inappropriately during adjustments. on 26 July 1915 (Guru Pūrṇimā, full moon day) in the village of Kowshika, near Hassan, Karnataka, Southern India. Jois's father was an astrologer, priest, and landholder. His mother took care of the house and the nine children - five girls and four boys - of whom Pattabhi Jois was the fifth. From the age of five, he was instructed in Sanskrit and rituals by his father. No one else in his family learned yoga.

Education

In 1927, at the age of 12, Jois attended a lecture and demonstration at the Jubilee Hall in Hassan, Karnataka by T. Krishnamacharya and became his student the next day. He stayed in Kowshika for two years and practiced with Krishnamacharya every day. Around the same time Krishnamacharya departed Hassan to teach elsewhere. Two years later, Jois was reunited with Krishnamacharya, who had also made his way to Mysore. During this time, the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishna Rajendra Wodeyar, had become seriously ill and it is said that Krishnamacharya had healed him, through yoga, where others had failed. The Maharaja became Krishnamacharya's patron and established a yogaśala for him at the Jaganmohan Palace. Jois often accompanied Krishnamacharya in demonstrations, and occasionally assisted Krishnamacharya in class and taught in his absence.

Jois studied with Krishnamacharya from 1927 to 1929 in his own village, and then in Mysore from 1932 to 1953. He studied texts such as Patañjali's Yoga Sūtra, Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā, Yoga Yajñavalkya and the Upaniṣads.

In 1924 Krishnamacharya supposedly researched an ancient text which he called the Yoga Korunta; he described this as badly damaged and with many missing portions, Jois stated that he had never seen the text;

A major component of Ashtanga Yoga absent from Krishnamacharya's early teachings was Surya Namaskar, the Sun Salutation. However, Surya Namaskar already existed, and Krishnamacharya was aware of it in the 1930s, as it was being taught, as exercise rather than as yoga, in the hall next to his Yogaśala in the Mysore palace. becoming vidwan (professor) in 1956, In 1964 he built an extension in the back of the house for a yoga hall. Jois continued to teach at the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, now in the neighbourhood of Gokulam, He published the book Yoga Mālā, in Kannada in 1958; an English translation appeared in 1999. Norman Allen , one of his first western students, collaborated with Jois on his trips to America. He had said on many occasions that there might be only twenty or thirty students practising Ashtanga Yoga in America then, but, 'gradually, gradually, in twenty years, it will be fully spreading'. Teachers are certified through many years of daily practice and extended trips to Mysore, India, to become authorized "lineage holders".

In 1948, with the help of his students, Jois purchased a home in the section of town called Lakshmipuram. According to Tim Miller, Jois continued to practice asanas until his son Ramesh committed suicide when Jois was in his early 60s.

Re-evaluation

Criticisms

According to B.K.S. Iyengar, Jois was assigned to teach asana at the Sanskrit Pathshala when Krishnamacharya's yogaśala was opened in 1933, and was "never a regular student". Jois claimed he was B. K. S. Iyengar's teacher, although Iyengar has denied this, and the two men's yoga systems are different; both were taught by Krishnamacharya.

The obituary in The Economist questioned Jois's adherence to the yogic principle of ahimsa or non-violence, writing that "a good number of Mr Jois's students seemed constantly to be limping around with injured knees or backs because they had received his "adjustments", yanking them into Lotus, the splits or a backbend."

Sexual abuse

The Economist obituary questioned Jois's adherence to the yogic principle of brahmacharya or sexual continence, and made the accusation that some students received different "adjustments"; In 2010, it became public knowledge that Jois had systematically sexually abused some of his female and male yoga students, both in Mysore and during his travels, until his death in 2009. Some of this was straightforward sexual abuse, some under the guise of "adjustments" and sometimes under the guise of "welcoming" and "saying goodbye" to students. The number of victims is unknown, but women and men have described their experiences of abuse, with video and photographic evidence. Some well known Ashtanga Yoga teachers have come forward to corroborate the accusations.

In 2019, R. Sharath Jois published an acknowledgement of his sadness over his grandfather's conduct, apologising to the students concerned, and encouraging them to forgive his grandfather. "It brings me immense pain that I also witnessed him giving improper adjustments", Sharath wrote.

Legacy

In the early 21st century, Jois's grandson, R. Sharath Jois, led the Ashtanga Yoga community as director of the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute (KPJAYI) in Mysore. Jois's organization Sonima often provides organizational support to Sharath's world tours, and produces online programs that provide supplementary teaching tools for Ashtanga. Jois's daughter, Saraswathi, and granddaughter, Sharmila, run a yoga school in Mysore and travel the world on teaching tours. A 2006 film Guru was made about him by Robert Wilkins.