The tall man sitting under the large kailashpati or cannonball tree at the Santa Cruz Yoga Institute looks masterful, yet serene. Jayadeva Yogendra, President of the Institute, which has completed 100 years in 2017, does not seem to need external accoutrements to proclaim his singular devotion to yoga: clean-shaven and clad in spotless white, he displays all the signs of an accomplished yogi that Svatvarama describes in his medieval Sanskrit manual, Hathayoga Pradipika: “Body lean yet sturdy; face joyful; voice resonant; clear eyes filled with compassion. ” When I allude to the verse, Jayadevaji is quick to caution that the authentic yogic practitioner has to go beyond mere physical and external elements.
“Yoga is a holistic discipline, “affirms Hansaji Yogendra, Jayadevaji’s spouse and Director of the Institute, “one that deals with body and mind, emotions and intellect and also the aspirant’s social and interpersonal relationships. ” Yogendraji, the father of Jayadeva Yogendra, set up the Santa Cruz Yoga Institute after receiving initiation from Paramahamsa Madhavdas, the peripatetic master of yoga who was said to have been 118 years old when he met young Yogendra (who was born as Manibhai Desai) while delivering a religious discourse at Madhav Baugh in Mumbai. Thereafter, Manibhai moved to Malsar, Madhavdas’ Ashram on the banks of the holy Narmada, for intensive training and therapeutic guidance. Paramahamsa Madhavdas, a pivotal figure in the revival of yogic practice on the Indian subcontinent, catalysed the creation of Kaivalyadhama Yoga Institute, set up in 1924 by another disciple of his, Swami Kuvalyananda. Six years earlier, Manibhai had gone on to create India’s first Yoga Institute at Sands, the residential bungalow at Versova belonging to the ‘Grand Old Man of India, ‘Dadabhai Naoroji. The nationalist leader’s son-in-law, Homi Dadina, a consulting engineer in his early fifties, became one of Yogendraji’s first pupils; it was Christmas, on Wednesday, December 25, 1918, when the Yoga Institute made its formal debut.
Two years later, Manibhai travelled to America just as Swami Vivekananda had done in 1893, and founded a Yoga Institute in Harriman, New York. Presciently, Manibhai combined his programme of teaching and public outreach with the study of the psycho-physical effects of yoga, particularly its impact on hormones and glands. This was conducted with the help of doctors and scientists. Also, in 1923, the year that Banting and Macleod won the Nobel Prize for medicine for their work on insulin, Yogendra changed his householder name to his ‘Lord of the Yogis’ moniker.
(To be continued)
