'My arms were thin, my legs were spindly, and my stomach protruded in an ungainly manner' he wrote. Throughout his childhood, he struggled with malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and general malnutrition. Iyengar's home town, Bellur, was in the grip of the influenza pandemic at the time of his birth, and an attack of that disease left the young boy sickly and weak for many years. Four years later, the 9-year-old boy lost his father to appendicitis. When Iyengar was five years old, his family moved to Bangalore. He was the 11th of 13 children (10 of whom survived) born to Sri Krishnamachar, a school teacher, and Sheshamma.

Iyengar was born into a poor Sri Vaishnava Iyengar family in Bellur, Kolar district, Karnataka, India. In 2004, Iyengar was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. The Indian government awarded Iyengar the Padma Shri in 1991, the Padma Bhushan in 2002, and the Padma Vibhushan in 2014. He has been credited with popularizing yoga, first in India and then around the world. Iyengar was one of the earliest students of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who is often referred to as 'the father of modern yoga'. He was the author of many books on yoga practice and philosophy including Light on Yoga, Light on Pranayama, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and Light on Life. He is founder of the style of yoga as exercise, known as ' Iyengar Yoga', and was considered one of the foremost yoga gurus in the world. Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar (14 December 1918 – 20 August 2014) was an Indian teacher of yoga and author.

Light on yoga by bks iyengar