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Theosophy and the Origins of the Indian National Congress
by Mark Bevir
Department of Political Science
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[E-mail: mbevir@socrates.berkeley.edu]

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ABSTRACT

A study of the role of theosophy in the formation of the Indian National Congress enhances our understanding of the relationship between neo-Hinduism and political nationalism. Theosophy, and neo-Hinduism more generally, provided western-educated Hindus with a discourse within which to develop their political aspirations in a way that met western notions of legitimacy. It gave them confidence in themselves, experience of organisation, and clear intellectual commitments, and it brought them together with liberal Britons within an all-India framework. It provided the background against which A. O. Hume worked with younger nationalists to found the Congress.

KEYWORDS: Blavatsky, Hinduism, A. O. Hume, India, nationalism, theosophy.

THEOSOPHY AND THE ORIGINS OF THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS1

The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885. Throughout much of the preceding century, a variety of organisations had striven to initiate reform among the religions of the sub-continent. The Brahmo Sabha, the Arya Samaj, the Theosophical Society, and other groups, had developed broadly similar doctrines and practices which can be described as neo-Hinduism (Bharati 1970; Jones 1989). What was the relationship of this neo-Hinduism to political nationalism? I want to explore this question by focusing on the role played by one expression of neo-Hinduism, namely theosophy, in the formation of the Indian National Congress. In doing so, I hope to highlight a neglected aspect of the role of western concepts of eastern societies within eastern societies themselves. Recent studies of indology emphasise the way western conceptualisations of India undermined the ability of Indians to govern themselves by ascribing reason and authority to their colonial rulers (Inden 1990). However, in so far as indology legitimised British rule by ascribing certain characteristics to the west, it also made it possible for Indians to legitimise their political aspirations by ascribing these characteristics to themselves. Western-educated Indians were not slow to represent classical Hinduism and traditional Indian society as rational, scientific, and moral, even as having a desirable spiritual dimension the west lacked (Bharati 1970; Killingley 1995). Moreover, a number of western occultists and radicals adopted a similar view of the superiority of ancient India as a critique of their religious and social traditions.2 Crucially, both western-educated Indians and western occultists sometimes used their vision of ancient India, and the organisations through which they promoted it, to advance the political cause of Indian nationalism.3

In what follows, therefore, I will explore the appeal of theosophy both to British people who were discontented with their civilisation, and to western-educated Indians looking for a way of legitimising their culture in the face of the challenge of the west. Moreover, when exploring its appeal to western-educated Indians, I also will argue its doctrines and the nature of its appeal give us good reason to regard it as part of the broader neo-Hindu movement. Having thus established that theosophy was a part of the neo-Hindu movement, I will go on to use a study of theosophy to illustrate the contribution of neo-Hinduism to Indian nationalism. I will explore the way in which British and Indian theosophists were able to use theosophy both indirectly and directly to promote the formation of the Indian National Congress.

The Appeal of Theosophy

To begin, therefore, we need to understand what theosophy was, and why it appealed to some Britons in India, including A. O. Hume. We need to do so because later we will find theosophy's contribution to Indian nationalism arose out of the way it brought Indians together with such Britons to promote confidence, experience of organisation, and shared intellectual commitments. Madame Blavatsky (nee. Hahn) provided the inspiration for the Theosophical Society, formed in 1875 (Campbell 1980). She was born into an aristocratic Russian family, but at the age of seventeen, after three months of an unhappy marriage, she ran away and entered the world of the occult (Fuller 1988; Williams 1946). By 1875 she occupied a prominent place in the American spiritualist movement: she wrote articles defending the authenticity of spiritualist happenings, and was herself credited with causing spiritualist phenomena. When she went to investigate spirits that allegedly had materialised in Vermont, she met Henry Olcott, a veteran of the Civil War, who was reporting on the phenomena for The Sunday Chronicle (Olcott 1875). Soon afterwards, Olcott became the first President of the Theosophical Society, although Blavatsky remained its prophet and also the power behind the throne. The theosophists adopted three basic aims: to promote the brotherhood of man, to investigate the hidden powers of life and matter, and to encourage the study of comparative religion.

The doctrine Blavatsky gave to the Society derived from the western occult tradition (Ellwood 1979). She argued that occultism related to spiritualism "as the infinite to the finite, as the cause to the effect, or as the unity to multifariousness," and so she wanted to shift attention from the spiritualist movement towards the occult tradition with its cosmologies, magicians, and mystics (1977: I,101-2). The whole universe, she argued, emanates from an infinite being infusing all things (Blavatsky 1888).

The whole question of phenomena rests on the correct comprehension of old philosophies. Whither, then, should we turn, in our perplexity, but to the ancient sages, since, on the pretext of superstition, we are refused an explanation by the modern? Let us ask them what they know of genuine science and religion; not in the matter of mere details, but in all the broad conception of these twin truths — so strong in their unity, so weak when divided. Besides, we may find our profit in comparing this boasted modern science with ancient ignorance; this improved modern theology with the "Secret doctrines" of the ancient universal religion. Perhaps we may thus discover a neutral ground whence we can reach and profit by both.

It is the Platonic philosophy, the most elaborate compend of the abstruse systems of old India, that can alone afford us this middle ground. Although twenty-two and a quarter centuries have elapsed since the death of Plato, the great minds of the world are still occupied with his writings. He was, in the fullest sense of the word, the world's interpreter. And the greatest philosopher of the pre-Christian era mirrored faithfully in his works the spiritualism of the Vedic philosophers who lived thousands of years before himself, and its metaphysical expression. Vyasa, Djeminy, Kapila, Vrihaspati, Sumati, and so many others, will be found to have transmitted their indelible imprint through the intervening centuries upon Plato and his school. Thus is warranted the inference that to Plato and the ancient Hindu sages was alike revealed the same wisdom. So surviving the shock of time, what can this wisdom be but divine and eternal?

Plato taught justice as subsisting in the soul of its possessor and his greatest good. "Men, in proportion to their intellect, have admitted his transcendent claims." Yet his commentators, almost with one consent, shrink from every passage which implies that his metaphysics are based on a solid foundation, and not on ideal conceptions.

But Plato could not accept a philosophy destitute of spiritual aspirations; the two were at one with him. For the old Grecian sage there was a single object of attainment: REAL KNOWLEDGE. He considered those only to be genuine philosophers, or students of truth, who possess the knowledge of the really-existing, in opposition to the mere seeing; of the always-existing, in opposition to the transitory; and of that which exists permanently, in opposition to that which waxes, wanes, and is developed and destroyed alternately. "Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws, ideas, and principles, there is an INTELLIGENCE or MIND [nou'" , nous , the spirit], the first principle of all principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other ideas are grounded; the Monarch and Lawgiver of the universe; the ultimate substance from which all things derive their being and essence, the first and efficient Cause of all the order, and harmony, and beauty, and excellency, and goodness, which pervades the universe — who is called, by way of preëminence and excellence, the Supreme Good, the God ( ὁ qeò" ) 'the God over all' ( ὁ epi pasi qeò" )." [4] He is not the truth nor the intelligence, but "the father of it." Though this eternal essence of things may not be perceptible by our physical senses, it may be apprehended by the mind of those who are not wilfully obtuse. "To you," said Jesus to his elect disciples, "it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to them [ the polloi^ ] it is not given; . . . therefore speak I to them in parables [or allegories]; because they seeing, see not, and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand." [5]

The philosophy of Plato, we are assured by Porphyry, of the Neoplatonic School was taught and illustrated in the MYSTERIES. Many have questioned and even denied this; and Lobeck, in his Aglaophomus, has gone to the extreme of representing the sacred orgies as little more than an empty show to captivate the imagination. As though Athens and Greece would for twenty centuries and more have repaired every fifth year to Eleusis to witness a solemn religious farce! Augustine, the papa-bishop of Hippo, has resolved such assertions. He declares that the doctrines of the Alexandrian Platonists were the original esoteric doctrines of the first followers of Plato, and describes Plotinus as a Plato resuscitated. He also explains the motives of the great philosopher for veiling the interior sense of what he taught. [6]

As to the myths, Plato declares in the Gorgias and the Phædon that they were the vehicles of great truths well worth the seeking. But commentators are so little en rapport with the great philosopher as to be compelled to acknowledge that they are ignorant where "the doctrinal ends, and the mythical begins." Plato put to flight the popular superstition concerning magic and dæmons, and developed the exaggerated notions of the time into rational theories and metaphysical conceptions. Perhaps these would not quite stand the inductive method of reasoning established by Aristotle; nevertheless they are satisfactory in the highest degree to those who apprehend the existence of that higher faculty of insight or intuition, as affording a criterion for ascertaining truth.

Basing all his doctrines upon the presence of the Supreme Mind, Plato taught that the nous, spirit, or rational soul of man, being "generated by the Divine Father," possessed a nature kindred, or even homogeneous, with the Divinity, and was capable of beholding the eternal realities. This faculty of contemplating reality in a direct and immediate manner belongs to God alone; the aspiration for this knowledge constitutes what is really meant by philosophy — the love of wisdom. The love of truth is inherently the love of good; and so predominating over every desire of the soul, purifying it and assimilating it to the divine, thus governing every act of the individual, it raises man to a participation and communion with Divinity, and restores him to the likeness of God. "This flight," says Plato in the Theætetus, "consists in becoming like God, and this assimilation is the becoming just and holy with wisdom."

The basis of this assimilation is always asserted to be the preëxistence of the spirit or nous. In the allegory of the chariot and winged steeds, given in the Phædrus, he represents the psychical nature as composite and two-fold; the thumos, or epithumetic part, formed from the substances of the world of phenomena; and the qumoeidev" thumoeides, the essence of which is linked to the eternal world. The present earth-life is a fall and punishment. The soul dwells in "the grave which we call the body," and in its incorporate state, and previous to the discipline of education, the noetic or spiritual element is "asleep." Life is thus a dream, rather than a reality. Like the captives in the subterranean cave, described in The Republic, the back is turned to the light, we perceive only the shadows of objects, and think them the actual realities. Is not this the idea of Maya, or the illusion of the senses in physical life, which is so marked a feature in Buddhistical philosophy? But these shadows, if we have not given ourselves up absolutely to the sensuous nature, arouse in us the reminiscence of that higher world that we once inhabited. "The interior spirit has some dim and shadowy recollection of its antenatal state of bliss, and some instinctive and proleptic yearnings for its return." It is the province of the discipline of philosophy to disinthrall it from the bondage of sense, and raise it into the empyrean of pure thought, to the vision of eternal truth, goodness, and beauty. "The soul," says Plato, in the Theætetus, "cannot come into the form of a man if it has never seen the truth. This is a recollection of those things which our soul formerly saw when journeying with Deity, despising the things which we now say are, and looking up to that which REALLY IS. Wherefore the nous, or spirit, of the philosopher (or student of the higher truth) alone is furnished with wings; because he, to the best of his ability, keeps these things in mind, of which the contemplation renders even Deity itself divine. By making the right use of these things remembered from the former life, by constantly perfecting himself in the perfect mysteries, a man becomes truly perfect — an initiate into the diviner wisdom."

Hence we may understand why the sublimer scenes in the Mysteries were always in the night. The life of the interior spirit is the death of the external nature; and the night of the physical world denotes the day of the spiritual. Dionysus, the night-sun, is, therefore, worshipped rather than Helios, orb of day. In the Mysteries were symbolized the preëxistent condition of the spirit and soul, and the lapse of the latter into earth-life and Hades, the miseries of that life, the purification of the soul, and its restoration to divine bliss, or reunion with spirit. Theon, of Smyrna, aptly compares the philosophical discipline to the mystic rites: "Philosophy," says he, "may be called the initiation into the true arcana, and the instruction in the genuine Mysteries.

-- Isis Unveiled, by Helena P. Blavatsky


It evolves through a plethora of cycles, moving out from the infinite and becoming increasingly physical, until, at last, it reaches a turning point, after which it retraces its route, finally being reabsorbed into the infinite being from which it first arose. Here Blavatsky defended mystical experience by reference to the infinite in us all. She argued that we can come into contact with the divine spark inside us by adopting an appropriate set of ascetic practices: mystics purify themselves in order to have unmediated experience of their true unity with God. Behind the visible physical realm there lies a spiritual one that corresponds exactly to it and gives it life, and beyond both of these realms there lies the eternal infinite being, the source of all things. Here Blavatsky defended the possibility of natural magic by reference to the spiritual realm. She argued that spirit links all the objects of our physical world in a single set of mutual sympathies; and because magicians know the nature of these sympathies, they can act on one physical object so as to influence the spiritual realm and thus bring about a desired effect on another physical object that stands in a sympathetic relationship to the first one. The most advanced portion of humanity already have become highly spiritual beings. They are on the return road to the divine. Nonetheless, some of them have chosen to watch over our progress, and, when necessary, to aid us by their interventions in the physical and spiritual realms. These Masters constitute the Great White Brotherhood of Mahatmas who live in the Himalayas. Blavatsky claimed this Brotherhood gave her her orders: it was they who instructed her to form the Theosophical Society, and to write the works in which she expounded her doctrines (Johnson 1994).

In 1879, Blavatsky and Olcott travelled to London, where they met the members of the British Theosophical Society, formed on 27 June 1878 under the leadership of Charles Massey, a barrister. The most immediate appeal of theosophy to people such as Massey lay in its development of spiritualism.4 Spiritualism attracted great interest in British Society: the patrons of the Society for Psychical Research included powerful figures such as the Balfours and the Gladstones as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Oppenheim 1985; Podmore 1902). The Theosophical Society capitalised on this interest by winning converts from organisations such as the British National Association of Spiritualists. Blavatsky argued that spiritualism would fall before its detractors unless it expanded to embrace occult philosophy. In a way she was right, for the interest in spiritualism owed at least as much to broader shifts in the intellectual life of the country as to a specific interest in raps and other phenomena. The fundamental appeal of theosophy lay, therefore, in the response it offered to the various dilemmas that constituted the Victorian crisis of faith. In the minds of many Victorians, geological discoveries and evolutionary theory had combined to pitch science against Christianity. Theosophy offered them a religious faith that appeared to embrace these discoveries whilst also sustaining a spiritual interpretation of life. Blavatsky assured her readers the occultists had anticipated modern science, and her cosmology certainly occupies a geological timescale and portrays the history of the universe as an evolutionary process. Thus she could claim her doctrines provided "the only possible key to the Absolute in science and theology" (1972: I,VII). In addition, the expansion of the British Empire, the discovery of alternative cultures with a long and impressive past, and the development of cheap and popular forms of communication; all these things combined to give many Victorians a taste for the exotic as illustrated by the fashionable interest in the artefacts and beliefs of other peoples. Theosophy offered Victorians an exotic faith allegedly derived from Masters from Tibet. It did so at a time when people experienced cultural and geographic distances as long enough for the Great White Brotherhood to sound plausible, but short enough for this plausibility to be alluring.

After visiting Britain, Blavatsky and Olcott travelled on to India, where they landed at Bombay in January 1879. Here too they attracted support from within the British community. The appeal of theosophy to Britons in India was, of course, much the same as to people such as Massey. Blavatsky and Olcott obtained their entry into the British community, for example, largely through the good offices of A. P. Sinnett, whose interest in them extended a prior involvement with spiritualism (Sinnett 1986). Sinnett edited the Allahabad Pioneer, and his coverage of Blavatsky was so extensive and favourable that he lost his job. Hume met Blavatsky and Olcott at Allahabad, and, after spending some time with them, concluded most of the phenomena linked with her, about which Sinnett wrote a book, were genuine (Sinnett 1881). Hume, the son of Joseph Hume, a Radical social reformer who had been active in the movement to repeal the Corn Laws, joined the East India Company in 1849 and rose to a high position in the Indian Civil Service, though he never got the seat on the Viceroy's Council for which he hoped (Wedderburn 1913). It is possible that one of the reasons he failed to attain the highest offices was his clear commitment to social and political reform in India. In 1882 he retired to Simla, where he became a confident of the new Viceroy, Lord Ripon.5 Hume joined the Theosophical Society in 1880, became the President of the Simla Branch in 1881, and seems to have provided the financial backing that enabled Blavatsky to begin publishing The Theosophist.

