Sivananda Saraswati

Swami Sivananda Saraswati (September 8, 1887—July 14, 1963) was a Hindu spiritual teacher and a proponent of Yoga and Vedanta. Sivananda was born Kuppuswami in Pattamadai, in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. He studied medicine and served in Malaya as a physician for several years before taking up monasticism. He lived most of the later part of his life near Muni Ki Reti, Rishikesh.

He is the founder of The Divine Life Society (1936), Yoga-Vedanta Forest Academy (1948) and author of over 200 books on yoga, vedanta and a variety of other subjects. He established Sivananda Ashram, the location of the headquarters of The Divine Life Society (DLS), on the bank of the Ganges at Shivanandanagar, at a distance of 3 kilometres from Rishikesh. Britannica.com Divine enterprise: Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist Movement, by Lise McKean. University of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN 0226560090. Page 164=165. Religion and anthropology: a critical introduction, by Brian Morris. Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 0521852412. Page 144.

Sivananda Yoga, the yoga form propagated by him, are now spread in many parts of the world through Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres, but these centres are not affiliated with Swami Sivananda's original ashrams which are run by the Divine Life Society.

Early life

Sivananda was born Kuppuswamy in Pattamadai near Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, India, as the third son...
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