Hearthospital at 10:11, 27 March 2026

2026-03-27T10:11:44Z

New page

{{Short description|Yoga teacher of Hollywood stars}}
{{good article}}
{{Use Indian English|date=June 2016}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2016}}
{{Infobox person
|name = Indra Devi
|image = Yoga For Americans (Indra Devi album - cover art).jpg
|caption = Indra Devi, upper left, in her distinctive [[sari]];{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=179}} 1963 album cover
|birth_name = Eugenie Peterson
|birth_date = 12 May 1899
|birth_place = [[Riga]], Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire
|death_date = 25 April 2002 (aged 102)
|death_place = [[Buenos Aires]], Argentina
|known_for = Bringing yoga to [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]]<br/>Yoga for stress relief
|occupation = Yoga teacher
|spouse = Jan Strakaty (1930–1946; his death)<br/>Sigfrid Knauer (1953–1984; his death)
|website = [http://www.fundacion-indra-devi.org Official webpage] (in Spanish)
}}

'''Eugenie Peterson''' ({{langx|lv|Eiženija Pētersone}}, {{langx|ru|Евгения Васильевна Петерсон|'''Yevgeniya Vasilyevna Peterson'''}};{{Family name footnote|Vasilyevna|Peterson|lang=Eastern Slavic}} 12 May 1899 – 25 April 2002),<ref>{{cite news |last=Aboy |first=Adriana |title=Indra Devi's Legacy |publisher=[[Hinduism Today]]|year=2002 |url=https://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=3846 |access-date=2008-09-13}}</ref> known as '''Indra Devi''', was a pioneering teacher of [[yoga as exercise]], and an early disciple of the "father of modern yoga",<ref>{{cite web |last1=Mohan |first1=A. G. |author1-link=A. G. Mohan |last2=Mohan |first2=Ganesh |date=5 April 2017 |orig-year=2009 |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2590 |title=Memories of a Master |work=[[Yoga Journal]]}}</ref> [[Tirumalai Krishnamacharya]].

She went to India in her twenties, becoming a film star there and acquiring the stage name Indra Devi. She was the first woman to study under the yoga [[guru]] [[Tirumalai Krishnamacharya|Krishnamacharya]] at the Mysore Palace, alongside [[B. K. S. Iyengar|B.K.S Iyengar]] and [[K. Pattabhi Jois]] who went on to become [[Modern yoga gurus|yoga gurus]]. Moving to China, she taught the first yoga classes in that country at the house of [[Soong Mei-ling]], wife of [[Chiang Kai-shek]].

Her popularization of [[yoga in America]] through her many celebrity pupils in [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]], and her books advocating yoga for stress relief, earned her the nickname "first lady of yoga". Her biographer, [[Michelle Goldberg]], wrote that Devi "planted the seeds for the yoga boom of the 1990s".{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|p=271}}

==Early years==

Eugenie "Zhenya" Peterson was born on 12 May 1899 in [[Riga]] in the [[Russian Empire]] (now Latvia), to Vasili Peterson, a [[Sweden|Swedish]] bank director, and Aleksandra Labunskaya, a [[Russians|Russian]] noblewoman who acted at the Nezlobina Theatre. Eugenie was given a [[Russian Orthodox]] baptism. She went to high school in [[Saint Petersburg]], graduating with a gold medal in 1917. She briefly attended drama school in [[Moscow]]. In the [[Russian Revolution]], her father served as an army officer and went [[missing in action]] in the civil war. Eugenie and her mother escaped to Latvia as the [[Bolsheviks]] came to power in 1917, losing the family fortune; in 1920 they moved to Poland, and in 1921 to Berlin, where she became an actress and dancer.<ref>{{cite news |last=MacVean |first=Mary |title=Michelle Goldberg's book 'The Goddess Pose' paints vivid picture of yoga pioneer Indra Devi|url=https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-summer-books-goldberg-20150531-story.html |journal=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=28 May 2015 |access-date=18 April 2020}}</ref><ref name=NYT/><ref name="Witt 2016">{{cite news |last=Witt |first=Emily |author-link=Emily Witt |title=The Goddess Pose by Michelle Goldberg review – the strange story of how yoga became popular |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/27/goddess-pose-michelle-goldberg-review-yoga-popular |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=27 May 2016 |access-date=18 April 2020}}</ref>{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|pp=338-339}}{{sfn|Fedorov|2010}}

