Sonu Nagar

The historical origins of Ashtanga Yoga are as much legend as
fact. The tradition traces back to an ancient sage named
Vamana Rishi. We do not know much about him other than that
he is the purported author of the Yoga Korunta. Even this
legendary text is not available for study because it was
destroyed by time and eaten by ants.
The following person in the lineage was Rama Mohan
Brahmachari, who lived in a cave on Mount Kailash (in the
Himalayas) with his wife and three children. No one knows
what happened to his children—where they went or if they
became yoga teachers. Rama Mohan Brahmachari taught his
student, Sri T. Krishnamacharya, from a copy of the Yoga
Korunta. Part of the legend is that when it was time for
Krishnamacharya left his teacher, Rama Mohan
Brahmachari instructed him to go out and teach Yoga to the
world but to tell no one where they could find him.
Krishnamacharya is the source of most of the famous Yoga in the West. His students included
the great teacher B. K. S. Iyengar (who established Iyengar
Yoga), Sri K. Pattabhi Jois (Ashtanga Yoga), A. G. Mohan
(Svastha Yoga), T. K. V. Desikachar (Viniyoga), Indra Devi, and
countless others. Following lineage in Yoga is much like tracing
a family tree. You learn from a teacher who is a student of a
master. That master was once a student of another master. The
origins of Yoga follow an unbroken line from teacher to student
through a nearly five-thousand-year journey in Indian history.
Although recent scholarship has questioned the truth of an
unbroken lineage of asana practice, the spiritual heart of Yoga
as the search for inner peace is as old and eternal as the
human spirit itself. Preserved without using computers,
printers, and external hard drives. Most yoga knowledge is
acquired and passed on through memorization.
In the tradition of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, Ashtanga Yoga is a
dynamic form of Hatha Yoga that asks you to unroll your mat a
staggering six days a week. It is sometimes so demanding as to
be intimidating. When I started practising Ashtanga Yoga, I
was just like you. When I finished each practice, I was sore.