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Swami Sivananda

An icebreaker

A doctor spent a decade treating plantation workers in British Malaya, then gave up medicine entirely for a monk's life in Rishikesh, founding an organization there in 1936 that still runs today.

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Worth knowing · 1 of 5
Who was he before he became a monk?
He was born Kuppuswami in Tamil Nadu in 1887. He trained as a physician and spent a decade in British Malaya treating plantation workers and the poor, often free of charge.
Worth knowing · 2 of 5
Why and how did he leave medicine?
He gave up his medical practice in 1923; his biographies say he wanted to meet a suffering medicine could not reach. He reached Rishikesh the next year and was initiated into monastic life there.
Worth knowing · 3 of 5
What did he found, and when?
In 1936 he founded an organization at Rishikesh combining free medical care, published teaching, and yoga instruction for visitors from India and abroad. He wrote more than two hundred books there over his lifetime.
Worth knowing · 4 of 5
Is this the same Swami Sivananda known for extreme longevity?
No — a different, more recent monk based in Varanasi shares this name and is known for claims about his age. This is the earlier Sivananda, the physician-turned-monk who died in 1963.
Worth knowing · 5 of 5
What remains of his work today?
His organization still runs from Rishikesh, publishing his books and training yoga teachers. Disciples he trained carried the teaching further, and centers tracing back to his lineage now operate in many countries.
Words to know
SannyasaFormal renunciation of worldly life and possessions to enter Hindu monastic practice.
AshramA residential spiritual community built around a teacher's practice and teaching.
Divine Life SocietyThe organization he founded at Rishikesh in 1936, still active in publishing and yoga instruction.
More words
RishikeshA town in the Himalayan foothills on the Ganges, long associated with yoga and renunciate life.
A voice · 1 of 3
Swami Sivananda · Physician who became a monk

He taught a 'yoga of synthesis', service, devotion, meditation and study together, summed up in the Divine Life Society's motto: "Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realize."

A voice · 2 of 3
Swami Chidananda · Disciple who led the society after him

Trained directly under him at Rishikesh, he went on to head the Divine Life Society after his teacher's death, continuing its published teaching and its free medical and yoga programs for decades.

A voice · 3 of 3
Swami Satyananda · Disciple who founded his own lineage

After years training under him at Rishikesh, he left to found a separate yoga tradition and teaching organization of his own, carrying forward practices he had first learned as this teacher's student.

A line to leave them with
He left one kind of healing for another, and never went back.
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