In 1926, attracted by a notice in a bookshop in [[Tallinn]], she went to hear [[Jiddu Krishnamurti]] at a [[Theosophical Society]] meeting in  the Netherlands;{{sfn|Fedorov|2010}} his chanting of Sanskrit [[mantra]]s around a campfire had a powerful effect on her. She later said "It seemed to me, I was hearing a forgotten call, familiar, but distant. From that day everything in me turned upside down."{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|pp=338–339}}

==Career==

===India===

Devi's fascination with India began at 15 when she read a book by poet-philosopher [[Rabindranath Tagore]] and a yoga instruction book by [[Yogi Ramacharaka]]. In Berlin, she worked as an actor in ''[[The Blue Bird (play)|The Blue Bird]]'', touring Europe, and accepted a proposal of marriage from the banker Herman Bolm, on condition she could first go to India; he agreed and paid for the trip. She set off on 17 November 1927, crossing India from south to north, wearing a [[sari]] for the first time, sitting on the floor and eating with her fingers. She came back three months later, a changed woman, speaking only of India, and returned Bolm's engagement ring. She soon went back to India, selling her valuables to pay for the trip. At the [[Theosophical Society Adyar|Theosophical Society in Adyar]] (Madras, now [[Chennai]]), dancing "an Indian temple dance", she met [[Jawaharlal Nehru]], starting a long-term friendship, and the [[Indian cinema|Indian film]] director Bhagwati Mishra, who gave her a part in ''Sher-e-Arab'' (Arabian Knight): the 1930 premiere made her a film star in India, under a new stage name, Indra Devi.{{sfn|Fedorov|2010}}<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Rolfe |first=Lionel |title=Indra Devi was not just a nice old lady |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/lionel-rolfe/indra-devi-was-not-just-a_b_7078842.html |journal=[[Huffington Post]] |date=17 April 2015 |access-date=18 April 2020}}</ref>{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|p=340}} In 1930, she married Jan Strakaty, a commercial attache to the [[Czechoslovakia|Czechoslovak]] consulate in [[Bombay]], and for some years lived as a society hostess there.<ref name=NYT/>{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=182}}

She became interested in yoga, Nepal's prince Mussoorie showing her some asanas,{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=182}}{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|pp=341–342}} and she was impressed by the yoga [[guru]] [[Tirumalai Krishnamacharya|Krishnamacharya]]'s demonstration of apparently stopping his heart.{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=182}} She asked to study with him; in 1938, he reluctantly accepted her as a student after his employer, the [[Maharaja of Mysore]], spoke on her behalf. She was obliged to keep to the strict vegetarian diet and the monastic hours, with lights out at 9pm. She was the first foreign woman among his students in the yogasala in the Mysore Palace, studying alongside [[B. K. S. Iyengar|B.K.S Iyengar]] and [[K. Pattabhi Jois]] who went on to become world-famous yoga teachers.<ref name=NYT>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/30/world/indra-devi-102-dies-taught-yoga-to-stars-and-leaders.html |title=Indra Devi, 102, Dies; Taught Yoga to Stars and Leaders |last=Martin |first=Douglas |date=2002-04-30 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=2019-04-05}}</ref>{{sfn|Fedorov|2010}}{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|pp=342–345}} When she was leaving India to follow her husband to China, Krishnamacharya asked her to work as a yoga teacher there.<ref name=NYT/>

===China===

In 1939, she held what are believed to be the first yoga classes in China and opened a school in Shanghai at the house of [[Soong Mei-ling]], wife of the nationalist leader [[Chiang Kai-shek]], and a [[yoga as exercise]] enthusiast.<ref name=NYT/>{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|pp=345-346}}
The classes began with 20 minutes of relaxation in [[shavasana]], followed by [[Setu Bandha Sarvangasana|bridge]], [[Sarvangasana|shoulderstand]], gentle backbends such as [[Bhujangasana|cobra pose]], [[lotus position]] (including leaning right forward into [[Yogamudrasana]]), and [[Shirshasana|headstand]], against a wall for beginners.{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|pp=135-136}} There were many Americans and Russians among her pupils; she also taught free classes in orphanages. More and more people began to call her [[Mataji]], which means "respected mother".{{sfn|Fedorov|2010}}<ref>{{cite news |last=Abernethy |first=Susan |url=https://www.amazingwomeninhistory.com/indra-devi-mother-of-western-yoga/|title=Indra Devi, Mother of Western Yoga - Amazing Women In History |date=2012-10-02 |work=Amazing Women In History |access-date=2018-05-08}}</ref>

