Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888-1989) was born on November 18 in the Chitradurga district of Karnataka India and lived to be over a hundred years old. His parents were Sri Tirumalai Srinvasa Tattacharya, a well-known teacher of the Vedas, and Shrimati Ranganayakamma and he was the eldest with six brothers and sisters.

Krishnamacharya spent much of his youth traveling through India studying the six darshanas or Indian philosophies: Vaisheshika, Nyaya, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta [1]. His students include many of today’s most influential teachers: Sri BKS Iyengar, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, the late Indra Devi and Krishnamacharya’s own son T.K.V. Desikachar. Although his knowledge and teaching has influenced yoga throughout the world he never left his native India over the course of his life. It is important to note that Jois and Iyengar teach based on their own experiences with Krishnamacharya in the 1930's in Mysore, when they were both young men; their styles are reflective of yoga that is appropriate to younger students and thus heavily empahasise asana practice. However teachers such as T.K.V. Desikachar, Kausthub Desikachar and the lesser-known Srivatsa Ramaswami teach a broader part of Krishanamacharya's teachings, noting that yoga is more than just asana and must be tuned to the student, taking account of health, energy, physique, gender, place and age.

(Source: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Tirumalai_Krishnamacharya)