Before long, Sinnett and Hume began to send letters to, and supposedly receive letters from, two of the Great White Brotherhood - Koot Hoomi and Morya.6 The process of communication depended on the role as an intermediary of Blavatsky, whose authority over the Theosophical Society rested largely on her unique ability supposedly to communicate with the Mahatmas. Hume and Sinnett wrote their letters and gave them to Blavatsky who placed them in a wooden box, from where they dematerialised, supposedly having been called away by the Mahatmas. The replies from the Mahatmas apparently precipitated from nowhere, they were found sitting in the shrine, they fell from the ceiling, or they dropped on to a pillow. Understandably Hume became a bit discouraged by this indirect form of communication, and so he began to try to exercise his own occult powers in the hope of developing an ability to communicate directly with the Mahatmas. Eventually, in 1883, he broke with Blavatsky and resigned his post in the Simla Branch of the Society. He did so just before the now notorious Coulomb Affair. (When Blavatsky and Olcott returned to London early in 1884, they left Monsieur and Madame Coulomb in charge of the Theosophical Society's headquarters at Adyar; the Coulombs then made a number of allegations about the fraudulent ways Blavatsky produced the phenomena associated with her, and an investigation of the shrine in her room lent support to what they had said.) Hume, however, continued to believe in the existence of the Mahatmas and their mission despite both the Coulomb Affair and his personal disagreements with Blavatsky (Ripon Papers). Certainly he thought that the Mahatmas guided not only his spiritual growth, but also, as we will see, his political work.


Theosophy obviously would not have had much impact on Indian nationalism had its appeal been restricted to Britons such as Hume and Sinnett. Next, therefore, we need to understand why it appealed to western-educated Indians, and how it came to be part of a broader neo-Hindu culture. Blavatsky and Olcott had set sail for India in 1879 largely on the strength of their relationship with Dayananda Sarasvati and his Arya Samaj. A chance meeting in 1878 between Olcott and Moolji Thackeray, a member of the Arya Samaj of Bombay, led to a cordial correspondence with both organisations somewhat over-estimating the similarity of their aims. The Council of the Theosophical Society voted in favour of a merger with the Arya Samaj, and, in May 1878, even changed its name to the Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj. When Blavatsky and Olcott landed in Bombay, they were helped by the head of the local Arya Samaj. Although a miss-understanding led him to assume they had more wealth than they did and so overdo the lavishness of his arrangements, and although this caused them to have some doubts about his honesty, the underlying warmth of their feeling for the Arya Samaj remained unaffected at this time. Moreover, after their arrival in India, they attracted supporters from within the Indian community, including prominent men such as Subramanian Aiyar, B. M. Malabari, Raganath Rao, Nurendranath Sen, and Kashinath Telang.7 To understand both the attraction of the Arya Samaj to theosophists and the attraction of theosophy to some Indians, we need to recognise that although Blavatsky's doctrines derived from the occult tradition, she made a crucial change to that tradition. She located the source of the ancient wisdom in India, not Egypt. She said, "it has been discovered that the very same ideas [as those the occultists had traced back to ancient Egypt] . . . may be read in Buddhistic and Brahmanical literature" (1972: I,626). The immediate source of the appeal of theosophy to its Indian followers was, of course, just this emphasis on the historical importance and epistemic validity of their Hindu tradition. If we are to understand why this emphasis had the appeal it did, however, we must consider why a number of Indians were ready to welcome a reformulation of their religious heritage. We need to understand how Indians adapted theosophical beliefs for their own purposes. Almost all the Indians who joined the Theosophical Society came from the western-educated elite. The British adopted a policy - most famously expounded by Macaulay - of educating an Indian elite in a western manner with the intention that this elite then would stand between the colonial rulers and the rest of the Indian people. The tension between the indigenous background of this elite and the worldview they encountered during their education left many of them with a sense of cultural crisis. This crisis consisted primarily of a perceived conflict between the Hinduism in which they had been raised and the scientific rationalism of the west; although there was, in addition, a perceived conflict between the social practices of Hinduism and the moral and political values associated with western rationalism and also with Christianity. It was this cultural crisis that provided the background to the neo-Hinduism of the Brahmo Sabha, the Arya Samaj, and also the Indian Section of the Theosophical Society.

The Brahmo Sabha, the Arya Samaj, and the Theosophical Society all reinterpreted Hinduism to bring it more into line with western science and ethics, thereby helping to resolve the cultural crisis described above; and, moreover, they did so in very similar ways. Although there were differences between the three groups, the differences should not obscure the basic similarity of their doctrines. The Brahmo Sabha was formed in 1828 by Rammohun Roy (Kopf 1979). Roy, heavily indebted to Unitarianism, adopted a universalist perspective, according to which all the religions of the world had a shared core dictated by a pure reason; but he also drew on themes found in western indology to argue Vedic Hinduism came nearer to the true universal religion than did Christianity. Thus, Roy called on Hindus to reform their religion so as to return to the pure Vedanta. It was from this perspective that he condemned the contemporary practices of a corrupt Hinduism, speaking out in favour of widows remarrying, and against both child marriage and sati. Although Dayananda came from Gujurat, and although he formed the first Arya Samaj in Bombay, the Arya Samaj soon came to represent a sort of Punjabi response to Brahmoism, which itself was very much a product of Bengal (Jones 1976; Jordens 1978). Dayananda too called for a return to the pure Vedic faith. He too sought to reform not only strictly religious practices such as idol worship, but also social ones such as child marriage. However, Dayananda rejected Roy's universalism in favour of a militant assertion of Hindu superiority - he even maintained a doctrine of Vedic infallibility, according to which the ancient rishis had grasped all the truths of modern science, including the theory of evolution. The important thing for us to note, however, is the extent to which theosophy embraced core doctrines shared by the Brahmo Sabha and the Arya Samaj. Like Roy and Dayananda, Blavatsky reasserted the validity of Indian culture, especially Hinduism, in the face of the attacks on it by some Christian missionaries. Again like Roy and Dayananda, she did so by appealing to a pure Vedic faith that had become corrupted, where this pure Vedic faith more than met the stringent requirements of a properly defined rationalism. And finally like Roy and Dayananda, she went on to champion various religious and social reforms as necessary to purge Hinduism of its corrupt elements and thereby return it to pure Vedanta. It was with these general doctrines that western-educated Indians, from within the Brahmo Sabha, the Arya Samaj, and also the Theosophical Society, responded to the cultural crisis that then confronted them.8 We can conclude, therefore, first, that theosophy was part of a broader neo-Hinduism characterised by specific intellectual commitments, and, second, that the attraction of theosophy to a section of Indian society can be explained in much the same way as can that of other neo-Hindu organisations. Although there were differences between neo-Hindu organisations, differences which appear, for example, in the later disagreement between the theosophists and Dayananda, they still shared various core doctrines in common. Because theosophy incorporated these core doctrines, it came to occupy a place within the neo-Hindu movement.

The Background to Indian Nationalism

So far we have seen why theosophy appealed to both Britons such as Hume and Indians such as Subramanian Aiyar. Moreover, when examining theosophy's appeal to the latter, we saw that theosophy constituted an integral part of a broader neo-Hindu culture; despite its origins in the western occult tradition, its identification of Brahmanism as the ideal source of all religion, and its creative interpretation of Brahmanism as including the scientific and moral doctrines of western rationalism, meant that it shared the characteristic ideas of neo-Hinduism. Having thus grasped the appeal of theosophy, we can turn now to consider its role in relation to the nationalist movement. When we do so, we will treat theosophy as representative of the way neo-Hinduism as a whole fed into the nationalist movement, as well as going on to look at the specific contribution of theosophy itself.

Blavatsky and Olcott were kept under police surveillance for much of the time they were in India. The colonial authorities feared that they might destabilise British rule as a result of their praise of local religions; besides, Blavatsky was a Russian national and the British were concerned about the stability of the Northwestern Frontier in the face of the Russian threat. When Olcott complained about the police surveillance, he elicited a reply in which the authorities said the police would stop bothering the theosophists provided the theosophists agreed to restrict themselves to philosophy and science, avoiding politics (Olcott 1972-75: I,254-57). Although Blavatsky and Olcott agreed to avoid politics, and duly did so, theosophy still had both a diffuse and a specific impact on Indian nationalism. Hume and some western-educated Indians used theosophy to advance political nationalism. Indeed, theosophy provided part of the framework of action of several of those who founded the Indian National Congress.

The western-educated elite in India faced a political crisis as well as a cultural one. Many of them had trained as lawyers, and quite a few had gone to London to do so. Their legal education, especially their encounter with the history and law of the British constitution, often left them with an admiration for British liberty and justice. On the one hand, their respect for the British constitution often reinforced a sense of the virtues of Imperial rule: British rule appeared to be a blessing, a period of tutelage during which the Indian people could learn how to govern themselves in a liberal manner. On the other hand, however, the principles of liberty and justice acted as standards by which they could judge the government of India, and, more often than not, find it wanting: they demanded respect and opportunities from the British; they wanted a place in the structure of government, and they wanted to see progress towards genuine liberty for India. The neo-Hinduism of the nineteenth-century fed this nascent political movement by giving the western-educated elite confidence in themselves, experience of organisation, and clear intellectual commitments. The Theosophical Society provided a vital contribution to each of these areas, adding things not readily available from groups such as the Brahmo Sabha and the Arya Samaj.

The first general contribution of neo-Hinduism to Indian nationalism was the confidence it gave the western-educated elite in their heritage and themselves. The cultural revival in nineteenth-century India brought a new appreciation of Indian civilisation, its values, practices, and institutions. Certainly the theosophists' belief in Indian religion spilled over to a concern with Indian medicine, Indian diet, and other such things. Blavatsky argued that Ayurvedic medicine worked by means of occult laws based on the principle of action at a distance through a knowledge of the sympathies existing between things. She argued that the Indian diet, and especially its emphasis on vegetarianism, aided the development of a mystical spirituality - meat is a heavy food that ties one to the physical realm. The theosophists worked alongside other neo-Hindus to preserve ancient manuscripts, to defend vernacular languages, and to promote Indian dress. The interest and respect thus accorded to Indian civilisation provided the western-educated elite with resources on which they could draw as they forged a new identity for themselves. The special contribution of theosophy to this growth of confidence lay in the fact that its leaders came from the west. When Olcott disembarked at Bombay in 1879, the first thing he did was to "stoop down and kiss the granite step" in an "instinctive act of 'pooja'" (Olcott 1972- 75: 2,213-14). Having arrived at Bombay, Blavatsky and Olcott then went to live in the Indian quarters of the city, not with other members of the European community. More generally, they compared Christianity unfavourably with the religions of India, arguing that the true source of all religions is the Vedic faith, of which Christianity is a notably corrupt form. The theosophists thought of India as a sacred land, so they showed it and its people a respect and admiration that verged on worship.

The second general contribution of neo-Hinduism to Indian nationalism was the experience of organisation it gave to some of the western-educated elite. The Indian people had no real experience of modern politics with its emphasis on popular participation and radical forms of agitation. Indeed, India remained, in many ways, a divided society with few co-operative lines of communication running between the different castes and classes.9 The organisations of the cultural revival did much to change this. Dayananda initially set out to reform Hinduism by converting his fellow Brahmins: he conveyed his message in Sanskrit and retained many traditions of the sannyasi (Jordens 1978). Later, however, and largely under the influence of the Brahmo Samaj, he turned to the Hindu faithful as a whole: he adopted Hindi instead of Sanskrit and dropped most of the practices of the sannyasi. Many neo-Hindu organisations provided Indians with some experience of agitation among an extended community. The special contribution of theosophy to this experience of organisation lay in the very diversity of those whom it brought together. Where the Brahmo Sabha had little impact beyond Bengali Hindus, and the Arya Samaj beyond Punjabi Hindus, the Theosophical Society was more of an all-India organisation. Its members came from all over the sub-continent. It attracted Parsees, Christians, Sikhs, and even some Muslims, as well as Hindus. And it brought some of the western-educated elite in Indian society into close contact with liberal members of the British community. The Society began to hold annual conventions as early as December 1881, and these gatherings provided a diverse group of sympathetic people with opportunities to come together to discuss the past, present, and future of India. Links were formed, an understanding of how to deal with others was gained, and a growing sense of a common identity and a common purpose was promoted.

The third general contribution of neo-Hinduism to Indian nationalism was the clear set of intellectual commitments it gave to the western-educated elite in Indian society. As we have seen, the Brahmo Sabha, Arya Samaj, and Theosophical Society espoused a number of common doctrines. They began to describe India as a unity with a common heritage, facing a common set of problems, requiring an all-India solution. Their view of the past centred on a golden age when India had been a paradise free from all the spiritual and social problems of modernity (Bharati 1970). India, they said, was the cradle of all the religions and civilisations of the world. Even today, they argued, the basic strength of India remained its religiosity. India still had a valuable understanding of matters of the spirit that was absent from the west, and without which the west could not for long avert disaster. Unfortunately, however, a number of corruptions had crept into Indian spirituality and thereby undermined the golden age. Blavatsky equated these corruptions with passages she thought the Brahmins had added to the sacred texts to justify a distasteful version of the caste system. It was these corruptions that had left India vulnerable to the British, and arguably even in need of British rule to provide an impetus to real reform. Thus, the Brahmo Sabha, Arya Samaj, and Theosophical Society all called for religious and social reforms to overturn corruptions within Hinduism. The process of reform, they implied, would enable India to recover her lost greatness. The nationalist significance of these neo-Hindu doctrines is indicated by their later appearance as the core ideas of Gandhi's classic work, Hind Swaraj (1938).

The special contribution of theosophy to the intellectual commitments promoted by neo-Hinduism lay in the way it combined praise of India's heritage with a syncretic openness. Where the Brahmo Sabha and its offshoots often drifted too far from Hinduism towards Unitarianism, and where the Arya Samaj's militant Hinduism put off people from other faiths, the Theosophical Society generally managed to steer a course between these two extremes. On the one hand, Olcott spoke in his inaugural address of "the Vedas" being "the primeval source of all religions": he appealed to Hindus by defending their faith against that of the colonial power (The Theosophist, August 1932). On the other hand, the theosophists insisted that the ancient wisdom was taught by all the religions of the world provided one concentrated on their true esoteric message: they extended their message to appeal to Parsees, Christians, and, in principle, Muslims. The theosophists rejected the militancy of the Arya Samaj with its reconversions and societies for the protection of cows; indeed, they did their best to avoid issues of dogma that divided different faiths. Thus, the Theosophical Society provided a set of beliefs that encouraged Hindus to commit themselves to certain political values, whilst also leaving them room to co-operate with Parsees, Muslims, and also liberal Britons with Christian backgrounds.

The British often argued that India could not be united and independent because the Indian people did not constitute a nation. The Indian people, they said, belonged to diverse regions, faiths, castes, and the like, each of which had its own special identity. Neo-Hinduism, as exemplified by the Theosophical Society, gave nationalists a suitable response to this argument. Nationalists could say not only that India had been a nation in a past golden age, but also that it rapidly was becoming one once again. They could point to objective factors that promoted a sense of national identity: there was British rule over the whole of the sub-continent, and a growth of economic links between the regions. And they could point to the emergence of a subjective awareness of a national identity: there was the sense of a common past and a common predicament, as well as the growth of various all-India organisations for reform. The Indian nation, they could say, was waking up from its long slumber.