===India and China===

Her husband died unexpectedly in 1946,<ref name=NYT/> and Devi returned to India, arriving in Bombay as the [[British Raj]] was coming to an end. She was hosted by the [[maharajah]] of [[Tehri Garhwal]] at [[Ananda–In the Himalayas|his palace in the Himalayas]]. She was hoping to stay in [[Kashmir]] to teach yoga in a centre to be run by the Cambodian monk [[Bellong Mahathera]], but her mother called her back to Shanghai, where Devi's house was being requisitioned by the army in the [[Chinese Civil War]]. Devi arrived there in time to sell many of her possessions before the house was taken over. She claimed later that she had wanted to return to India, but she obtained a United States visa, and sailed on the troopship [[USS General W. H. Gordon|USS ''General W. H. Gordon'']] to San Francisco at the end of 1947.{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|pp=149-155}}

===United States===
[[File:Indra anne harry.jpg|thumb|(left to right) [[Harry Lehrer]], Jean R. Miller, [[Anne T. Hill]], Indra Devi in Los Angeles in 1965]]
{{further|Yoga in America}}

In California, assisted by her experience as a diplomat's wife with a patrician manner and the natural confidence of the wealthy, she met the author and philosopher [[Aldous Huxley]] and Krishnamurti, giving her access to spiritually-inclined Americans; an especially valuable contact was the diet and health guru [[Paul Bragg]], who advised film and stage stars. In 1948 she opened a yoga studio at 8806 [[Sunset Boulevard]] in Hollywood, the first in Los Angeles; she had a distinctive style and appearance, as she normally wore a sari.<ref name=NYT/>{{sfn|Syman|2010|pp=179-184}}{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|pp=348-363}}{{sfn|Fedorov|2010}} Her friends Magaña and Walt Baptiste opened a yoga school in San Francisco in 1952; she became godmother to their son Baron Baptiste, who went on to found [[Baron Baptiste Power Yoga]].<ref name="Baptiste 2018">{{cite web |last1=Baptiste |first1=Baron |title=How Baron Baptiste Grew Up on Yoga—& Eventually Got Into the Family Business |work=Yoga Journal |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/how-baron-baptiste-grew-up-on-yoga-got-into-the-family-business |publisher=[[Yoga Journal]] |date=30 January 2018 |access-date=18 April 2020}}</ref>

Devi taught her own form of [[hatha yoga]], with [[asanas]] (postures) and [[pranayama]] (breath control); she avoided spiritual teaching, which she preferred to leave to yoga gurus.{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=180}} Her teaching style was in [[Stefanie Syman]]'s words "gentle and even relaxing".{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=181}} She was almost immediately successful in attracting leading stars, including men as well as women; Syman notes that "she could charm the pants off men".{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=181}}{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|pp=339}} Elliott Goldberg gives a different explanation for her success, attributing it to her packaging of [[yoga for women]] as a "beauty secret, youth elixir, and health tonic".{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|p=352}} More generally, in his view, Devi saw [[Yoga as therapy|yoga as a remedy]] for anxiety and stress, noting that this [[yoga as exercise|transformed yoga]] from something that dissolved the ego to something that strengthened it, because, he commented, Americans did want to change "but not all that much".{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|pp=349-357}} Devi's advocacy of yoga for stress relief contributed, in Goldberg's view, to the widespread acceptance of [[yoga in America]], and earned her the nickname "first lady of yoga".{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|pp=354, 363}}

