Kumari Wahalathanthri

A life in practice

The quieter public life

She is not a film star. There is no encyclopaedia entry. Kumari Wahalathanthri's public life is the work itself — a Sri Lankan yoga therapist and trainer who has taught in hospitals, workplaces, schools and open parks for well over twelve years.

As Principal of the Ashtanga Yoga Lanka Academy she carries a classical eight-limbed lineage: training, workshops, and the slow discipline of breath bound to movement. In collaboration with Vishva Niketan International Peace & Meditation Centre she offers mindful yoga and relaxation — including programmes for expectant mothers and parents — treating the body as a site of peace rather than performance.

On 9 October 2024, iTV SriLanka's Rising Lady sat with her for forty-five minutes. Around that portrait sits a smaller cinema: Sinhala lessons recorded with Wish Fertility Hospital, where the card names her as a registered yoga instructor and counselling instructor; and films from her own classes, in the yellow shirts of Ashtanga Yoga Lanka.

Kumari, in Sanskrit and Sinhala, means maiden — or princess. The name is common. The practice is particular.

The practice

Ashtanga Yoga Lanka

අෂ්ටාංග යෝග ලංකා ඇකඩමිය

The academy is a hall of corrugated light and yellow cloth. Students hold vrksasana in a line. From that room she takes the same breath into tiled workplaces, a parking-lot asana class, and a park with a small Buddha and a bowl of flowers.

For well over twelve years the teaching has moved through six rooms: the health industry, industrial and commercial institutions, universities and schools, rehabilitation institutes, public television and YouTube, and open classes and events.

Photographs from her classes — the shala, the workplace, the outdoor line. Not still-lifes. The work as it is done.

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