The Origins of the Indian National Congress

Neo-Hinduism provided Indian nationalists with confidence, experience of organisation, and the beginnings of an ideology. The importance of neo-Hinduism appears in the way the Theosophical Society provided the framework for action within which some of its Indian and British members worked to form the Indian National Congress.10 From 1875 through to 1885 a number of young Indian nationalists became increasingly unhappy with their older leaders. Their opposition first became apparent in 1876 when Surendranath Banerjea led a group of young Bengalis in the formation of the Indian Association of Calcutta (Banerjea 1925). These young nationalists broke with the established British Indian Association of Bengal because they thought that it had become tied to the zamindars who showed little - if any - desire to end British rule. Sen, the editor of the Indian Daily Mirror, was a prominent member not just of the Theosophical Society, but also of the Indian Association of Calcutta. Early in 1885, he drew up a proposal for an all-India nationalist association, and then, together with Banerjea and the rest of the Indian Association of Calcutta, he began to organise a conference for the following December to form just such an all- India body. The inspiration for Sen's proposal might well have come from Madras, the venue for the 1884 annual convention of the Theosophical Society. At this convention, Rao argued that the Society should start formally to discuss the political situation in India as well as more strictly religious matters. Although Rao did not get his way, he did arrange a meeting of sympathetic theosophists to be held at his home. Those who attended this meeting included Aiyar, Ananda Charlu, and M. Viraraghavachariar, as well, of course, as Rao himself. They formed the Madras Mahajana Sabha, arguing that the established Madras Native Association had ceased to be of any value to the nationalist cause. Sen had attended some of the meetings leading up to the formation of the Madras Mahajana Sabha, and he must have had some knowledge of its plan to establish an all-India organisation. The Madras Mahajana Sabha planned to arrange a meeting to coincide with the next annual convention of the Theosophical Society. This meeting would promote their idea of an all-India body. Later in 1885, Malabari, Telang and other nationalists, such as Pherozeshah Mehta and Dadabhai Naoroji, organised the Bombay Presidency Association as a radical alternative to the older Bombay Association. Throughout India, therefore, theosophists were joining with other young nationalists to advance a more radical agenda, at the very heart of which lay the idea of an all-India organisation.

Hume was probably the single most important individual for the formation of the Indian National Congress. He said that in 1878 he read various documents that convinced him large sections of the Indian population violently opposed British rule, and some even plotted rebellion (Wedderburn 1913: 78-83).11 These documents were communications he had received supposedly from the Mahatmas - Koot Hoomi and Morya. In one of the letters the Mahatmas supposedly sent Sinnett, they explained how the Great White Brotherhood successfully had controlled the Indian masses in the Rebellion of 1857 so as to preserve Imperial rule, which apparently was necessary to bring India to its allotted place in a new world order (Morya 1923: 324). Now the Mahatmas seemed to be directing Hume to maintain the correct balance between east and west (Ripon Papers). Certainly Hume thought the Mahatmas were superhuman beings with a special interest in the welfare of India. He believed their occult powers meant they possessed an unquestionable knowledge of Indian affairs; and, of course, their intense spirituality meant they were undeniably trustworthy. From their exalted position, the Mahatmas saw India was in danger, and, knowing of Hume's interest in the East and his political contacts, they had come to him to avert the danger. They had decided to reveal some of their wisdom to him so he could do what was necessary to forestall chaos. Even after Hume had turned against Blavatsky, he continued to believe in the Great White Brotherhood, their powers and their mission. Now he thought the Mahatmas, with their impeccable credentials, had chosen to pass some of their understanding on to him so he might act accordingly. They had warned him of an impending catastrophe so he might ward-off the disaster of which they wrote. His desire to do so now informed his political work. Hume tried to influence politics in two ways. First, he tried to convince Ripon to reform the administration of India so as to make it more responsive to the Indian people (Ripon Papers). Second, he tried to promote an all-India organisation so as to give voice to the concerns and aspirations of the Indians themselves (Wedderburn 1913).

Early in 1885, Hume helped to bring about the formation of the Bombay Presidency Association. Really, however, he wanted to create an all-India body, and he immediately used the Bombay group as a springboard from which to advance his idea of an Indian National Union. Soon he acquired the backing of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, as well as the Bombay group, for a proposal to schedule an all- India political conference to be held in Poona during December 1885. His quarrel with Blavatsky meant, however, that he had to work hard to win over the theosophists of the Madras Mahajana Sabha and the Indian Association of Calcutta. By May, he had visited Madras not only to discuss his proposals for the Poona conference with the members of the Mahajana Sabha, but also to put forward his views on the way the Theosophical Society should revive itself in the wake of the Coulomb fiasco. He did enough to convince the local leaders to fall in with his plans for an Indian National Union. Next Hume travelled to Calcutta where he seems to have contacted several prominent members of the Indian Association. Although Sen decided to give his backing to Hume, many of the others did not, preferring instead to go ahead under Banerjea's leadership with their alternative conference. An outbreak of cholera in Poona forced Hume to change the venue of his proposed conference, but, finally, in December 1885, the Indian National Union convened in Bombay (Indian National Congress 1885). Those present immediately renamed themselves the Indian National Congress, and when the Congress next met in December 1886, it did so in Calcutta, thus ensuring the adherence of Banerjea's alternative National Conference (Indian National Congress 1886).

The Indian National Congress was formed by nationalists from all over India together with a retired British official. Hume worked alongside some of the people he had met at the annual conventions of the Theosophical Society - Malabari, Rao, and Sen - in order to arrange the founding conference of Congress. The Theosophical Society made it possible for someone like Hume to work in the way he did alongside Indian nationalists, and if he had not done so, it would have been, at the very least, more difficult to found an all-India political body. "No Indian could have started the Indian National Congress," G. K. Gokhale later wrote: "if the founder of the Congress had not been a great Englishman and a distinguished ex-official, such was the distrust of political agitation in those days that the authorities would have at once found some way or other to suppress the movement" (Wedderburn 1913: 63-4).


Conclusion

No doubt the western conceptualisation of the east generally served to subjugate the Indians to their colonial rulers, but it also provided a set of beliefs to which disgruntled western occultists and radicals, and also western-educated Indians, could appeal in order to defend the dignity and worth of Indian religion and Indian society. No doubt the founding theosophists had no intention of promoting political radicalism on the sub-continent, but the discourse they helped to establish provided others with an instrument they could use for political ends. Indeed, the formation of the Indian National Congress shows how western-educated Indians were able to join with Hume to promote their political ends using the particular advantages that involvement in the Theosophical Society had given them. The founders of the Indian National Congress relied on the contacts and commitments generated within the Society; they relied on a capacity for, and a belief in, co-operation, both at an all-India level and also between Indian nationalists and liberal Britons; and they relied on a background discourse that emphasised the strength and claims of India, its heritage, and its religion.

Although we have focused on the origins of the Indian National Congress, the process we have uncovered continued to operate for much of the nationalist era. Annie Besant, like Hume and Sinnett, used theosophy to resolve the Victorian crisis of faith after she had spent some time investigating spiritualist phenomena, and her theosophy combined with her radicalism to take her into the nationalist movement, where she became the only western woman ever to be elected as President of the Indian National Congress (Taylor 1992). Gandhi, like Malabari, Rao, and Sen, used theosophy to help restore his pride in his native culture to support his vision of ancient India as a vital, rational, and moral society (Gandhi 1948). British occultists, such as Besant, and western-educated Indians, such as Gandhi, turned to theosophy for different reasons, but once they had done so, they shared practices and intellectual commitments that helped sustain the nationalist movement.

_______________

Notes:

1 I thank the Leverhulme Trust for awarding me a Travel Abroad Studentship with which to pursue my research.

2 Although we will focus on the way theosophists used a vision of India as a basis for a critique of western civilisation, the same is true of various other groups, including the American transcendentalists (Christy 1932).

3 The occult tradition also supported various expressions of nationalism in the west (Webb 1974 & 1976). However, the links between the two were different from those found in the Indian case. Within the west, the occult tradition provided a basis from which to criticise Enlightenment liberalism in a way that could lend support to what were often anti-rationalist forms of nationalism.

4 Webb (1938) offers an excellent contemporary account of the context of religious concerns and beliefs within which theosophy became so popular.

5 Throughout this essay the information given about Hume's views derives primarily from his letters to Lord Ripon (Ripon Papers). These letters show Hume to have been genuinely committed to the cause of reform in India rather than a stooge planted among the nationalists by the colonial authorities.

6 The letters to Sinnett are collected in Morya (1923). On the nature and context of the bizarre claims Blavatsky made about the Mahatmas see Johnson (1994). Our purpose, however, is not to condemn her claims, but rather to explore the role Indian nationalists were able to make of the theosophical discourse in which these claims were embedded.

7 There is no reliable study of the membership of the Society. The information given here relies on research in the Archives of the Theosophical Society. Most of the information on the activities of the early Theosophists in India comes either from these Archives or The Theosophist.

8 This, of course, is why these general doctrines have proved so central to modern Hinduism (Bharati 1970; Jones 1989)

9 That the divisions in Indian society persisted through the nationalist era has been emphasised by the Cambridge school (Seal 1968) and the Subaltern Studies movement (Guha 1982).

10 On the general background to the Indian National Congress see Mehrotra (1971) and Seal (1968). For developments in the main regions see Banerjea (1925), Johnson (1973) and Suntharalingam (1974).

11 Wedderburn (1913) somewhat glossed over the place of Theosophy - especially the Mahatmas - in his account of Hume's political work. No doubt he did so because he was a friend of Hume's, and he regarded Hume's attachment to them as superstitious and so disreputable.

REFERENCES CITED

Archives of the Theosophical Society, Theosophical Society, Adyar, Madras.

Banerjea, Surendranath. 1925. A Nation in the Making: Being the Reminiscences of Fifty Years of Public Life. London: H. Milford.

Bharati, A. 1970. "The Hindu Renaissance and Its Apologetic Patterns". In Journal of Asian Studies 29: 267-88.

Blavatsky, H.P. 1888. The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy. 2 Vols. London: Theosophical Publishing House.

------ 1972. Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology. 2 Vols. Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House.

------ 1977. Collected Writings. 11 Vols. Ed. by Boris de Zirkoff. Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House.

Campbell, B. 1980. Ancient Wisdom Revived: A History of the Theosophical Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Christy, A.E. 1932. The Orient in American Transcendentalism. New York: Columbia University Press.

Ellwood, Robert. 1979. Alternative Altars. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Fuller, J. 1988. Blavatsky and Her Teachers. London: East-West Publications.

Gandhi, M. 1938. Hind Swaraj. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Karyalaya.

------ 1948. An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House.

Guha, Ranajit. 1982. "On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India". In R. Guha, ed. Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society. Vol. 1. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Inden, Ronald. 1990. Imagining India. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Johnson, Gordon. 1973. Provincial Politics and Indian Nationalism: Bombay and the Indian National Congress. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Johnson, K. Paul. 1994. The Masters Revealed: Madam Blavatsky and the Myth of The Great White Lodge. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York.

Jones, K.W. 1976. Arya Dharm: Hindu Consciousness in Nineteenth Century Punjab. Berkeley: University of California Press.

---- 1989. Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jordens, J. 1978. Dayananda Sarasvati: His Life and Ideas. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Killingley, Dermot. 1995. "Hinduism, Darwinism and Evolution in Late Nineteenth Century India". In J. Wallace & D. Amigoni, eds. Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species". Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Kopf, David. 1979. The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Mehrotra, S.R. 1971. The Emergence of The Indian National Congress. Delhi: Vikas Publications.

Morya. 1923. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett. Compiled by A.T. Barker. London: T. Fisher & Unwin.

Olcott, Henry. 1875. People From the Other World. Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company.

------ 1972-75. Old Diary Leaves: The History of the Theosophical Society. 6 Vols. Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House.

Oppenheim, Janet. 1985. The Other World : Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Podmore, Frank. 1902. Modern Spiritualism. 2 Vols. London: Methuen.

Reports of the Indian National Congress. 1885 & 1886.

Ripon Papers, British Library, London.

Seal, A. 1968. The Emergence of Indian Nationalism: Competition and Collaboration in the Late Nineteenth Century. London: Cambridge University Press.

Sinnett, A.P. 1881. The Occult World. London: Trubner & Co.

------ 1986. The Autobiography of Alfred Percy Sinnett. London: Theosophical History Centre.

Suntharalingam, R. 1974. Politics and Nationalist Awakening in South India 1852-91. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press.

Taylor, Anne. 1992. Annie Besant. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The Theosophist.

Webb, Beatrice. 1938. My Apprenticeship. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin.

Webb, James. 1974. The Occult Underground. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court.

------ 1976. The Occult Establishment. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court.

Wedderburn, William. 1913. Allan Octavian Hume: Father of the Indian National Congress, 1829-1912. London: Fisher Unwin.

Williams, Gertrude. 1946. Madame Blavatsky: Priestess of the Occult. New York: Lancer Books.
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Alfred Percy Sinnett
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Alfred Percy Sinnett
Born: Alfred Percy Sinnett, 18 January 1840, London, England
Died: 26 June 1921 (aged 81)
Occupation: Writer
Period: 19th century
Literary movement: Theosophy

Alfred Percy Sinnett (18 January 1840, in London – 26 June 1921) was an English author and theosophist.

Biography

Sinnett's father died while he was young, as in 1851 Sinnett was listed as a "Scholar – London University", living with his mother Jane, who is listed as a widow and whose occupation is listed as "Periodical Literature"; his older sister Sophia, age 22, was a teacher. Jane's sister Sarah, age 48, was also a teacher.[1]

In 1870 Sinnett married his wife Patience, probably in the London area. He is listed in the 1871 England Census at age 31, as a Journalist, born in Middlesex. His wife Patience is 27, and her mother Clarissa Edenson a "Landowner", is living with them.

By 1879, Sinnett had moved to India where he was "... the Editor of The Pioneer, the leading English Daily of India..."[2]

The Pioneer is an English language daily newspaper in India. It is published from multiple locations in India, including Delhi. It is the second oldest English language newspaper in India still in circulation after The Times of India...

The Pioneer was founded in Allahabad in 1865 by George Allen, an Englishman who had had great success in the tea business in north-east India in the previous decade. It was brought out three times a week from 1865 to 1869 and daily thereafter. In 1866, a supplement, the Pioneer Mail, consisting of "48 quarto-size pages," mostly of advertisements, was added to the publication. In 1872, Alfred Sinnett became the editor of the newspaper. Although he was later to be known for his interest in theosophy, he oversaw the transformation of the newspaper to one of exercising great influence in British India. In 1874, the weekly Pioneer Mail became the Pioneer Mail and India Weekly News and began to also feature short stories and travel writings. Author Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), in his early 20s, worked at the newspaper office in Allahabad as an assistant editor from November 1887 to March 1889.

-- The Pioneer (India), by Wikipedia


He relates in his book, The Occult World that: "...on the first occasion of my making Madame Blavatsky's acquaintance she became a guest at my home at Allahabad and remained there for six weeks..."[3]

In 1880 Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott visited the Sinnetts at their summer home in Simla. The Mahatma Letters, which generated the controversy that later helped lead to the split of the Theosophical Society were mostly written to Sinnett or his wife Patience. The letters started at this time when Sinnett asked Blavatsky whether if he wrote a letter to her Mahatmas, she could arrange to have it delivered.

By 1884 Sinnett was back in England, where that year Constance Wachtmeister states that she met Blavatsky at the home of the Sinnetts in London.[4]

Sinnett asked Charles Webster Leadbeater to come back to England to tutor his son Percy and George Arundale. Leadbeater agreed and brought with him one of his pupil Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa.

Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa (16 December 1875, Sri Lanka–18 June 1953, United States) was a Sri Lankan author, occultist, freemason and theosophist. The fourth president of the Theosophical Society, Jinarajadasa was one of the world's foremost Theosophical authors, having published more than 50 books and more than 1600 articles in periodicals during his life. His interests and writings included religion, philosophy, literature, art, science and occult chemistry. He was also a rare linguist, who had the ability to work in many European languages.