She taught yoga to many celebrities including [[Greta Garbo]], [[Eva Gabor]], and [[Gloria Swanson]].{{efn|But not [[Marilyn Monroe]], contrary to popular belief. While Monroe did own her bestselling<ref name="Schrank 2014">{{cite journal |last1=Schrank |first1=Sarah |title=American Yoga: The Shaping of Modern Body Culture in the United States |journal=American Studies |date=2014 |volume=53 |issue=1 |pages=169–182 |doi=10.1353/ams.2014.0021 |s2cid=144698814 |url=https://journals.ku.edu/amerstud/article/view/4730 |url-access=subscription |archive-date=28 April 2019 |access-date=28 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428175459/https://journals.ku.edu/amerstud/article/view/4730 |url-status=dead }}</ref> book ''Forever Young, Forever Healthy'', there is no proof that the two women met. A popular photo that shows [[Eva Gabor]] training with Devi in 1960 is commonly mistaken for Monroe. Monroe posed for glamour photographs in postures close to [[Navasana]] and [[Dhanurasana]], but again there is no evidence that she learnt these from yoga rather than Western gymnastics.{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=187}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Photographs of Marilyn Monroe doing yoga |url=https://dangerousminds.net/comments/photographs_of_marilyn_monroe_doing_yoga |website=Dangerous Minds |date=28 June 2016 |access-date=12 November 2019}}</ref>}} Also among her students were [[Ramon Novarro]], [[Robert Ryan]], [[Yul Brynner]], [[Jennifer Jones]], and the violinist [[Yehudi Menuhin]], who brought Iyengar to the West.<ref name=NYT/>{{sfn|Fedorov|2010}}

Her books, including the 1953 ''Forever Young, Forever Healthy'' and the 1959 ''Yoga for Americans'' described a gentle, relaxing style of yoga using a small number of asanas,{{efn|Devi taught only 12 asanas, apart from [[Surya Namaskar]] (Sun Salutation); they included [[Bhujangasana]], [[Viparita Karani]], [[Lotus pose]], [[Yogamudrasana]] and [[Shirshasana]].{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|pp=358-359}}}} practised slowly.{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|pp=358-359}} Devi's biographer, [[Michelle Goldberg]], describes ''Yoga for Americans'' as having "a chipper, secular practicality perfectly calibrated for [[Eisenhower]]'s America."{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|pp=184-185}} Devi introduced the book as of value to artists, "businessmen and sportsmen, models and housewives"{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|pp=184-185}} and office workers. Menuhin wrote the foreword. The two books were "an enormous success",{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|pp=184-185}} and were translated into languages including French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|pp=184-185}}

In 1953 Devi married the German [[Anthroposophic medicine|anthroposophical physician]] Sigfrid Knauer. In the mid-1950s she was granted American citizenship and changed her legal name to Indra Devi.<ref name=NYT/>{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|p=176}} In 1960 she visited the USSR, seeing Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad) for the first time in 40 years, and meeting the government ministers [[Andrei Gromyko]] and [[Alexei Kosygin]] at the Indian ambassador's reception at the Sovetskaya Hotel.{{sfn|Fedorov|2010}} Devi released several vinyl records, including ''Yoga for Americans'' (1965) and ''Indra Devi presents Concentration & Meditation'' (1965).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Borgerson |first1=Janet |title=Designed for success: better living and self-improvement with midcentury instructional records |last2=Schroeder |first2=Jonathan E. |date=2024 |publisher=The MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-04883-5 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts}}</ref> She later recorded several instructional talks on yoga, including "Renew Your Life with Yoga."<ref>{{cite book |last=Devi |first=Indra |title=Renew Your Life with Yoga (Audio CD) |publisher=Audio-Forum |date=2007|id={{ASIN|1579704794|country=uk}} }}</ref>

===Latin America===

In 1961, Knauer bought Devi a large [[ranch]] near [[Tecate]] in Mexico; she opened the Indra Devi Foundation there. From 1966, she became close to the Hindu guru [[Sathya Sai Baba]],{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|p=361}} and she travelled often from Tecate to [[Bangalore]] and [[Puttaparthi]]. She closed the Tecate operation in 1977 and moved with her very ill husband to Bangalore. In 1984 she and Knauer made a trip to Sri Lanka, where he died.{{sfn|Elliott Goldberg|2016|p=363}}{{sfn|Fedorov|2010}}

In 1985 she moved to [[Argentina]]. In 1987 she was elected president of honour of the International Yoga Federation, and of the Latin American Union of Yoga under the presidency of Swami Maitreyananda at [[Montevideo]], [[Uruguay]].<ref>{{cite web |title=History |url=https://www.internationalyogafederation.net/history.html |publisher=International Yoga Federation |access-date=13 November 2019}}</ref> She died in [[Buenos Aires]] in 2002.<ref name=NYT/>

