Swami Kuvalayananda

Swami Kuvalayananda

August 30, 1883

Born
Dabhoi, Gujarat, India

April 18, 1966 (aged 82)

Died
Lonavla, Maharashtra, India

Nationality Indian

Scientific Researcher,
Occupation
Teacher, Yogi
Swami Kuvalayananda (August 30, 1883 – April 18,
1966) was a scientific researcher and educator who is
primarily known for his pioneering research into the
scientific foundations of yoga.

He started scientific research on yoga in 1920, and

published the first scientific journal specifically devoted to
studying yoga, Yoga Mimamsa, in 1924.

Most of his research took place at the

Kaivalyadhama Health and Yoga Research Center which
he also founded in 1924. His influence on modern yoga
has been "profound"
Swami Kuvalayananda was born Jagannatha Ganesa Gune
in a traditional Brahmin family in the village Dhaboi in
Gujarat state, India.. Kuvalayananda’s father, Sri Ganesa
Gune, was a teacher and his mother, Srimati Saraswati, a
housewife.

The family was not rich and had to depend for some time
on public and private charity. Being from a poor family,
Kuvalayananda had to struggle hard for his education.

Nevertheless, at his matriculation in 1903, he was awarded

the Jagannath Shankarsheth Sanskrit Scholarship to study
at Baroda College where he graduated in 1910.
During his student days, he was influenced by political
leaders like Sri Aurobindo, who was working as a young
lecturer at the university, and Lokmanya Tilak's
Indian Home Rule Movement.

His national idealism and patriotic fervor prompted him to

devote his life to the service of humanity. During this
time, he took up a vow of lifelong celibacy.

Coming into contact with the Indian masses, many of

whom were illiterate and superstitious, he realized the
value of education, and this influenced him to help
organize the Khandesh Education Society at Amalner,
where ultimately he became the Principal of the National
College, in 1916.
The National College was closed down by the British
Government in 1920 due to the spirit of
Indian nationalism prevalent at the institution.

From 1916 to 1923, he taught Indian culture studies to

high school and college students.
 Yoga Education
Kuvalayananda's first guru was Rajaratna Manikrao, a
professor at the Jummadada Vyayamshala in Baroda. From
1907 to 1910, Manikrao trained Kuvalayananda in the Indian
System of Physical Education which Kuvalayananda
advocated throughout his life.

As early as the 1930's, Kuvalayananda trained large groups of

yoga teachers as a way to spread physical education in India

In 1919, he met the Bengali yogin, Paramahamsa

Madhavdasji, who had settled at Malsar, near Baroda, on the
banks of the Narmada river.
The insight into Yogic discipline, under the guidance of
Madhavdasji, greatly influenced Kuvalayananda's career.

Though Kuvalayananda was spiritually inclined and

idealistic, he was, at the same time, a strict rationalist. So,
he sought scientific explanations for the various
psychophysical effects of Yoga he experienced.

In 1920-21, he investigated the effects of some of the

Yogic practices on the human body with the help of some
of his students in a laboratory at Baroda Hospital.
His subjective experience, coupled with the results of
these scientific experiments, convinced him that the
ancient system of Yoga, if understood through the
modern scientific experimental system, could help
society.

The idea of discovering the scientific basis behind

these yogic processes became his life's work.
Yoga Mimamsa

In 1924, Kuvalayananda founded the

Kaivalyadhama Health and Yoga Research Center in
Lonavla in order to provide a laboratory for his scientific
study of Yoga.

At the same time, he also started the first scientific

journal devoted to scientific investigation into yoga,
Yoga Mimamsa.

The Sanskrit word mimamsa means "investigation."

Yoga Mimamsa, has been published quarterly every year
since its founding and is scheduled to be indexed by
EBSCO in 2012.
In Yoga Mimamsa, Swami Kuvalayananda and others
published the first scientific experiments on yogic
techniques, such as the effect of asana, shatkarma,
bandhas, and pranayama on humans.

These experiments impressed some Western researchers

who came to the
Kaivalyadhama Health and Yoga Research Center to
learn more.

Dr. Josephine Rathbone, a professor of health and

physical education, visited from Columbia University in
1928.
K.T. Behanan, a doctoral candidate from Yale University,
wrote his dissertation on yoga after visiting in the late
1930's.

In 1957, the physicians Wenger, from the

University of California, and Bagchi, from the
University of Michigan, spent a month and a half working
there. Research and collaboration continues to this day.

Besides his yoga research, Swami Kuvalayananda was a

tireless promotor of his causes, and he spent much of his
later years opening up new branches of Kaivalyadhama
and enhancing the main Kaivalyadhama campus in
Lonavla.
In 1932, he opened the Mumbai branch of Kaivalyadhama at
Santacruz.

It was relocated to Marine Drive (Chowpatty) in 1936, and

named the Ishvardas Chunnilal Yogic Health Center. Its
mandate is the prevention and cure of various diseases
through Yoga.

In this same period, at Kanakesvara near Alibaug, a

Kaivalyadhama Spiritual Center in Colaba was opened.
In 1943, he opened another branch of Kaivalyadhama in
Rajkot, Saurashtra, with spiritual practices as its main focus.
In 1944 at Lonavla, the Kaivalyadhama Shriman
Madhava Yoga Mandir Samiti was founded to pursue
scientific and literary research in Yoga

The Gordhandas Seksaria College of Yoga and Cultural

Synthesis was established in 1951 at Lonavla to prepare
young people spiritually and intellectually for selfless
service to humanity.

In 1961, he opened the Srimati Amolak Devi Tirathram

Gupta Yogic Hospital for the treatment of chronic
functional disorders with the help of Yogic techniques.