Jinarajadasa was born on 16 December 1875 in Sri Lanka to a family of Sinhalese parents. He was one of the first students of Ananda College, Colombo.

Ananda College (Sinhala: ආනන්ද විද්‍යාලය) is a Buddhist school for Sri Lankan boys, with classes from primary to secondary, on a campus of 10 acres (40,000 m2) in Maradana, Colombo.

Following a meeting of Buddhists at Pettah, under the patronage of Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera, an English-Buddhist school was inaugurated at 19 Prince Street on 1 November 1886 by the Buddhist Theosophical Society. The first session was attended by 37 students. In 1888, when about 130 boys were attending, it moved to 61 Maliban Street. C. W. Leadbeater was appointed the first principal of Ananda today.

By the time the school was officially registered in March 1889, there were 120 students. That same year, J. P. R. Weerasuriya became the first Anandian to pass the Cambridge junior examination. The Cambridge graduate and confessed Buddhist A. E. Bultjens became principal...

Olcott oration is an annual event organized by the old boys association of Ananada College, which commemorate the founder Colonel Henry Steel Olcott of Ananda College and other leading Buddhist schools in Sri Lanka. Every year famous personalities who educated at Ananda College, share their own experience for the "Olcott oration" and renowned dignitaries who have delivered the oration in the past, include Prof. Nimal Rajapakshe, Prof. Sumedha Chandana Wirasinghe and Prof. Ravindra Fernando.

-- Ananda College, by Wikipedia


In 1889, when Charles Webster Leadbeater, the first principal of Ananda College was asked by A.P. Sinnett to come back to England to tutor his son, Leadbeater agreed and also brought one of his pupils, Jinarajadasa, to England with him. Thanks to Leadbeater, Jinarajadasa went to St John's College, Cambridge where he studied oriental languages and four years later took his Degree in the Oriental Languages Tripos.

St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge (the full, formal name of the college is the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge) founded by the Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a charter dated 9 April 1511. The aims of the college, as specified by its statutes, are the promotion of education, religion, learning and research. It is one of the larger Oxbridge colleges in terms of student numbers. For 2018, St. John's was ranked 9th of 29 colleges in the Tompkins Table (the annual league table of Cambridge colleges) with over 30 per cent of its students earning first-class honours.[5]

The college's alumni comprise the winners of 11 Nobel Prizes (including physicists Paul Dirac and Max Born, the latter having been affiliated with the college in the 1930s), seven prime ministers and 12 archbishops of various countries, at least two princes and three saints. The Romantic poet William Wordsworth studied at St John's, as did William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, the two abolitionists who led the movement that brought slavery to an end in the British Empire. Prince William was affiliated with the college while undertaking a university-run course in estate management in 2014.

St John's is well known for its choir, its members' success in a wide variety of inter-collegiate sporting competitions and its annual May Ball. The Cambridge Apostles and the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club were both founded by members of the college. The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race tradition furthermore began with a St John's student and the college boat club, Lady Margaret Boat Club, is the oldest in the university. In 2011, the college celebrated its quincentenary, an event marked by a visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

-- St John's College, Cambridge, by Wikipedia


He then came back to Ceylon and became the vice principal of Ananda College in Colombo. Jinarajadasa returned to Europe, to study at the University of Pavia, Italy. He soon became proficient in Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Around 1904 he visited Chicago, where he met and influenced Weller van Hook, the well-known surgeon and author, who then became a theosophist. During his lifetime, Jinarajadasa traveled to many countries despite all the war difficulties of that era for his devoted service to Theosophy.

He was one among four Convention Lecturers, including G.S. Arundale, B.P. Wadia, and T. Sadasivier, who spoke in Calcutta at the Forty-Second Anniversary of the Theosophical Society in December, 1917. In his lecture, The Problem of Religion And Philosophy, he stressed the need to serve others, saying “We have a perennial need of God, of understanding the mystery of the I . . . When the heart and brain are ready, the hand will be guided by a Divine Architect to build according to His Plan. Each of you must help in this day to come. Not the smallest child but can help in some tiny action, not the poorest now who cannot heap up wealth of hope for that future. For within us is the Light of the World and the Power of the World –– if only we knew how to find. But the doors of all the treasure-houses will open if we know the right mantra to repeat, the open sesame of this newer day. It is the new word of power: ‘Brother, thou art I.

”He also traveled to South America, where he lectured in Spanish and Portuguese and founded branches of the Theosophical Society (TS). He was the Vice-President of the Theosophical Society from 1921 to 1928. After the death of Dr. Arundale in 1945, Jinarajadasa became president of the Theosophical Society Adyar. In 1949 he founded the School of Wisdom in Adyar, which attracted students from many countries. He was also a Freemason, joining Le Droit Humain also known as Co-Masonry. Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa was the president of Theosophical Society until his death on 18 June 1953 in the United States.


In 1916, Jinarajadasa married the English feminist Miss Dorothy M. Graham, who founded the Women's Indian Association (WIA) in Adyar with Annie Besant in 1917.[7] She accompanied him in his travels around the world for some years. At one stage of his life, he resided in Brazil. By 1953 he declined renomination as president of the Theosophical Society due to poor health and installed Nilakanta Sri Ram as his successor.

Jinarajadasa wrote many works on Theosophy, Theology, philosophy, literature, art and science. He also participated in Annie Besant's and Charles Leadbeater's researches on Occult Chemistry. In 1913 Jinarajadasa was awarded the Subba Row Medal for his contribution to Theosophical literature.

-- Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa, by Wikipedia


Using "astral clairvoyance" Leadbeater assisted William Scott-Elliot to write his book The Story of Atlantis, for which Sinnett wrote the preface.

William Scott-Elliot (sometimes incorrectly spelled Scott-Elliott) (1849-1919) was a theosophist who elaborated Helena Blavatsky's concept of root races in several publications, most notably The Story of Atlantis (1896) and The Lost Lemuria (1904), later combined in 1925 into a single volume called The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria. In 1893 he married Matilda (Maude) Louise Travers (1859-1929), daughter of Dr Robert Boyle Travers F.R.C.S., of Farsid Lodge, Rostellan, County Cork, Ireland.

Scott-Elliot was an East India Merchant and amateur anthropologist. An early member of the London Lodge of the Theosophical society, in 1893 he wrote The Evolution of Humanity, issued as part of the Transactions of the London Lodge (issue 17).

Scott-Elliot came into contact with theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater who said he received knowledge about ancient Atlantis and Lemuria from the Theosophical Masters by "astral clairvoyance." Leadbeater transmitted his clairvoyant findings to Scott-Elliot, who undertook scholarly research to back them up. Despite Leadbeater's contributions, Scott-Elliot was listed as the sole author of the resulting book The Story of Atlantis, which was published with a preface by Alfred Percy Sinnett.

In 1899 he was awarded the T. Subba Row Medal for his contributions to "esoteric science and philosophy". In 1904 he added detail on Lemuria in The Lost Lemuria, attempting to use contemporary scientific evidence to back up Leadbeater's claims.

-- William Scott-Elliot, by Wikipedia


Sinnett was later president of the London Lodge of the Society.

By 1901 Sinnett is listed as an author. His son Percy is also listed as an author and born in India.[5]

See also

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Agele ... _Teachings
• Ascended masters
• Ascended Master Teachings
• Alice A. Bailey
• Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
• Benjamin Creme
• Esoteric Buddhism
• Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky* Hodgson Report
• Initiation (Theosophy)
• Master K.H.
• Master Morya
• K.H. Letters to C.W. Leadbeater
• Mahātmā
• Helena Roerich
• Theosophy
• Sinnett as fiction writer

Notes

1. 1851 England Census
2. "Combined Chronology of The Mahatma Letters – Preface".
3. The Occult World,p42
4. Wachtmeister, Constance (1 January 1976). "Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and The secret doctrine". Wheaton, Ill. : Theosophical Pub. House – via Internet Archive.
5. 1901 England Census

Works

• The Occult World (London: Trubner and Company, 1881)
• Esoteric Buddhism (London: Trubner and Company, 1883). Describes the concept of Root race, later adopted by Madame Blavatsky.
• Karma: A Novel (London: Chapman & Hall, 1885)
• Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky: Compiled from Information Supplied by Her Relatives and Friends (1886)
• The Rationale of Mesmerism (Boston, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1892)
• The Growth of the Soul (Theosophical Publishing Society, London and Benares, 1896, 1905)]
• Occult Essays (Theosophical Publishing Society, London and Benares, 1905)
• Married by Degrees; A Play in 3 Acts (London, 1911)
• In the Next World: Actual Narratives of Personal Experiences by Some Who Have Passed On (Theosophical Publishing Society, London, 1914)
• The Spiritual Powers and the War (Theosophical Publishing Society, London, 1915)
• Unseen Aspects of the War: Two Articles by A.P. Sinnett (Theosophical Publishing Society, London, 1916)
• Super-Physical Science (Theosophical Publishing Society, London, 1919)
• Tennyson an Occultist, As His Writings Prove (Theosophical Publishing Society, London, 1920)
• The Early Days of Theosophy in Europe (Theosophical Publishing Society, London, 1922) (posthumous)

Literature

• Autobiography of Alfred Percy Sinnett, Theosophical History Centre Publications, London 1986 ISBN 0-948753-02-1

Letters

• Helena P. Blavatsky: The letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett and other miscellaneous letters, London 1925
• A. Trevor Barker. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett London 1926 (ISBN 1-55700-086-7)

See also

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Agele ... _Teachings
• Agni Yoga
• Alice Bailey
• Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
• Benjamin Creme
• Initiation (Theosophy)
• K.H. Letters to C.W. Leadbeater
• Master K.H.
• Master Morya
• Helena Roerich
• Theosophy

External links

• Works by Alfred Percy Sinnett at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Alfred Percy Sinnett at Internet Archive
• The Mahatma Letters to Sinnett
• The Letters of HP Blavatsky to Sinnett
• Esoteric Buddhism by A.P. Sinnett
• The Occult World by A.P. Sinnett
• The Mahatmas and Their Letters
• Photography of Sinnett
• Book Review of Karma
• Occult Investigations
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Sat Aug 29, 2020 7:50 am

Poona Sarvajanik Sabha
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/29/20

Image
Monthly journal of Pune Sarvajanik Sabha published in 1881

Pune Sarvajanik Sabha, (Marathi: पुणे सार्वजनिक सभा), was a sociopolitical organisation in British India which started with the aim of working as a mediating body between the government and people of India and to popularise the peasants' legal rights.[1][2] It started as an elected body of 95 members elected by 6000 persons on April 2, 1870.[3][4] The organisation was a precursor to the Indian National Congress which started with its first session from Maharashtra itself. The Pune Sarvajanik Sabha provided many of the prominent leaders of national stature to the Indian freedom struggle including Bal Gangadhar Tilak. It was formed in 1870 by S. H. Chiplunkar, Ganesh Vasudeo Joshi, Mahadev Govind Ranade, et al.[5][6]

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Bal Gangadhar Tilak (or Lokmanya Tilak, 23 July 1856 – 1 August 1920), born as Keshav Gangadhar Tilak, was an Indian nationalist, teacher, and an independence activist. He was one third of the Lal Bal Pal triumvirate. Tilak was the first leader of the Indian Independence Movement. The British colonial authorities called him "The father of the Indian unrest." He was also conferred with the title of "Lokmanya", which means "accepted by the people (as their leader)". Mahatma Gandhi called him "The Maker of Modern India".

Tilak was one of the first and strongest advocates of Swaraj ("self-rule") and a strong radical in Indian consciousness. He is known for his quote in Marathi: "Swarajya is my birthright and I shall have it!" He formed a close alliance with many Indian National Congress leaders including Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai, Aurobindo Ghose, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai and Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

-- Bal Gangadhar Tilak, by Wikipedia


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Ganesh Vasudeo Joshi (9 April 1828 – 25 July 1880), popularly known as Sarwajanik Kaka, was a lawyer, social reformer, and political activist. He was a founding member of Poona Sarvajanik Sabha.He was a social activist in Pune when Maharashtrian revival began, and he was the elderly guiding philosopher when Tilak and Agarkar's generation gave impetus to Indian independence struggle. Joshi also represented Vasudev Balwant Phadke as his lawyer in Phadke's trial.

Joshi had a daughter who was married to Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

At the Delhi Durbar of 1877, wearing "homespun spotless white khadi" Joshi rose to ask of the viceroy of India (then the 1st Earl of Lytton), that Her Majesty the Queen might:

Grant to India the same political and social status as is enjoyed by her British subjects.


With this demand, it can be said that the campaign for a free India was formally launched, which was the beginning of a great transformation for India.

-- Ganesh Vasudeo Joshi, by Wikipedia


The ruler of the Aundh State, Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi was the first President of the organisation.[7]

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Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi C.B.E (October 24, 1868 – April 13, 1951), popularly known as Balasaheb Pant Pratinidhi or Bhawanrao Balasaheb Pant Pratinidhi, was the [b]ruler of the princely state of Aundh of British Raj during the reign (1909–1947).

He is known for inventing the exercise sequence of Surya Namaskar, Salute to the Sun, now incorporated into modern yoga as exercise...

His second son Appa Sahib Pant served as Indian ambassador (1912-1992) in many countries. The Government of India honoured him in 1954, with the award of Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award for his contributions to the society, placing him among the first recipients of the award.

-- Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi, by Wikipedia


Many eminent personalities such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Hari Deshmukh,...

Gopal Hari Deshmukh (18 February 1823 – 9 October 1892) was an Indian activist, thinker, social reformer and writer from Maharashtra. His original surname was Shidhaye. Because of 'Vatan' (right of Tax collection) that the family had received,the family was later called Deshmukh. Deshmukh is regarded as an important figure of the Social Reform Movement in Maharashtra.

Gopal Hari Deshmukh was born into a Chitpawan family, a subcaste of Maharashtrian Brahmins, in 1823. His father was the treasurer of Bapu Gokhale, the general of Bajirao [Baji Rao] II during the Third Anglo-Maratha War.

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Baji Rao II (10 January 1775 – 28 January 1851) was the 12th and the last Peshwa of the Maratha Empire. He governed from 1795 to 1818. He was installed as a puppet ruler by the Maratha nobles, whose growing power prompted him to flee his capital Poona and sign the Treaty of Bassein (1802) with the British. This resulted in the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–1805), in which the British emerged victorious and re-installed him as the titular Peshwa. In 1817, Baji Rao II joined the Third Anglo-Maratha War against the British, after they favoured the Gaekwad nobles in a revenue-sharing dispute. After suffering several battle defeats, the Peshwa surrendered to the British, and agreed to retire in return for an estate at Bithoor and an annual pension.

-- Baji Rao II, by Wikipedia


Deshmukh studied at the Poona English Medium School.

Deshmukh started his career as a translator for the government then under British Raj. In 1867, the government appointed him a small cause judge in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He worked as a Diwan also in Ratlam state. The government had commended him with the honorifics 'Justice of Peace' and 'Raobahadur' while he was still working. He retired as a sessions judge. He held many other important positions, including those of the Assistant Inam Commissioner, Joint Judge of Nasik High Court, and Member of the Law Council.

At age 25, Deshmukh started writing articles aimed at social reform in Maharashtra in the weekly Prabhakar (प्रभाकर) under the pen name Lokhitawadi (लोकहितवादी). In the first two years, he penned 108 articles on social reform. That group of articles has come to be known in Marathi literature as Lokhitawadinchi Shatapatre (लोकहितवादींची शतपत्रे).

He promoted emancipation (liberation) and education of women, and wrote against arranged child marriages, dowry system, and polygamy, all of which were prevalent in India in his times.

He wrote against the evils of the caste system which was strongly prevalent in India in his times, condemned harmful Hindu religious orthodoxy, and attacked the monopoly in religious matters and rituals which Brahmin priests had through a long tradition (Deshmukh, himself, belonged to the Brahmin caste). He enunciated certain 15 principles for bringing about religious reform in Hindu society.

