While under the patronage of the King of Mysore, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV, Krishnamacharya traveled around India giving lectures and demonstrations to promote yoga, including such feats as apparently stopping his heartbeat.

"[9] While he is revered in other parts of the world as a yogi, in India Krishnamacharya is mainly known as a healer who drew from both ayurvedic and yogic traditions to restore health and well-being to those he treated.

[12][13] Krishnamacharya was born on 18 November 1888 in Muchukundapura, in the Chitradurga district of present-day Karnataka, in South India, to an orthodox Telugu[14] Iyengar family.

He then began learning to speak and write Sanskrit, from texts such as the Amarakosha and to chant the Vedas under the strict tutelage of his father.

[15] Krishnamacharya spent much of his youth traveling through India studying the six darśana or Indian philosophies: vaiśeṣika, nyāya, sāṃkhya, yoga, mīmāṃsā and vedānta.

[17] In 1906, at the age of eighteen, Krishnamacharya left Mysore to attend university at Banaras, also known as Vārānasī, a city of hundreds of temples and a highly regarded North Indian center of traditional learning.

In order to eat, he followed the rules that were laid down for religious beggars: he was to approach only seven households each day and offer a prayer "in return for wheat flour to mix with water for cakes".

[20] Krishnamacharya eventually left Queens College to study the ṣaḍdarśana (six darshanas) in Vedic philosophy at Patna University, in Bihar, a state in eastern India.

[23] Mark Singleton and Tara Fraser note that he provided contradictory descriptions of the facts of his own life, sometimes denying tales he had told earlier, and sometimes mischievously[24] adding new versions.

After two and a half months of walking, Krishnamacharya arrived at Sri Brahmachari's school, supposedly a cave at the foot of Mount Kailash, where the master lived with his wife and three children.

It was after a lecture on the Upanishads in Mysore town hall in 1931 that he attracted the attention as a learned scholar that eventually led to his employment at the palace.

[29] In 1926, the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV (1884–1940) was in Varanasi to celebrate his mother's 60th birthday and heard about Krishnamacharya's learning and skill as a yoga therapist.

These included suspending his pulse, stopping cars with his bare hands, performing difficult asanas, and lifting heavy objects with his teeth.

[6] The Palace archive records show that the Maharaja was interested in the promotion of yoga and continually sent Krishnamacharya around the country to give lectures and demonstrations.

[36] Mark Singleton argues that he was influenced by the 20th century yoga pioneers Yogendra and Kuvalayananda, and that all three "seamlessly incorporate[d] elements of physical culture into their systems of 'yoga'.

"[7] Krishnamacharya, unlike earlier yoga gurus such as Yogendra, "severely criticized his students" including his young brother-in-law, B. K. S.

In the view of the historian of yoga Elliott Goldberg, Iyengar "would never recover from or anywhere near comprehend the damage inflicted on him by Krishnamacharya's abuse" during his teenage years.

His nephew and successor, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974), less interested in yoga, no longer provided support for publishing texts and sending teams of teachers to surrounding areas.

[6][42] Many considered Krishnamacharya a yoga master, but he continued to call himself a student because he felt that he was always "studying, exploring and experimenting" with the practice.

[46] Once a person began seeing Krishnamacharya, he would work with him or her on a number of levels including adjusting their diet; creating herbal medicines; and setting up a series of yoga postures that would be most beneficial.

[54] Krishnamacharya's students included many of 20th century yoga's most renowned and influential teachers: Indra Devi; K. Pattabhi Jois; B. K. S. Iyengar; T. K. V. Desikachar; Srivatsa Ramaswami; and A. G. Mohan (born 1945).

His scholarship in various darshanas of orthodox Indian philosophy earned him titles such as Sāṃkhya-yoga-śikhāmaṇi, Mīmāṃsā-ratna, Mīmāṃsā-thīrtha, Nyāyācārya, Vedāntavāgīśa, Veda-kesari and Yogācārya.