BKS Iyengar is now 95, and has been teaching and doing yoga for his entire life. He is largely credited with bringing Krishnamacharya’s yoga to the west and popularizing yoga there. He had to work through great hardship in his yoga teaching because of biases and prejudices against the art of yoga. His contribution to the world through yoga is immeasurable; he has helped countless people to find inner peace and the self through yoga. This is probably the greatest step towards collective peace in the past few decades.
Iyengar created his own type of Ashtanga yoga, but has also been extraordinarily helpful in using props to assist disabled people, after he was injured in an accident. His yoga is about precision and alignment in poses and he revolutionized the way that thousands, if not millions of people across the world practice yoga. Iyengar is also very involved with Patanjali’s work, continuing the tradition of the 8 limbs of yoga and publishing multiple books on Patanjali’s yoga sutras.
Overall, I think Iyengar has had a monumental effect on the modern world. He has popularized one of the most versatile forms of exercise and meditation and made it accessible for westerners. He deserves to win the nobel, and at 95 it would pretty much be icing on the cake for Iyengar.