==Legacy==
{{further|Yoga as exercise|Yoga for women}}
Biographer Michelle Goldberg comments that for most of her life, Devi's "only goal" was to bring yoga to the West, and when it became "a ubiquitous part of cosmopolitan urban culture, signifier of a lifestyle at once wholesome and sexy"{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|pp=270-271}} in the 1990s, she had certainly succeeded, even if the new yoga is "much more vigorous than the style she taught".{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|pp=270-271}}

Yoga remains, Goldberg writes, as Devi had made it, [[Yoga for women|a predominantly female pursuit]], despite the energetic workouts of [[Power Yoga]]; she created the link in the Western mind between yoga and [[organic food]], "holistic spas, and biodynamic beauty products".{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|pp=272-273}} Goldberg also notes that [[Yoga_as_exercise#Differences|yoga in the West]] is "a hybrid culture", with "an immense gulf between the limber young women in [[Lululemon]] yoga gear ... and the ash-smeared half-naked yogins .. on the banks of the Ganges".{{sfn|Michelle Goldberg|2016|pp=273-274}}

==Works==

* {{cite book | last=Devi | first=Indra | title=Forever Young, Forever Healthy: Simplified Yoga for Modern Living | publisher=Prentice-Hall | year=1953 |oclc=652377847 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last=Devi | first=Indra | title=Yoga For Americans: A Complete 6 Week Course for Home Practice | publisher=Prentice-Hall | year=1959 | oclc=779004518 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last=Devi | first=Indra | title=Renew your life through yoga. The Indra Devi method for relaxation through rhythmic breathing | publisher=Prentice-Hall | year=1963 |oclc=877363243 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | last=Devi | first=Indra | title=Una mujer de tres siglos | publisher=Sudmericana | location=Buenos Aires | year=2000 | isbn=978-950-07-1726-7 | oclc=48372297 | language=es | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/unamujerdetressi0000devi |ref=none}}

== See also ==

* [[Yoga in Russia]]
* [[Yoga in the United States]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist|26em}}

==Sources==

* {{cite journal |last1=Fedorov |first1=Anton |title=Поставившая мир на голову |language=ru |trans-title=Turn the world on its head |journal=[[Vokrug sveta]] |date=1 October 2010 |issue=October 2010}} An [https://www.wildyogi.info/en/issue/one-who-put-world-head authorised English version of the article] is available on the Wild Yogi website.
* {{cite book | last=Goldberg | first=Elliott | title=The Path of Modern Yoga : the history of an embodied spiritual practice |title-link=The Path of Modern Yoga | publisher=Inner Traditions | location=Rochester, Vermont | year=2016 | isbn=978-1-62055-567-5 |pages=338–363 | ref={{harvid|Elliott Goldberg|2016}}}}
* {{cite book | last=Goldberg | first=Michelle | author-link=Michelle Goldberg | title=The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, The Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West | publisher=Corsair | location=London | year=2016 | orig-year=2015 | isbn=978-1-4721-5204-6 | oclc=927383820 |ref={{harvid|Michelle Goldberg|2016}}}}
* {{cite book |first=Stefanie |last=Syman |title=The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America |title-link=The Subtle Body |year=2010 |publisher=Farrar, Straus, and Giroux |location=New York |isbn=978-0-374-23676-2 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/subtlebodystoryo0000syma/page/179 179-197]}}

{{Yoga as exercise}}
{{Modern Yoginis}}

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Devi, Indra}}
[[Category:1899 births]]
[[Category:2002 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American educators]]
[[Category:20th-century American women educators]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian educators]]
[[Category:20th-century Russian women educators]]
[[Category:American emigrants to Argentina]]
[[Category:American people of Russian descent]]
[[Category:American people of Swedish descent]]
[[Category:American women centenarians]]
[[Category:American yoga teachers]]
[[Category:Argentine women centenarians]]
[[Category:Converts to Hinduism from Eastern Orthodoxy]]
[[Category:Converts to Hinduism]]
[[Category:Former Eastern Orthodox Christians from Russia]]
[[Category:Modern yoga pioneers]]
[[Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States]]
[[Category:People from Riga county]]
[[Category:People from Riga]]
[[Category:Russian women centenarians]]
[[Category:Soviet emigrants to the United States]]

Indra Devi - Revision history

Hearthospital at 10:11, 27 March 2026