Vivekananda
His 1896 book effectively created the modern export version of yoga and installed a previously obscure scholastic text as its canonical scripture — a single figure's presentation shaped how an entire tradition would be understood by English-speaking readers for the following century.
Vivekananda's address to the World's Parliament of Religions (11 September 1893); Raja Yoga (1896)
Indian monk whose 1893 address in Chicago introduced yoga to the West as a universal spiritual psychology rather than a specific religious practice.