Our Teachers
Preserving the Sacred, Not Reinventing It
In its truest form, yoga is not a system one invents — it is a sacred science that is received. Traditionally, yoga has always been passed down through sampradāya: a living spiritual lineage where teachings are transmitted from guru to disciple (guru-śiṣya paramparā), ensuring not only accuracy but also the inner transformation that authentic yoga demands.
The Sanskrit term sampradāya means a “fully handed down tradition.” It is not just a school of thought — it is a channel of preserved realization, grounded in śruti (revealed scripture), smṛti (remembered tradition), and the lived wisdom of realized teachers. To teach yoga outside of a sampradāya is to sever it from its spiritual lifeline. To practice yoga within one is to be nourished by its depth, discipline, and grace.
At Yadu Yoga, we are committed to teaching within this sacred framework, maintaining continuity with a lineage that holds yoga as a path of liberation (mokṣa), not merely fitness or personal development. We do not modify or modernize yoga to suit trends — we honor it as it was handed down, through discipline (tapas), study (svādhyāya), and devotion (īśvarapraṇidhāna).
Our Lineage: Śrī T. Kṛṣṇamācārya and the Living Tradition
The teachings we share are deeply inspired by the lineage of Śrī Tirumalai Kṛṣṇamācārya (1888–1989), one of the most influential masters of the modern era — not because he modernized yoga, but because he remained deeply rooted in its ancient scriptural and devotional roots.
Tirumala Krishnamacharya
18 November 1888 – 28 February 1989
Indian yoga teacher, ayurvedic healer and scholar. He is seen as one of the most important gurus of modern yoga,[3] and is often called "Father of Modern Yoga" for his wide influence on the development of postural yoga.[4][5] Like earlier pioneers influenced by physical culture such as Yogendra and Kuvalayananda, he contributed to the revival of hatha yoga.[6][7] Krishnamacharya held degrees in all the six Vedic darśanas, or Indian philosophies. While under the patronage of the King of Mysore, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV, Krishnamacharya traveled around India giving lectures and demonstrations to promote yoga, including such feats as apparently stopping his heartbeat.[8] He is widely considered as the architect of vinyāsa,[6] in the sense of combining breathing with movement; the style of yoga he created has come to be called Viniyoga or Vinyasa Krama Yoga. Underlying all of Krishnamacharya's teachings was the principle "Teach what is appropriate for an individual."[9] While he is revered in other parts of the world as a yogi, in India Krishnamacharya is mainly known as a healer who drew from both ayurvedic and yogic traditions to restore health and well-being to those he treated.[6] He wrote four books on yoga—Yoga Makaranda (1934), Yogaasanagalu (c. 1941), Yoga Rahasya, and Yogavalli (Chapter 1 – 1988)—as well as several essays and poetic compositions.
Sri Vedanta Desika
1268–1369
Also rendered Vedanta Desikan, Swami Vedanta Desika, and Thoopul Nigamantha Desikan, was an Indian polymath who wrote philosophical as well as religious and poetical works in several languages, including Sanskrit, Manipravaḷam (a Sanskritised form of literary Tamil), Tamil and Prakrit. He was an Indian philosopher, Sri Vaishnava guru, and one of the most brilliant stalwarts of Sri Vaishnavism in the post-Ramanuja period. He was a Hindu devotee, poet, Master of Acharyas (desikan) and a logician and mathematician. He was the disciple of Kidambi Appullar, also known as Athreya Ramanujachariar, who himself was of a master-disciple lineage that began with Ramanuja. Vedanta Desika is considered to be avatar (incarnation) of the divine bell of Venkateshvara of Tirumala by the Vadakalai sect of Sri Vaishnavism. Vedanta Desika belongs to Vishvamitra/Kaushika gotra.
Sri Ramanujacharya
1077 – 1157
Pan Indian Hindu philosopher, guru and a social reformer. He is noted to be one of the most important exponents of the Sri Vaishnavism tradition. His philosophical foundations for devotionalism were influential to the Bhakti movement.
Ramanuja's guru was Yādava Prakāśa, a scholar who according to tradition belonged to the Advaita Vedānta tradition, but probably was a Bhedabheda scholar. Sri Vaishnava tradition holds that Ramanuja disagreed with his guru and the non-dualistic Advaita Vedānta, and instead followed in the footsteps of Tamil Alvārs tradition, the scholars Nāthamuni and Yamunāchārya. Ramanuja is famous as the chief proponent of Vishishtadvaita subschool of Vedānta, and his disciples were likely authors of texts such as the Shatyayaniya Upanishad. Ramanuja himself wrote influential texts, such as bhāsya on the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita, all in Sanskrit.
Yamunacharya
Early 10th century CE
Also known as Alavandar and Yamunaithuraivan, was a Vishistadvaita philosopher based in Srirangam, Tamil Nadu, India. He is best-known for being a preceptor of Ramanuja, one of the leaders of the Sri Vaishnava tradition. He was born in the early 10th century CE, and was the grandson of Nathamuni, a famed yogi, who collected the works of the Tamil Alvars.
Yamunacharya grew up learning Vedic texts from Rama Misra, and was skilled in the concept of mimamsa. According to Sri Vaishnava tradition, as a teenager, he challenged the royal priest of a Pandya king, Akkiyalvan, to a debate. Akkiyalvan, when he saw the age of the youth, sarcastically asked "Alavandara?", meaning "Has he come to rule me?". He defeated Akkiyalvan by logically proving that Akkiyalvan's mother was barren, the king was not righteous, and the queen unchaste. The king and queen, impressed that the boy had understood the shortcomings of logic, adopted him. The queen hailed the boy as "Alavandar". In other versions of the legend, he is given half the kingdom. There is no historical record to show his reign, so it is possible that this happened in a small village, rather than the kingdom of Pandya.
Śri Nathamuni
Autor of Yoga Rahasya
823 - 951 CE.
Though there is difficulty in identifying Nathamuni's date of birth and age, he is considered to have lived during the lifetime of Madhurakavi Alvar's parampara (lineage). According to Sri Vaishnava tradition, Nathamuni was conversing with his father about the legend of Prabandhams written by the Alvars. His father, Ishvara Bhattar, exclaimed the Prabandhams were long lost, and that they would be impossible to retrieve unless one had the grace of Narayana. Hence, he got interested in this and had set to the pilgrimage to the Kumbakonam Sarangapani Temple, where Vishnu is worshipped under the epithet of Aravamudhan. There, he heard priests singing 10 particular pasurams (hymns) dedicated to Aravamudhan (Sarangapani temple's main deity) by the saint Nammalvar. He was overjoyed hearing those and enquired its details. But the priests stated that only 10 pasurams was known to them out of 1,292 written by Nammalvar. He placed immense faith on the deity Aravamudhan and he visited Thirukurgur, birth place of Nammalvar.
Śri Nammalvar
Nammāḻvār who was known as Vakulabharana, Śathari and Parānkusa, who is also the source of yoga, who introduced on the essence of the Vedas, was one of the twelve Alvar saints of Tamil Nadu, India, who are known for their affiliation to the Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism. The verses of the Alvars are compiled as the Naalayira Divya Prabandham, where praises are sung of 108 temples that are classified as divine realms, called the Divya Desams. Nammalvar is considered to be the fifth in the line of the twelve Alvars. He is highly regarded as a great mystic of the Vaishnava tradition. He is also considered to be the foremost among the twelve Alvars, and his contributions amount to 1352 among the 4000 stanzas in the Naalayira Divya Prabandam.