Deshmukh founded a public library in Pune under the leadership of the then governor of the state of Bombay, Henry Brown. He also donated some books to Univ. of Bombay (1875) Library, when it was established by British people.

-- Gopal Hari Deshmukh, by Wikipedia


Maharshi Annasaheb Patwardhan, etc. served as the Presidents of the organisation.[7]

In 2016, Meera Pavagi was elected as the first woman President of the organisation.[7]

See also

• Madras Mahajana Sabha

Notes and references

1. The preamble of the constitution of the Sabha lays down: "Whereas it has been deemed expedient that there should exist between the Government and people some institution in the shape of a mediating body which may offer to the latter facilities for knowing the real intentions and objectives of the Government, as also adequate means of securing their rights by making timely representations to Government of the real circumstances in which they were placed, an association has been formed and organised under the appellation of Pune Sarvajanik Sabha." as quoted in Johari 1993, p. 17
2. Spectrum History
3. Johari 1993, p. 17
4. Chandra, Bipan (2010). The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India: Economic Policies of Indian National Leadership, 1880-1905. Har-Anand Publications. ISBN 9788124114179.
5. Mehrotra, S. R. (1969). The Poona Sarvajanik Sabha: The Early Phase, 1870-1880. School of Economics.
6. Bakshi, Shiri Ram (1 January 1993). Mahadev Govind Ranade: Socio-Economic Ideology. Anmol Publications Pvt. Limited. ISBN 9788170416050.
7. "'पुणे सार्वजनिक सभे'चे अध्यक्षपद प्रथमच महिलेकडे". Loksatta (in Marathi). 29 March 2016. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
• The Pune Sarvajanik Sabha: the early phase, 1870-1880 - S. R. Mehrotra
• Johari, JC (1993). Voices of India Freedom Movement. Anmol Publications PVT. LTD. ISBN 978-81-7158-225-9.
• Bakshi, SR (1993). Mahadev Govind Ranade. Anmol Publications PVT. LTD. ISBN 978-81-7041-605-0.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Sat Aug 29, 2020 8:47 am

Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/29/20

The Theosophical Society of Aryavarta, also sometimes called Theosophical Society of India, and abbreviated as Theosophical Society was a Theosophical Society from May 22, 1878 until March 1882. [1]

History

Main article: Arya_Samaj § The Arya Samaj and the Theosophical Society

In 1875 Swami Dayanda Saraswati founded in Mumbai the Hindu reform movement Arya Samaj. In the same year, the Theosophical Society was founded by Madame Blavatsky and Henry Olcott in New York.

Olcott met Moolji Thakurshi (Moolji Thackersey) [Seth Damodar Thackersey Mulji, a Bombay textile magnate] already in 1870
, but they lost contact with each other.

The rising star of the Samaj in the 1860s was Keshub Chunder Sen (Keshava Chandra Sen, 1838-1884), a middle-class recipient of a British education, ignorant of Sanskrit and enthralled by Christianity. Keshub was not of the Brahmin caste, so it is not surprising that he called for the discarding of the sacred thread worn by all Brahmins, and broke other taboos, e.g., by bringing his wife into the services. Devendranath was fond of him and for some time tried to keep up with Keshub’s idea of progress. But by 1865 their styles had diverged so far that the Samaj split in two, the greater part following the “Brahmo Samaj of India,” founded by Keshub in 1868.

Keshub was a bhakta -– a follower of the path of love -– who had no sympathy with traditional Hinduism, but was enthralled by the personality of the great bhakta of Galilee. Throughout his life he teetered on the brink of Christianity, but like his predecessors could not stomach its claim of supremacy over every other religion. He soon determined to follow in the steps of Rammohun Roy, and make his synthesis known to the West. His visit to England in 1870 was a triumph: the President of the Brahmo Samaj was received by numerous dignitaries from Queen Victoria downwards, and welcomed by the Unitarians as if he were a reincarnation of Rammohun himself. But for his part, he was appalled to discover what a nation of “Christians” was really like: the British seemed more alienated from Jesus’ teachings than even the Brahmins.

Keshub’s admiration for Jesus had brought him round to a belief that God had actually been revealed in certain men. The next step, perhaps an inevitable one for a charismatic leader lacking in any philosophical subtlety, was to class himself as one such man. This was his first major mistake. Struggling to define the prophetic status of which he had become convinced, Keshub said that he had no creed or doctrine to reveal, but was under a “perennial and perpetual inspiration from heaven.”17

Some of the Brahmo Samaj members were dismayed by this kind of claim. But not far away from the headquarters in Calcutta, in the temple precincts of Dakshineswar, there was a man who left most visitors in no doubt that he was a recipient of such inspiration. It is to Keshub’s credit that, towards 1875, he did not hesitate to go and see Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836-1886). The two bhaktas fell in love with one another, in a spiritual sense, but it was Ramakrishna who was evidently the senior partner. With great delicacy and humility he tried to lead his more famous friend on to the realization that God and the devotee are one and the same, but this was going too far for the church leader. Nor was Keshub happy with Ramakrishna’s easy acceptance of “idols,” or with his seeming indifference to social reform. Enough that Ramakrishna succeeded in bringing Keshub round to worshipping God as Mother as well as Father, and that they spent many hours in ecstatic singing and dancing.18 More significant historically is the fact that some Brahmo Samajists gravitated permanently to Ramakrishna’s circle, finding there a level of spiritual awareness and presence that their own services lacked. It was they who brought Narendranath Datta into the sage’s influence, initiating his transformation into Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), founder of the Ramakrishna Mission and Order and envoy to the Chicago Parliament of Religions in 1893. Mysticism apart, one can say that whereas the Brahmo Samaj was founded on rejection (albeit of social abuses and religious nonsense), Ramakrishna was an accepter. He adored Jesus with the Christians, not worrying that some of them were Trinitarians; worshiped Allah with the Muslims, agreeing that there was One God and that Mohammed was his prophet; and joyfully accepted the whole pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses in all their idolatrous imagery. Every one of them spoke to him with the voice of his elected deity, the Mother Kali, and he knew that she was ready to speak to everyone who would listen to her.

It is one of the ironies of history that Blavatsky and Olcott failed to make contact with Ramakrishna, their one contemporary in India to whom no one can deny the title of spiritual master. That they did not was probably the fault of Keshub Chunder Sen, whose reputation reached them as one of “personal leadership and reckless egotism” diametrically opposed to the ideals of Rammohun Roy.19 In 1881 it seemed to Blavatsky that the Brahmo Samaj, fifty years after its foundation, was developing in exactly the same way as Christianity and Buddhism, with “the approach of a pompous ritualism, which in the progress of time will stifle what there is of spirit in the new church and leave only a gorgeous formalism in its place.”20 She warned her readers that whereas Rammohun had always been humility itself, the Samaj’s new leader, Keshub Chunder Sen, was claiming the church as a new dispensation and himself as an avatar.

In 1870, the same year that Keshub visited England, two other Indians took ship from England to America. They were a Bombay textile magnate called Moolji Thackersey (Seth Damodar Thackersey Mulji, died 1880 21) and Mr. Tulsidas. Josephine Ransom, an early historian of the Theosophical Society, writes that they were “on a mission to the West to see what could be done to introduce Eastern spiritual and philosophic ideas.”22 Traveling on the same boat was Henry Olcott, fresh from his experiences in London’s spiritualist circles. Olcott was sufficiently impressed by this shipboard meeting to keep a framed photograph of the two Indians on the wall of the apartment he was sharing with Blavatsky in 1877. It was one evening in that year that a visitor who had traveled in India (sometimes identified as James Peebles23) remarked on the photograph. Olcott writes in his memoirs of the consequences of this extraordinary series of coincidences:

I took it down, showed it to him, and asked if he knew either of the two. He did know Moolji Thackersey and had quite recently met him in Bombay. I got the address, and by the next mail wrote to Moolji about our Society, our love for India and what caused it. In due course he replied in quite enthusiastic terms, accepted the offered diploma of membership, and told me about a great Hindu pandit and reformer, who had begun a powerful movement for the resuscitation of pure Vedic religion.24


This reformer was Swami Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1882). In 1870 he was still an eccentric traveling preacher with no aspirations to international influence: something that grew on him precisely after meeting the Brahmo Samajists. He met Devandranath [Debendranath] Tagore in 1870; in 1873 Keshub Chunder Sen gave him the advice (which he took) to stop wearing only a loincloth and speaking only Sanskrit. Indefatigably stumping round the subcontinent, Dayananda founded his “powerful movement,” the Arya Samaj, in 1875. This chronology suggests that in 1870 Thackersey was probably coming to America as a representative of the Brahmo Samaj, but that by the time Olcott got in touch with him again, he had transferred his allegiance to the Arya Samaj.

The Arya Samaj was more radical than any wing of the Brahmo Samaj, on which it was partially modeled. Dayananda was a monotheist who believed in the Vedas as the sole revealed scripture and the basis for a universal religion. The various gods addressed in the Vedic hymns (Agni, Indra, etc.), he explained as aspects of the One, and he was prepared to demonstrate how these ancient texts contained all possible knowledge of man, nature, and the means of salvation and happiness. Of the quarrels between the various religions, he wrote: “My purpose and aim is to help in putting an end to this mutual wrangling, to preach universal truth, to bring all men under one religion so that they may, by ceasing to hate each other and firmly loving each other, life in peace and work for their common welfare.”25 He had no respect whatever for Brahmanism: for their scriptures, rituals, polytheism, caste system, and discrimination against women. Unfortunately for his opponents, he was immensely learned and articulate, could out-argue most pundits, and had, in the last resort (which often seems to have occurred) the advantage of being 6’9” tall and broad to match.26

From Dayananda’s point of view, the Brahmo Samajists had erred both in their failure to recognize the supremacy of the Vedas, and in their too-ready embrace of the errors of other religions. They were moreover too addicted to Brahmanic customs and privileges. Here is a contemporary summary of his social principles:

He says that no inhabitant of India should be called a Hindu, that an ignorant Brahmin should be made a Shudra, and a Shudra, who is learned, well-behaved and religious should be made a Brahmin. Both men and women should be taught Language, Grammar, Dharmashastras, Vedas, Science and Philosophy. Women should receive special education in Chemistry, Music and Medical Science; they should know what foods promote health, strength and vigour. He condemns child marriage as the root of the most of the evils. A girl should be educated and married at the age of twenty. If a widow wants to remarry, she should be allowed to do so. According to his opinion, there is no particular difference between the householder and the sannyasi. 27


It is not surprising that the Theosophists in New York took kindly to the Arya Samaj, at first through correspondence with Thackersey, then through the Bombay branch head, Hurrychund Chintamon, and lastly through Dayananda himself. The two societies were united for a time, though the Theosophists were disillusioned as soon as they discovered the strength of Dayananda's Vedic fundamentalism and his hostility to all other religions. On Dayananda's unexpected death, Blavatsky wrote a generous obituary in The Theosophist for December 1883.28 She appreciated him for defending what he saw as the best of his native heritage against the priestcraft of Brahmins and Christians alike, and for his leadership in an enlightened social policy of which she could only have approved.

As the Arya Samaj continued to flourish after Dayananda's death, it became a rallying point for that movement of Hindu nationalism that wanted neither to turn back the clock to Brahmanic theocracy, nor to embrace Western materialism along with the benefits of science and technology. What Rammohun Roy had set in motion, the Arya Samaj carried forward into the era of the Indian National Congress and the independence movement of the twentieth century. Dayananda himself died -- some said poisoned -- at the time when his mission was beginning to have real success among the North Indian rulers, but he had done enough to be celebrated as a father-figure by leaders of Indian independence such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, and Aurobindo Ghose.29

This in itself defines the limits of Dayananda's mission, which was, as it turned out, for India alone.30 Likewise, the mission of the Brahmo Samajists was a one-way street, bringing liberal Christian principles to India but making only the slightest inroads on the West through Emerson and his friends. The purpose of the foregoing survey has been to show how these Indian movements form another link between Enlightenment ideals and the Theosophical Society, which after its move to India took on the role of a mouthpiece for Eastern wisdom to address the West.

Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott were not converts to Hinduism. One cannot convert to a religion which is entered only by birth into one of its castes. Western followers of the liberal, bhaktic Hinduism of the Ramakrishna Mission may well regard themselves as converts (Christopher Isherwood being perhaps the most eminent of these), but they are Vedantists, not Hindus. What Blavatsky and Olcott were was Buddhist.

-- The Theosophical Enlightenment, by Joscelyn Godwin


In 1877 Olcott wrote to Thakurshi, and described the Theosophical Society and its goals to him. Thakurshi replied to Olcott, and told him about the Arya Samaj. He described its goals and gave Olcott the address of its president in Mumbai Hari Chand Chintamani (Hurrychund Chintamon). In the following exchange of letters, they illustrated the positions of their own societies, and noted the agreements between them. Chintamani then became a member of the Theosophical Society, and Olcott began a correspondence with Dayananda Saraswati.

It was suggested to unite the two societies, and the proposal was accepted at a meeting of the Theosophical Society on May 22, 1878 in New York. A branch of the Theosophical Society was founded in June 27, 1878 by Charles Carleton Massey in London. Its name was the British Theosophical Society of the Aryavart.

In December 1878, Blavatsky and Olcott travelled to Mumbai, where they arrived in February 1879. They met Hari Chand Chintamani, and founded the first theosophical lodge in India. They moved the headquarters of the society to Mumbai.

Thomas H. Burgoyne

Unlike the case of Peter Davidson, there are no descendants or local historians anxious to bear witness to the virtues and achievements of Thomas Henry Dalton (1855?-1895?63 [Date of birth deduced from prison records; death record searched for, without success, by Mr. Deveney.]), better known as T.H. Burgoyne, whose misdemeanors are amply chronicled in the Theosophical literature [B.6]. The “Church of Light,” a still active Californian group which descended from Burgoyne’s teachings, disposes of his life up to 1886 as follows:

T.H. Burgoyne was the son of a physician in Scotland. He roamed the moors during his boyhood and became conversant with the birds and flowers. He was an amateur naturalist. He also was a natural seer. Through his seership he contacted The Brotherhood of Light on the inner plane, and later contacted M. Theon in person. Still later he came to America, where he taught and wrote on occult subjects.64 [“The Founders of the Church of Light.” ]


While this romanticized view cannot entirely be trusted, there is no doubt that Burgoyne was a medium and that he was developed as such by Max Theon. Burgoyne told Gorham Blake that he “visited [Theon’s] house as a student every day for a long time” [B.8.k], and gave this clue to their relationship in The Light of Egypt:

… those who are psychic, may not know WHEN the birth of an event will occur, but they Feel that it will, hence prophecy.

The primal foundation of all thought is right here, for instance, M. Theon may wish a certain result; if I am receptive, the idea may become incarnated in me, and under an extra spiritual stimulus it may grow and mature and become a material fact.65


Burgoyne was making enquiries in occult circles by 1881, when he wrote to [The Rev. W.A.] Ayton asking to visit him for a discussion of occultism. The clergyman was shocked when he met this “Dalton,” who (Ayton says) boasted of doing Black Magic [B.6.f], and forthwith sent him packing [B.6.k]. Later Ayton would be appalled to learn that it was this same young man with whom, as “Burgoyne,” he had been corresponding on H.B. of L. business. Having decided that the mysterious Grand Master “Theon” was really Hurrychund Chintamon, Ayton deduced that the young Scotsman must have learned his black magic from this Indian adventurer.

