A Teacher
I.K. Taimni
Chemistry professor who rendered Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras for modern minds.
The transmission
Iqbal Kishen Taimni was an Indian professor of chemistry at Allahabad University and an influential scholar of yoga and Indian philosophy. Born in Lucknow, he earned a doctorate in inorganic chemistry from London University in 1928 and joined the Theosophical Society in Allahabad in 1919. He combined a scientific career with deep study of Eastern metaphysics.
What they gave
His best-known work, The Science of Yoga (1961), is a translation and commentary on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras still widely used today, and he authored many further books on Hindu and Theosophical philosophy.
The line they stand in
A long-serving member of the Theosophical Society who headed its Esoteric School, he interpreted classical yoga within the Theosophical framework.