Sharath Jois, the yoga master who garnered legions of followers by teaching Ashtanga, the popular style of yoga founded by his grandfather, died on Monday in Virginia. He was 53.
His death was confirmed by his sister, Sharmila Mahesh, and John Bultman, the yoga program manager at the University of Virginia. Mr. Bultman said that Mr. Jois had died after suffering a heart attack on a hiking trail near the university’s campus in Charlottesville, where he was visiting.
Mr. Jois’s workshops, in his hometown in India and worldwide, were attended by thousands of disciples seeking a direct experience with the leader of the Ashtanga yoga tradition, which involves a demanding series of postures and dynamic movements. Rooted in Sanskrit and Hindu rituals, Ashtanga yoga is widely viewed today as one of the most accessible forms of exercise.
His grandfather Krishna Pattabhi Jois helped lift yoga to soaring levels of popularity in the 1990s, drawing a global following that included celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna. Ashtanga, which is more physically arduous than other forms of yoga, later came into vogue in India with the arrival of modern fitness culture there.
After inheriting his grandfather’s practice, Mr. Jois began calling himself the “Paramaguru,” which translates to “lineage holder.” In Mysore, a city in southern India known as the home of Ashtanga, he was referred to simply as the “boss,” and the workshops he taught there filled up with devotees within moments of opening.
“The crowd was growing every year,” Isha Singh Sawhney, who cowrote Mr. Jois’s 2018 book, “Ageless: A Yogi’s Secrets to a Long and Healthy Life,” said in an interview. “He was an excellent yoga teacher, one of the best.”
Mr. Jois had been scheduled to lead workshops in San Antonio, Sydney and Dubai in the coming months and was preparing to write a second book, according to his Instagram page.
On a typical day, Mr. Jois would awake at about 1 a.m. to train before starting to teach around noon, eating just a small bowl of oats and sometimes a “huge green smoothie,” Ms. Sawhney said. Ashtanga, unlike some other styles of yoga, also involves profuse sweating.
“You’re pushing your body to a limit,” she said. “He had insane stamina.”
As the steward of his grandfather’s legacy, Mr. Jois passed on his teachings while walking back some of his methods, including what some students had called inappropriate touching. In 2019, he expressed sorrow for any pain caused by his grandfather’s “improper adjustments” during yoga sessions and asked for forgiveness.
On Monday, Mr. Jois had taught a low-intensity version of Ashtanga yoga that he had recently developed, called the “Active Series,” to instructors from around the world at a seminar at the University of Virginia, Mr. Bultman said.
That afternoon, he went on a hike with about 50 students at Humpback Rocks, about a half-hour from campus. Appearing fatigued, Mr. Jois was trailing the group when he sat on a bench about a third of a mile into the trail, and later fell off it, Mr. Bultman said.
Students’ attempts to revive him using CPR failed, and he was pronounced dead moments after emergency medical workers arrived.
Besides his sister, Mr. Jois is survived by his mother, Saraswathi; his wife, Shruti, whom he married in 1996; a daughter, Shraddha; a son, Sambhav; and his brother, Shardh, Ms. Mahesh said.
Sharath Jois was born Rangaswamy Sharath on Sept. 29, 1971, in Mysore. Along with his maternal grandfather who was known as the founder of Ashtanga, his mother was a yoga teacher. His father, Rangaswami, was an engineer.
Mr. Jois was a “sickly child” growing up, he wrote in “Ageless.” He had tonsillitis, fevers and infections and was diagnosed with rheumatic fever at age 11. Because of his illness, doctors forbade him from riding bicycles, and he abandoned his hopes of a career in cricket.
Learning simple poses from his grandfather, he said, helped strengthen his body.
“It’s amazing that such little effort helped me get over the illness and weakness that had caught hold of my body,” he wrote in the book.
When he became stronger, Sharath began formal tutelage in yoga. His grandfather took him and his sister to his shala, or yoga studio, every day after school.
While the instruction was initially against his will — Sharath wanted to play cricket with other boys in his neighborhood — yoga soon became part of his daily routine. He was 17 when he first taught Ashtanga yoga at his mother’s shala while she was out of the country. At 19, he began assisting his grandfather while pursuing a degree in electronics.
“I had the time, I had the passion, I had the best Ashtanga teacher, and even then I found it very challenging,” he wrote.
Mr. Jois got a job at an electronics company, but his grandmother encouraged him to turn it down and commit to training with his grandfather. In 1997, the year she died, he started following his grandfather around the world on teaching tours.
“Around this time yoga, and Ashtanga Yoga specifically, started gaining popularity at a phenomenal pace,” he wrote.
Mr. Jois took over his grandfather’s yoga institute in 2007. After his grandfather died two years later, he renamed the organization in his honor as the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute. Later, his mother became its leader, and Mr. Jois set up his own company, Sharath Yoga Center.
By that time, he had become a successful businessman, going on more frequent teaching tours, Ms. Sawhney said. When not traveling, he spent time at home in Mysore and took nature photographs.
News of his death shocked his followers, many of whom wondered who would carry on the Ashtanga tradition. While Mr. Jois was widely admired by his students, he was not interested in the adulation.
“He didn’t want to be this god figure,” Ms. Sawhney said. “He just wanted to teach yoga and spread the message of yoga.”