Hurrychund Chintamon had played an important part in the early Theosophical Society and in the move of Blavatsky and Olcott from New York to India. He had been their chief Indian correspondent during 1877-1878, when he was President of the Bombay Arya Samaj (a Vedic revival movement with which the early Theosophical Society was allied). After Blavatsky and Olcott arrived in Bombay in 1879 and met Chintamon in person, they discovered that he was a scoundrel and an embezzler, and expelled him from the Society. Chintamon came to England in 1879 or 1880, and stayed until 1883, when he returned to make further trouble for the Theosophists in India. Perhaps the fact that Chintamon was in England when Burgoyne first met Theon led some to conclude that they were the same person.66 But this cannot be the whole story. Ayton claimed very clearly and repeatedly that he had proof of Burgoyne’s being in company with Chintamon. In a letter in the private collection, Ayton writes:

I have since discovered that Hurrychund Chintaman the notorious Black Magician was in company with Dalton at Bradford. By means of a Photograph I have traced him to Glasgow & even to Banchory, under the alias of Darushah Chichgur. Friends in London saw him there just before his return to India. This time coincides with that when I noticed a great change in the management. Chintaman had supplied the Oriental knowledge as he was a Sanskrit scholar & knew much. Theon was Chintaman! Friends have lately seen him in India where he is still at his tricks.


Before her disillusion with Chintamon, Blavatsky had touted him to the London Theosophists as a “great adept.” After the break that followed on her meeting with him in person, Chintamon allied himself to the rising Western opposition to esoteric Buddhism exemplified by Stainton Moses, C.C. Massey, William Oxley, Emma Hardinge Britten, Thomas Lake Harris, and others. From this formidable group, Burgoyne first contracted the hostility towards Blavatsky’s enterprise that would mark all his writings.

Chintamon also appears in connection with “H.B. Corinni,” the otherwise unidentifiable (and variously spelled) “Private Secretary” of Theon, who was thought by the police to be just another of Burgoyne’s aliases. Ayton, however, believed Corinni to be Chintamon’s son, who he said offered Blavatsky’s old letters for sale to the President of the London Branch of the Theosophical Society, Charles Carleton Massey.67 [Ayton to unnamed American neophyte, 11 June 1886, based on what he had been told by Massey.] The flaw in Ayton’s thesis is of course the existence of a real and independent Max Theon, of whom we, unlike Ayton, have documentary evidence. Nonetheless, after more than a hundred years, the whole tangle of misidentifications involving Chintamon, “Christamon,” and “Metamon” [see B.9.c-3] with the Order cannot be entirely resolved.

By October 1882, Burgoyne was in Leeds, working in the menial trade of a grocer.68 [This is the trade ascribed to him in the court records. The records of the Leeds Constabulary call him “medium and astrologer.”] Here he tried to bring off an advertising fraud [B.6.d] so timid as to cast serious doubt on his abilities as a black magician! As a consequence, he spent the first seven months of 1883 in jail. He had probably met Theon before his incarceration, and, as we have seen, worked for a time in daily sessions as Theon’s medium. On his release he struck up or resumed relations with Peter Davidson, and became the Private Secretary to the Council of the H.B. of L. when it went public the following year.

Burgoyne contributed many letters and articles to The Occult Magazine, usually writing under the pseudonym “Zanoni.” He also contributed to Thomas Johnson’s Platonist [see B.7.c], showing considerably more literacy than in the letter that so amused the Theosophists [B.7.b]. But he never claimed to be an original writer. In the introduction to the “Mysteries of Eros” [A.3.b] he states his role as that of amanuensis and compiler. The former term reveals what the H.B. of L. regarded as the true source of its teachings – the initiates of the Interior Circle of the Order. The goal of the magical practice taught by the H.B. of L. was the development of the potentialities of the individual so that he or she could communicate directly with the Interior Circle and with the other entities, disembodied and never embodied, that the H.B. of L. believed to populate the universes. If Gorham Blake is to be credited [B.6.k], Davidson and Burgoyne “confessed” to him that Burgoyne was an “inspirational medium” and that the teachings of the Order came through his mediumship. Stripped of the bias inherent in the terms “medium,” and “confess,” there is no reason to doubt the statement of Burgoyne’s role. In the Order’s own terminology, however, his connection with the spiritual hierarchies of the universe was through “Blending” – the taking over of the conscious subject’s mind by the Initiates of the Interior Circle and the Potencies, Powers, and Intelligences of the celestial hierarchies – and through the “Sacred Sleep of Sialam” (see Section 15, below).

Shortly after arriving in Georgia, for all the Theosophists’ efforts to intercept him [B.6.1], Burgoyne parted with Davidson. From then on, the two communicated mainly through their mutual disciples, squabbling over fees for reading the neophytes’ horoscopes and over Burgoyne’s distribution of the Order’s manuscripts, with each man essentially running a separate organization. This split may be reflected in the French version of “Laws of Magic Mirrors” [A.3.a], which was prepared in 1888 and which bears the reference “Peter Davidson, Provincial Grand Mater of the Eastern Section.”

Burgoyne made his way from Georgia first to Kansas, then to Denver, and finally to Monterey, California, staying with H.B. of L. members as he went.69 According to the Church of Light, Burgoyne now met Normal Astley, a professional surveyor and retired Captain in the British Army. After 1887 Astley and a small group of students engaged Burgoyne to write the basic H.B. of L. teachings as a series of lessons, giving him hospitality and a small stipend. Astley is actually said to have visited England to meet Theon – something which is hardly credible in the light of what is known of Theon’s methods.70 We do know, however, that Burgoyne advertised widely and took subscriptions for the lessons, and that they wer published in book form in 1889 as The Light of Egypt; or The Science of the Soul and the Stars, attributed to Burgoyne’s H.B. of L. sobriquet “Zanoni.”

With The Light of Egypt, the secrecy of the H.B. of L.’s documents was largely broken, and they were revealed – to those who could tell – to be fairly unoriginal compilations from earlier occultists, presented with a strongly anti-Theosophical tone. Onlyo the practical teachings were omitted. The book was translated into French by Rene Philipon, a friend of Rene Guenon’s, and into Russian and Spanish, and a paraphrase of it was published in German.71 We present [B.8] the most important reactions to this work, which has been reprinted frequently up to the present day.

Burgoyne’s last years were spent in unwonted comfort if, as the Church of Light says, Dr. Henry and Belle M. Wagner – who had been members of the H.B. of L. since 1885 – gave $100,000 to found an organization for the propagation of the Light of Egypt teachings. Out of this grew the Astro-Philosophical Publishing Company of Denver, and the Church of Light itself, reformed in 1932 by Elbert Benjamine (=C.C. Zain, 1882-1951).72 Beside Burgoyne’s other books The Language of the Stars and Celestial Dynamics, the new company issued in 1900 a second volume of The Light of Egypt. This differs markedly from the first volume, for it is ascribed to Burgoyne’s spirit, speaking through a medium who was his “spiritual successor,” Mrs. Wagner. As the spirit said, with characteristically poor grammar: “Dictated by the author from the subjective plane of life (to which he ascended several years ago) through the law of mental transfer, well known to all Occultists, he is enabled again to speak with those who are still upon the objective plane of life.”73

Max Theon wrote to the Wagners in 1909 (the year after his wife’s death), telling them to close their branch of the H.B. of L.74 [Information given to Mr. Deveney by Henry O. Wagner.] By that time, the Order had virtually ceased to exist as such, while the Wagners continued on their own, channeling doctrinal and fictional works. Their son, Henry O. Wagner, told Mr. Deveney that he, in turn, received books from his parents by the “blending” process, to be described below. In 1963 he issued an enlarged edition of The Light of Egypt, which included several further items from his parents’ records. Some of these areknown to have circulated separately to neophytes during the heyday of the H.B. of L. (see Section 10, below), while others were circulated by Burgoyne individually on a subscription basis to his own private students (all of whom were in theory members of the H.B. of L.) from 1887 until his death. These include a large body of astrological materials and also treatises on “Pentralia,” “Soul Knowledge (Atma Bodha)” and other topics. They are perfectly consistent with the H.B. of L. teachings, but appear to have been Burgoyne’s individual production, done after his separation from Peter Davidson, and they are not reproduced here.75

-- The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor: Initiatic and Historical Documents of an Order of Practical Occultism, by Joscelyn Godwin


There were however tensions between the two societies, and on March 26, 1882 Dayananda spoke about the Humbuggery of the Theosophists, Olcott replied to Dayanandas charges in The Theosophist in July 1882 in an article titled Swami Dayanand's Charges.

See also

• Arya Samaj

Literature

• John Murdoch: Theosophy unveiled. Madras 1885
• Henry Steel Olcott: Old diary leaves, Inside the occult, the true story of Madame H. P. Blavatsky. Running Press, Philadelphia 1975, ISBN 0-914294-31-8
• Chhajju Singh: Life and teachings of Swami Dayanand Saraswati. New Delhi 1971

References

1. Johnson, K. Paul (1994). The masters revealed: Madam Blavatsky and the myth of the Great White Lodge. SUNY Press. p. 107. ISBN 0-7914-2063-9.

External links

• History
• History (pp. 59ff., 80)
• "Humbuggery of the Theosophists"
• Olcott: "Swami Dayanand's Charges"
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Chapter Nine: Education

9.1 British Educational Policy, 1796-1867


The history of education in nineteenth century Ceylon is closely linked with several other aspects of British policy in the island. In the first place, the state of the government revenue – that itself depended heavily on the fortunes of the plantation industry -- set up the financial framework, within which colonial educational policy could be realised. As the propagation of education has never been a preference of the British administration throughout the nineteenth century, expenditure on educational facilities has often been the first to suffer during times of financial difficulties. Second, the British approach to the education of the Crown's 'native subjects' was only partly based on humanitarian thoughts. Practical considerations constantly influenced education policies. The want of English-speaking clerks for the lower ranks of the administration, for instance, led to an emphasis on English education in the wake of the Colebrooke-Cameron report. Later, the policy was reversed. The administrative machinery could not absorb the newly created English-educated class anymore. Third, the competition of the various religious bodies and groups in Ceylon played a significant role in the development of education in Ceylon. At first, the struggle for predominance in the field of education was mainly a struggle between different Christian missionary societies. Later -- in the course of the so-called 'religious revivals’ that will be discussed in detail in a later chapter -- the representatives of the indigenous religious faiths joined the competition as well.

Until the implementation of the Colebrooke-Cameron reforms in the early 1830s, the propagation of education was largely neglected by the colonial government. When the British took over the Dutch possessions on the island, two separate school system existed. The Dutch had established a network of Christian parish schools that had been under central government control. Outside this system there existed a fairly large number of traditional Buddhist schools. These pansala schools were attached to Buddhist monasteries and managed by the clergy.1 Most of the pansalas were located in the Kandyan highlands (and, therefore, came under British authority only in 1815). The pansala network was less tight in the Maritime Provinces. During the administration of the East India Company from 1796 to 1798, education was not considered particularly important and the Dutch parish schools fell into complete neglect. Only with the arrival of Governor Frederick North in 1798 these schools were revived again and soon stood at the centre of the government's education policy. North -- who is said to have been influenced by religious motives more than by educational ones -- appointed the Colonial Chaplain Rev. James A. Cordiner as Principal of Schools. North and Cordiner showed a keen interest in the establishment of a network or vernacular schools, but in 1803 their ambitions were put to a stop by the Colonial Office's retrenchment policy. The parish schools were abolished on financial grounds and only the English Academy -- established by North as the first English school in Ceylon in 1800 -- survived the cutting back of funds.2

North's successors, Thomas Maitland and Robert Brownrigg, did not revive the parish schools. While Maitiand showed no interest in the propagation of education at all, Brownrigg's Governorship saw the arrival of four important missionary societies on the island. In 18 12, the Baptist Missionary Society came to Ceylon and started to set up missionary schools. The Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society followed in 1814, the American Mission in 1816 and the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1818.3 The Wesleyans, the CMS and – on a smaller scale -- the Baptists immediately started to establish schools in the centres of the maritime regions -- preferably in and around Colombo.4 Due to political reasons, the American Mission was not allowed into Colombo and, thus, concentrated solely on missionary activity in the Jaffna peninsula.

The missionary societies regarded education as the principal vehicle of conversion and mainly established vernacular schools to reach the mass of the 'heathens.’ In these schools the local languages -- i.e. Sinhala or Tamil -- were used for the instruction of the pupils.5 Under Brownrigg, the colonial government's education policy confined itself to supporting the activities of the missionary bodies. In 1817, an Archdeaconry (subordinate to Calcutta) was established in Ceylon and the Church of England became the official church of the state. The remaining government schools came under the supervision of the Church of England and its Ecclesiastical Establishment.6

The missionaries were admitted to the Kandyan regions in 1820. After the conquest of Kandy in 1815, the Kandyan Convention had assured British protection to Buddhism, but with the suppression of the Kandyan Rebellion in 1818 a new proclamation was issued that limited government support to Buddhism. Moreover, Brownrigg officially extended government protection to all religions and, therefore, found it possible to open the Kandyan regions to the missionary bodies.7

Thanks to Brownrigg's support, the missionary societies soon occupied a more important position than the government in the spread of education. Under Brownrigg's successor Edward Barnes, the role of the missionaries became even more pronounced as Barnes showed interest only in the economic progress of the island. He did not actively support the missionary societies, but, due to government neglect, he left educational matters almost completely to the churches. Jayaweera states that Barnes "discouraged educational enterprise, state or private, and all but killed state schools; the latter were reduced to four English and ninety parish schools by 1830.”8 When Colebrooke arrived in Ceylon in 1829, the missionary bodies practically controlled the educational system of the island -- partly due to the active support of Brownrigg, partly due to Barnes' indifference.

As he did on most matters of colonial administration, Colebrooke also commented on the prevalent system of education. Sumathipala points out that, when Colebrooke investigated educational matters on the island, only about 800 pupils (out of a total of 26,970) received an English education. About half of those attended the five existing government English schools.9 As Colebrooke occupied a more practical viewpoint concerning the future of education in Ceylon,10 he recommended to discontinue any government activity in the spheres of vernacular education and laid additional emphasis on the importance of English education on the island. In his opinion, the intended opening of the lower ranks of the CCS to the Ceylonese required English-educated personnel. The spread of Western -- i.e. British – ideas and values would unify the island and foster local participation in the administration and judicature.11 Consequently, Governor Horton -- whose task it was to implement most of Colebrooke's recommendations -- closed all government vernacular schools. Furthermore, government English schools were closed in many locations where missionary schools already taught English. Thus, the missionaries were given an additional inducement to engage in English education12 as Colebrooke objected to the missionaries' preference for vernacular education.13 The Archdeacon of the Church of England became the head of the first School Commission in 1834. This commission implemented Colebrooke's recommendations almost to the letter and concentrated entirely on the establishment of English schools.14 The missionary societies soon followed the government policy and laid their emphasis on the foundation of English schools as well.15 The School Commission managed to expand educational facilities (primarily for the teaching of English) in the next years. However, the government schools constantly lost more ground to the rapidly spreading missionary schools.

The School Commission and its policy exclusively represented the Church of England -- the Anglicans. No members of other religious instruction was made a compulsory subject in government schools. Only in 1841 Governor Stewart Mackenzie reorganized the mission and created the Central School Commission. In the new commission Presbyterians, Roman Cathoiics, Wesleyans and Anglicans were all given a voice -- but none of the indigenous religious faiths was represented.16 The creation of the Central School Commission triggered several changes in the educational policy of Ceylon. From 1841 on, government schools were open to children of all Christian denominations. Furthermore, the first grant-in-aid system for nongovernment English schools was introduced and enabled missionary English schools to receive a government grant (provided that they allowed inspection and examination by the commission). As they had a long tradition of English teaching, schools in Jaffna made particular use of the grant-in-aid system and, consequently, several government schools in the peninsula were closed down.17

The Wesleyan Rev. William Gogerly presided the commission from 1843 onwards and implemented a comparatively progressive policy. Together with Governor Colin Campbell he introduced several new schemes. In 1843, the Central School Commission made provisions for vernacular education in elementary schools. In 1845, a Native Normal School for the training of teachers in vernacular education was established. Two years later, 30 vernacular schools were opened.18 As a consequence, government expenditure on education rose from £2,999 in the year 1841 to £11,4-15 in 1847 19 (i.e. from 0.8% to 2.2% of the total expenditure).20

In the course of the first serious coffee crisis in 1848 and the following financial depression, government expenditure on education was drastically reduced. Vernacular education suffered hardest. Although most government vernacular schools continued to exist, the introduction of fees and the closing down of the Native Normal School prevented further progress in vernacular education.21 The neglect of education policy continued when the depression had been overcome and the coffee mania of the 1850s had set in. Economic advance and the improvement of the infrastructure were the sole interest of the administration during that time. Without government guidance the policy of the Central School Commission changed almost every year during the 1850s -- laying emphasis on English education in one year and promoting vernacular instruction in the next.22 Education, therefore, remained largely the domain of the missionary bodies. The Christian supremacy in the field was underlined by the Central School Commission's policy to give grants exclusively to schools run by Christian institutions.23 No pansala or other non-Christian school had ever received a grant so far.

In the 1860s, the Roman Catholic community -- led by the Archbishop of Colombo Christopher Bonjean -- put up first resistance to the prevailing system. When the Tamil MLC Muttu Coomaraswamy (backed by the Burgher MLC Martenz) requested the creation of a special committee to investigate the matter, a Subcommittee of the Legislative Council was eventually appointed to conduct inquires about the state of education in Ceylon.24 In 1865, the Morgan Committee -- named after its president, Queen's Advocate Richard F. Morgan -- took up its work.


9.2 The Morgan Committee and the Department of Public Instruction

The Morgan Committee presented its final report in 1867. The implementation of its proposals not only placed the administration of education on a sound institutional footing but also led to a reversal of government educational policy on the island. Of the various changes advocated by the Committee only three major points shall be discussed here: the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction, the emphasis on vernacular education and the introduction of the so-called Denominational System based on a revised grant-in-aid system. Governor Hercules Robinson said in an address to the Legislative Council in 1870:

I have to announce to you the adoptions of a distinct policy the tendency of which will be to extend the operations of government in the direction of establishing village schools as yet unprovided with the means of instruction, but gradually to contract its operations in respect of English schools in the lawn districts where an effective system of grant-in-aid will enable the government to employ its funds to much greater advantage than in maintaining schools of its own.25


From 1869/70 onwards, the Committee's proposals were gradually realised. The Morgan Report expressed the opinion that the government had an obligation to spread (vernacular) education in the entire island. It has been said that the Committee's views had not so much been shaped by the needs of the population but "by the current trends in England and India which favoured some form of state responsibility for education."26 Accordingly, vernacular education gained new momentum with the implementation of the Report's proposals. The number of government vernacular schools increased from 64 in 1869 to 347 in 1881.27 The report also proposed the abolition of government English elementary schools on the assumption that superior (i.e. English) education was only required by a small minority of the population. Superior Central schools -- already existent in some of the population centres -- and Anglo-vernacular schools28 [28. In Anglo-vernacular schools English was not the medium of instruction, but merely a subject. The pupils learned English with explanations and instructions given in the vernacular.] should provide the necessary facilities for those who could afford an English education. All school fees for vernacular education were abolished, whereas superior English education was only available against the payment of substantial fees.29 Wickremeratne even holds that it was one of the main goals of the colonial government's educational policy after 1867 to retain the growing educational gap.30

The inefficiency of the Central School Commission was demonstrated by its last report of the year 1867. The report showed that since 1840 only 86 new schools had been established.31 The Morgan Committee decided to do away with the Commission and create the Department of Public Instruction. The Governor, the Executive Council and the School Commission suggested the additional creation of an advisory board -– consisting of representatives of all races and denominations -– to control and assist the Director of Public Instructions. But Morgan opposed this view, and, on his advice, the Legislative Council voted against the establishment of such a board.32 Consequently, the Director of Public Instruction was directly and solely responsible for the implementation of the government's educational policy.

After 1867 the management of many government English schools was handed over to the missionary societies. Other schools were simply closed when missionary English schools existed in the vicinity. The government followed this policy without consideration of the religious feelings of the population.33 The measures of the Morgan Report provided no conscience clause that could exempt Buddhist or Tamil pupils from the compulsory attendance of religious instruction. Due to the government's gradual retreat from English education and the promotion of missionary English schools, everybody with a desire to learn English was exposed to the proselytising ambitions of the missionaries.
Sumathipala quotes Ponnambalam Ramanathan who in 1884 presented a memorial of several Jaffna Hindus to the Legislative Council, in which the petitioners complained about the religious intolerance in the missionary schools:

[C]hildren who are obliged to go to these missionary schools are forced by the missionaries, under pain of fines and expulsion, to read the Bible whether they liked it or not [ ... ] Hindu boys who, for want of their own English schools, resort to the missionary schools, have learnt to make mental reservations and are getting skilled in the art of dodging. The holy ashes put on at home during worship are carefully rubbed off as they approach the Christian school and they affect the methods of Christian boys while at school. [ ... ] There is a great deal too much of hypocrisy in Jaffna in the matter of religion, owing the fact that the love of the missionaries for proselytes is as boundless as the love of the Jaffnese to obtain some knowledge of English at any cost. […] If there is no conscience clause in the grant-in-aid code, I think the sooner a clause of that kind is introduced the better it will be for religious freedom in Ceylon.34


While religious instruction was not a subject in government schools anymore, the private grant-receiving schools were free to teach the subject. Almost all of the grant-aided schools were under Christian management and, thus, held compulsory religious instruction lessons (mostly held in the first school hour). Throughout the nineteenth century, the pupils were compelled to attend these lessons. No conscience clause existed.

The government's gradual retreat from English education gained momentum, when the plantation economy experienced first signs of the coffee crisis in the late 1870s. Government coffers suffered from a lack of funds. Thus, the Legislative Council's Retrenchment Committee proposed in 1883 to hand over local Anglo-vernacular and English schools to the Municipal and Local Boards. Ordinance 33 of 1883 was passed and made provisions for the transfer of English and mixed schools located within the limits of municipalities to the local authorities. But only in Puttalam such a transfer was successful. Most other Municipal and Local Boards lacked the financial means to assume control over the government schools. The missionaries stepped in and took over the management of the schools. Therefore, 21 government English schools were either handed over to the missionary bodies or closed until the end of 1884.37 The Colombo Academy (renamed the Royal College in 1881) remained the only government English school within the boundaries of a municipality.38 The government's vernacular education policy was more successful. Between 1873 and 1900, the number of government vernacular schools increased from 241 to 484. Still the government was outperformed by the missionaries who increased the number of their schools from 237 to 1,186.39 Jayasuriya states that on several recorded occasions government vernacular schools were also handed over to the missionaries or closed, if a missionary school of the same type was near.40

The government relied heavily on the grant-in-aid system introduced by the Morgan Report and considered it a practicable way to outsource educational responsibility to the missionaries. The allocation of such grants was based on the principal of payment by results. Officials of the Department of Public Instruction conducted examinations in the schools. The results of these examinations decided whether a school was eligible for a grant and, if so, for what grant category. The grant in-aid system did not place any restriction on religious instruction in the grant-aided schools -- although examinations were conducted in secular subjects only. Grants were given in the categories A, B and (since 1872) C -- in descending order of the allocated sum. Grants for C schools were small and awarded only for three years. During that time the C school had to qualify for an A or B grant. The distinction in A, B and C schools was applied to every type of school. Among those types English schools received the highest grants, followed by Anglo-vernacular and, finally, vernacular schools.41

The working of the grant-in-aid system was tightly connected with the financial state of the colony. Initially comparatively generous grants were made. The coffee plantations' prosperity had reached new heights and the government coffers were filled up to the rim. The missionary societies seized the opportunity and most missionary schools applied for a grant. In 1870, the first year of the new scheme, 223 schools received a grant. Six year later the number of eligible schools had increased to 697.42

The government and the Department for Public Instruction were both pleased with the working of the grant-in-aid system from its very inception.
More and more educational responsibility was passed to the private missionary bodies that competed fiercely for grants and constantly established more schools. The missionaries were the main beneficiaries of the system -- even though, in theory, all private schools (i. e. not just missionary schools) could apply for a government grant since the revisions of the Morgan Committee. Although the indigenous religious groups quickly realised the potential of the grant-in-aid system, they could not make full use of the scheme due to several hindrances. Unlike their Christian counterparts, the Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims had not participated in the field of education prior to the 1870s on any significant scale. The considerable number of Buddhist pansala schools had existed outside the official educational system of the island since the arrival of the British. The pansalas contributed to the spread of literacy in the vernacular and were very valuable for the villagers, but they worked on different principles than government or missionary schools. Therefore, they could not serve as a training ground in (Western) educational management. Apart from the Buddhist pansalas, the indigenous communities had little experience in the management of schools, although every now and then a local school was set up and run on private funds.

The indigenous religion groups' ambitions to secure government grants did not only suffer from their lack of experience in schools management. The often also lacked the money to set up schools in the first place. And when they managed to do so, they faced the fierce opposition of the missionary bodies, the partiality of the British officials and -- the most formidably -- provisions of the so-called Distance Rule as introduced in 1874. Thus, only four Buddhist and one Hindu school were registered for a grant in the year 1880 (ten years after the introduction of the revised scheme) -- as against a total of 833 grant-aided schools in that year.43


The missionary societies with their headquarters in Europe or America had much larger financial resources at their disposal than the local Buddhist or Hindu communities. This gave the missionaries a distinct advantage over their native competitors, as the initial investment to set up and run a school was considerable and grants were only given to schools already up and running. Furthermore, the opposition of the missionaries and their influence on the European officials often delayed or prevented the registration of Buddhist and Hindu schools for a grant.
Jayasuriya gives several examples for this practice and both Jayasuriya and Sumathipala quote the Director of Public Instruction on one particular case in the Northern Province:

During the last two years some applications were considered for the registration of schools under Sivite [Hindu] managers. They were large schools, had existed for many years, and fulfilled every condition required by the existing regulations. The case of one of the schools was submitted to my particular attention by the Tamil members of the Legislative Council. The protests of one of the Managers against the registration of such schools has been of a very determined kind, and he directly claims for the Society he represents the 'exclusive possession' of the district in which his schools are situated. Indeed with reference to a school which had been in existence for nearly twenty years, he says,

'If it can be made plain that the school is really needed, the teacher should be required to accept Mission management as the sole condition to receiving government aid.'44


Only rarely did such cases reach the Director of Public Instruction -- and even then it seems that little has been done to keep the Christian missionaries from interfering. The school in the referred case did not receive the grant.45 Christian lobbying slowed down the development of native schools and, above all, increased the lead of the missionary societies in the educational field. And with the introduction of the Distance Rule in 1874 an additional and crucial advantage in the competition for grants was given to those bodies with a large number of already registered schools -- i.e. the Christian missionary societies. The new rule made provisions for the refusal of grants for schools established within three miles of an existing government or grant-in-aid school of the same type -- except in special circumstances.46 Taking into account that the missionary schools had right from the introduction of the grant-in-aid scheme seized the opportunity and established numerous schools, it becomes clear that such a rule prevented the registration of new schools in many localities. The existence of a government or missionary grant-aided school in a village (or in the vicinity thereof) made the allocation of a grant for another school in that area impossible. This served a severe blow to the Buddhist and Hindu schools that explicitly aimed at providing indigenous educational facilities as alternative to the already established missionary institutions. With 595 grant-in-aid schools in 1874 47 (and the number rapidly increasing) it was hard enough to find a suitable place for a school with no other grant-in-aid school already existent. In the important population centres, where numerous missionary schools competed for pupils, the registration of a grant-aided school was almost impossible. The working of the Distance Rule satisfied both the secular authorities (for financial considerations) and the Protestant missionaries (whose educational supremacy it safeguarded). The Distance Rule was, therefore, included in Bruce's Revised Code of 1880. And in 1891, the even more restrictive quarter-mile rule was introduced.

-- Ceylon's Department of Public Instruction, 1868 [Excerpt], From Coffee to Tea Cultivation in Ceylon, 1880-1900: An Economic and Social History, by Roland Wenzlhuemer


Though many writers have written that Olcott's visit to Sri Lanka was inspired by learning about the religious debate at Panadura it is the correspondence he had with the Ven Piyaratana Nayake Thera that brought Olcott to our shores.

In the archives, Olcott's diary still exists. He has written that he came to this country from the port of Galle and visited the temple of Piyaratana Thera after addressing a gathering of about 2000 that came to Galle to greet him. He said the temple was one of the most well organised and orderly temples. He spent ten days at the temple discussing the future of Buddhist education in this country and formulating the concept of the Buddhist Theosophical Society (BTS) schools that changed the colonial education map of this country.


-- Dodanduwa Sri Piyaratana Tissa Mahanayake Thero, by Memories of Weerasooriya Clan


WHEREAS the said theosophists, perceiving the need for the upliftment of the people’s self-esteem in collaboration with Most Ven. Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala, Ven. Migettuwatte Gunananda, Anagarika Dharmapala and other Buddhists Leaders founded the Colombo Buddhist Theosophical Society for the purpose of fostering education, traditional culture and national heritage and protecting Buddha Sasana and consequently the Society has managed as many as 420 public schools...

The establishment of schools and the bringing together of Buddhist workers in a cooperative body without distinction of caste or position for the purpose of promoting the welfare of the Buddhists of Ceylon, were the primary objects aimed at by the new Society...

At the very inception of the Society Colonel Olcott started a Buddhist National Fund which was placed under trustees especially appointed for the purpose. The Buddhist National Fund came to over Rs. 6,000 and with it was purchased the site and old buildings of the present Buddhist Headquarters in Maliban Street and Norris Road...

The promotion of education became the most important work of the Society. The necessity for placing Buddhist children under Buddhist influence from their early years was recognized and from year to year the results of this policy demonstrated the wisdom of the step. In 1880 when the Society started there were only two Buddhist schools in the Island -- one at Dodanduwa conducted under the supervision of Piyarathna Nayaka Thero, and the other at Panadura under the supervision of Gunaratana Nayaka Thero. These had an attendance of 246 children and received as Government Grants a sum of Rs.532-70. Whereas there was at the time 805 schools conducted by Christian Missionaries with an attendance of 78.086 children receiving Government Grants to the extent of 174,420 rupees.

The new organization which aspired to enter into the field of education was opposed, and difficulties placed in its way by the Government. The Director of Education visualizes a conflict of interests and the introduction of a dissension which the new organization was likely to create. Its ability to take its part in the education programme was doubted. Difficulties were placed on the path by the enactment of regulations likely to hamper their progress. The energy and determination of those who formed the new movement and the intelligent help and guidance they received enabled them to overcome these obstacles which acted as an impetus and activity throughout the country. The report of 1892, that is twelve years after the establishment of the Society, shows 25 boys’ schools, 11 girls’ schools and 10 mixed schools, a total, i.e., in 1903 there were under the management of the Society 174 schools with an attendance of about 30,000 children. The importance of the establishment of Buddhists schools had been realized and within the period of 24 years in addition to the number of schools under the management of the Society, a very large number of Buddhist schools under the management of other Societies and private individuals came into existence. These schools assisted in the promotion of the objects of the Society.

In 1915 the Society went through a very difficult time. Martial Law was proclaimed in Ceylon. Most of the leaders of the Buddhist community were subjected to detention and imprisonment. Government ceased paying grants to schools and decided to have all its schools closed. The disaster looked as if all national progress was to cease. The way in which people of this island rose to the occasion to meet a difficult situation without distinction or religion or caste and met the crisis is the beginning of a great epoch. Within a short time they united to destroy a system of Government which was capable of being so disastrously misused and the present system of Government was evolved. So far as the Buddhist Theosophical Society is concerned it partook of the new awakening. Buddhists rallied round it as they never did before. The Society was strengthened with new members and a constitution was registered. It planned its future work and strengthened with new members and a constitution was registered. It planned its future work and strengthened what had already been built up. Funds came in to meet all these new requirements.

In 1925 there were 260 schools under the management of the Society with a staff of 1,906 teachers, Today (1940) the Society has under its management 420 schools.


-- Colombo Buddhist Theosophical Society, by Colombo Buddhist Theosophical Society


A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. (June 2019)
This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject, potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral. (June 2019)


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Ananda College ආනන්ද විද්‍යාලය ஆனந்த கல்லூரி
Ananda College is located in Central Colombo
P De S Kularatne Mawatha, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Coordinates 6°55′30″N 79°52′09″E
Information
Type: National
Motto: Pali: අප්පමාදො අමතපදං Appamādo Amathapadan (Buddhist quote from the Apramada Vagga in the Dhammapada) (Heedfulness, Punctuality leads to Nirvana)
Established: 1 November 1886; 133 years ago
Founder: Colonel Henry Steel Olcott
Principal: S.M. Keerthirathna
Grades: 1–13
Gender: Boys
Age range: 6 to 19
Medium of language: Sinhala, English and Tamil
Color(s): Maroon and Gold
Affiliation: Buddhist
Alumni: Old Anandians
Website: Ananda College

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School grounds in 1920.

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Colonel H.S. Olcott, founder of Ananda College

Ananda College (Sinhala: ආනන්ද විද්‍යාලය) is a Buddhist school for Sri Lankan boys, with classes from primary to secondary, on a campus of 10 acres (40,000 m2) in Maradana, Colombo.[1]

Early history

Following a meeting of Buddhists at Pettah, under the patronage of Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera, an English-Buddhist school was inaugurated at 19 Prince Street on 1 November 1886 by the Buddhist Theosophical Society. The first session was attended by 37 students. In 1888, when about 130 boys were attending, it moved to 61 Maliban Street. C. W. Leadbeater was appointed the first principal of Ananda today.[2]

By the time the school was officially registered in March 1889, there were 120 students. That same year, J. P. R. Weerasuriya became the first Anandian to pass the Cambridge junior examination. The Cambridge graduate and confessed Buddhist A. E. Bultjens became principal.[2]

In March 1890, the school's proximity to a Catholic school led to controversy—and a move to 54 Maliban Street where further growth ensued, and student enrollments rose to 200 in September 1892 and 270 in 1894.[citation needed] As principals followed Don Baron Jayatilaka. That year, Mr. Tudor Rajapaksha donated 3.2 acres (13,000 m2) of land[3] and the school was relocated in the suburb of Maradana. On 17 August 1895, the former English Buddhist School was renamed to Ananda College Colombo.

When Patrick de Silva Kularatne took over in 1918 attendance was 450 which rapidly increased to 1000 two years later. At this time the annual budget was 80000 Rs.[2]

By 1961, the college had officially become a government school.[3]

Ananda Viharaya

The Ananda Viharaya, is the most easily distinguishable building of the college.[4]

Completed under Col. E.A. Perusinghe, Late Governor, Honourable William Gopallawa handed over the Viharaya to the School on 6 March 1969.[4] The Buddha statue has been designed by Venerable Kalasoori Mapalagama Vipulasara Thero.[5]

"Battle of the Maroons"

Main article: Ananda–Nalanda

In a tradition dating back to 1924, an annual cricket contest is held between Ananda College and Nalanda College Colombo. The two schools have contributed many players to the Sri Lanka national cricket team, including the old Anandians Sidath Wettimuny recipient of Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1985, Arjuna Ranatunga (who captained the Sri Lanka Cricket team to victory in the 1996 Cricket World Cup and who was also named as a Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1999), former Test captain Marvan Atapattu and T20 captain Dinesh Chandimal.[6]

Old Boys' Association

Sir D. B. Jayatilleke, the then principal, conceived the idea of the Ananda College Old Boys' Association in 1908. Initially its main function was to organise a sports-meet and the annual dinner. In subsequent years the OBA and the school's administration have co-operated in furthering the development of the College. Prior to 1961 (when the school was nationalised) the incumbent principal of the school presided over the OBA. Since that date, a president is elected by members at each annual general meeting.[7] The present president of OBA is Mr.Dushmantha Karannagoda.[8]

Ananda Gallery

Ananda Gallery is the official Ananda College Merchandise portal.[9] Ananda Gallery was established in December 2017 by Principal S.M. Keerthirathna.

Ananda Daham Pasala

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Ananda Dhamma School Logo

Ananda Daham Pasala (ආනන්ද දහම් පාසල/Ananda Dhamma School) is the sunday school of Ananda College. It was started in 2004 as a project of 81 group.[10][11][12][13]

Notable alumni

Main article: List of Ananda College alumni

See also: Category:Alumni of Ananda College

Olcott oration

Olcott oration is an annual event organized by the old boys association of Ananada College, which commemorate the founder Colonel Henry Steel Olcott of Ananda College and other leading Buddhist schools in Sri Lanka. Every year famous personalities who educated at Ananda College, share their own experience for the "Olcott oration" and renowned dignitaries who have delivered the oration in the past, include Prof. Nimal Rajapakshe, Prof. Sumedha Chandana Wirasinghe and Prof. Ravindra Fernando.[14][15][16]

College war memorial

The Ananda College war memorial is situated in front of the Henry Steel Olcott Hall, and is dedicated to alumni of Ananda college who died while members of the Sri Lankan armed forces. Lieutenant A.P.N. P de Vas Gunawardana on 23 July 1983 became the first Anandian officer to sacrifice his life while in the Military. The plaque bears the names of old Anandians who were killed in the line of duty which includes the names of 45 war heroes from the Sri Lanka Army,[17] and many more names of war heroes from the sri Lanka Navy and the Sri Lanka Air Force. Ananda College OBA organises an annual "Ananda Viruharasara" event to honour military dead.[18][19][20]

Notable past principals

See also: Category:Principals of Ananda College

• C. W. Leadbeater (1886–1890)
• Sir D. B. Jayatilaka (1898–1908)
• P. De S. Kularatne (1918–1932;1936–1943)
• Dr. G. P. Malalasekera (?–?)
• L.H. Mettananda (1945 - 1955)

Notable teachers

See also: Category:Faculty of Ananda College

• Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Thero
• Sikkim Mahinda Thero
• Polwatte Buddhadatta Mahanayake Thera
• Gunapala Piyasena Malalasekera
• Chellappah Suntharalingam
• Lionel Ranwala
• Agampodi Paulus de Zoysa
• Tuan Burhanudeen Jayah
• R. A. Chandrasena

References

1. Foundation of Ananda College Archived May 6, 2013, at the Wayback Machine on official website
2. Ananda College, Colombo; Buddhist Annual of Ceylon, Vol. I (1920), 1, p. 41.
3. Milestones Archived May 5, 2013, at the Wayback Machine on official website
4. Historical Sketches of Ananda Archived December 30, 2014, at the Wayback Machine on official website
5. "Montage - Cultural paradigm | Sundayobserver.lk - Sri Lanka". archives.sundayobserver.lk. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
6. Battle of the Maroons website
7. About OBA Archived 2013-02-17 at the Wayback Machine at official website
8. https://anandacollegeoba.org
9. [1]
10. http://epaper.dinamina.lk/?tday=2019/07 ... 02&ver=col
11. http://archives.dinamina.lk/epaper/?id= ... 2013/03/09
12. "Daily Mirror E-Paper". epaper.dailymirror.lk. July 24, 2019. p. A14. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
13. http://epaper.sundayobserver.lk/?tday=2 ... 99&ver=pro
14. "Olcott Oration 2011". Archived from the original on August 22, 2013. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
15. "Olcott Oration - 2010 | Letters". Print2.dailymirror.lk. 2010-10-29. Archived from the original on 2014-02-24. Retrieved 2014-02-19.
16. "OLCOTT ORATION 2012". Ananda College. 2012-11-10. Archived from the original on 2014-02-25. Retrieved 2014-02-19.
17. Ananda College. "Anandians and Sri lanka Army". Archived from the original on 2015-02-13. Retrieved 2014-04-28.
18. Ananda Kannangara (2009-07-05). "Premier Buddhist school pays tribute to its war heroes: Anada Viru HARASARA". Security News | Sundayobserver.lk - Sri Lanka. Archived from the original on 2014-02-24. Retrieved 2014-02-19.
19. "Ananda College pays tribute for Old Anandian war heroes". Defence.lk. 2010-12-30. Archived from the original on 2014-02-28. Retrieved 2014-02-19.
20. "Quick Look – Ananda Viru Harasara". Daily News. 18 October 2012. Retrieved 2014-02-19.

External links

• Official website
• Ananda College Cricket
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

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Liberal Catholic Church
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/29/20

A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. (July 2009)

Part of a series on the Liberal Catholic Movement
Background: Christianity; Western Christianity; English Reformation; Anglicanism; Old Catholicism
People: Arnold Harris Mathew; James I. Wedgwood; Charles Webster Leadbeater
Rites: Liberal Rite
Churches: Societas Jesu Christi
Liberal Catholic Church: Liberal Catholic Church International; Liberal Catholic Church Theosophia Synod; Old Catholic Apostolic Church; The Young Rite


The name Liberal Catholic Church (LCC) is used by a number of separate Christian churches throughout the world which are open to esoteric beliefs and hold many ideas in common. Although the term Liberal Catholic might suggest otherwise, it does not refer to liberal groups within the Roman Catholic Church but to groups within the Independent Catholic movement, unrecognised by and not in communion with the Pope nor the rest of the Catholic Church.

There are essentially two groups of Liberal Catholic churches: those which espouse theosophical ideas and those which do not.

History

Foundation


The founding bishops of the Liberal Catholic churches were J. I. Wedgwood of the Wedgwood China family and the Theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater. Wedgwood was a former Anglican priest who left the Anglican church on becoming a theosophist in 1904. After serving in several high offices in the Theosophical Society, including being general secretary of the society in England and Wales from 1911 to 1913, he was ordained as a priest in the Old Catholic movement on July 22, 1913, by Arnold Harris Mathew. Mathew in turn was a former Roman Catholic priest who had left to be ordained as a bishop in the Old Catholic Church, which had separated from papal authority in 1873 over the issue of papal infallibility. The Old Catholics maintained that their ordinations were valid within the Catholic tradition, and the Liberal Catholic Church thus claims to trace its apostolic succession back to Rome through Old Catholicism.

In 1915 Wedgwood visited Australia in his capacity as Grand Secretary of the Order of Universal CoMasonry (Co-Freemasonry a branch of liberal or adogmatic Freemasonry consisting of mixed-sex lodges), another of the organisations in which he was prominent. On his return to England, he learned that Frederick Samuel Willoughby, a bishop of the Old Catholic Church of Britain, had become enmeshed in a homosexuality scandal and as a result had been suspended by Archbishop Mathew. He also learned that Mathew wanted all the clergy of the church to renounce Theosophy on the grounds that the beliefs of the Church and the Society were incompatible. Shortly afterwards Archbishop Mathew dissolved the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain and published a letter in The Times announcing his intention to return to the Roman Catholic Church.

Few bothered to reply to Archbishop Mathew. Willoughby offered to consecrate Wedgwood to the episcopate, but Wedgwood approached a number of other bishops seeking consecration, including the Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht Gerardus Gul (by whom Mathew had originally been consecrated), and Bishop Frederick James, a fellow Theosophist. Eventually, Wedgwood was consecrated as a bishop by Bishop Willoughby on 13 February 1916 with Bishop King and Bishop Gauntlett assisting.

With the Old Catholics continuing to disapprove of Mathew's creation in Britain, Wedgwood started the organisation that would later become the Liberal Catholic Church, of which he became the first Presiding Bishop. At the same time he maintained his close connections with the Theosophical movement, and many of Wedgwood's priests and bishops were simultaneously Theosophists.

Schisms and other departures

See also: Liberal Catholic Movement

1941 schism

In 1941 a schism occurred in the church due to breaches of canon law and the laws of the state of California on the part of the Presiding Bishop, which led to the church known abroad as the Liberal Catholic Church International earning the legal right to be known as the Liberal Catholic Church in the United States. In America, the entity originally known as the Liberal Catholic Church is known as "The Liberal Catholic Church, Province of the United States of America."[1] The Liberal Catholic Church, Province of the United States of America is more Theosophical in belief while the Liberal Catholic Church International maintains freedom of belief and does not promote any singular philosophy or tradition.

2003 schism

In 2003 within the Liberal Catholic Church, the issue of the limitation of a bishop's right to ordain candidates of that bishop's choosing gave rise to a difference of opinion which resulted in two groups: a "traditional" and a more "liberal" one. The ordination of women was the primary point of conflict. Since both groups use the name "Liberal Catholic Church," distinguishing between the two may be confusing.

The Young Rite

In 2006, former LCC Presiding Bishop Johannes van Alphen consecrated Markus van Alphen who, in turn, established the Young Rite. Bishop Johannes eventually joined the Young Rite, serving until his death. Among the tenets of the Young Rite was the belief that all possessed a path to the priesthood and anyone requesting ordination should receive it.[2] This practice was abandoned in the United States after Markus van Alphen's retirement and with the establishment of the Community of St. George, a Young Rite jurisdiction and the only recognized Young Rite jurisdiction in the United States. Young Rite USA now requires a multi-year formation program for its clergy.[3]. The Young Rite is incorporated in the United States as the Liberal Catholic Church - The Young Rite.

Structure

The Liberal Catholic Church is governed by three "General Episcopal Synods" of all bishops. The General Episcopal Synods are the assemblies of all bishops recognized as such by its members. The synods meet formally from time to time and they elect a presiding bishop from among themselves. The current Presiding Bishops of the Liberal Catholic Church are the Right Reverend Graham Wale, for the conservative branch and the Right Reverend James Zinzow for the progressive one. The Liberal Catholic Church International's Presiding Bishop is Most Reverend James P. Roberts. The General Episcopal Synods also elect priests to the episcopacy, with the approval of the parishes of their respective provinces. The bishops of the Liberal Catholic Church may hold office until the mandatory retirement age of 75. (There is no such rule for the Liberal Catholic Church International.)

Each province is governed by a regionary bishop who, in turn, may have one or more bishops functioning as assistants. A province may also have its own clerical synod of deacons, priests and bishops. These clergy are seldom financially compensated and hold secular jobs. They also may marry and hold property.

Training for the clergy varies from province to province. The Liberal Catholic Institute of Studies was created to standardise the program of studies for the development of future deacons and priests, but laypersons may follow the courses as well. The Liberal Catholic Church International's (LCCI) clergy training program is called the St. Alban Theological Seminary. The Universal Catholic Church's (an offshoot of the LCCI) is called the St. Clement (of Alexandria) Seminary.

The Liberal Catholic Church also has monasteries although they are not official.

Teaching

According to church teaching, the Liberal Catholic Church draws its central inspiration from an earnest faith in a Christ who is eternal, being alive before, during, and after the events of the New Testament, to the present day.[citation needed]

Liberal Catholicism finds any form of Christian worship valid as long as it is earnest and true, and that individuals can experience the presence of Christ. But it also holds that Christ also appointed certain rites or sacraments (called "mysteries" in the Eastern Orthodox Church) to be handed down in the church as special channels of power and blessing. Through these "means of grace" the Liberal Catholic Church believes that Christ is ever present within his church, in fellowship and communion, guiding and protecting them from birth to death. Many in the Liberal Catholic Church believe that there are many churches because there are many ways in which people want to worship God.[citation needed]

Many in the church accept the concept of purgatory, and in the Liturgy of the Mass the priest prays for the dead. The church is open to reincarnation.[4][5]

Sacraments and apostolic succession

According to the Liberal Catholic Church's Statement of Principles, "The Liberal Catholic Church recognises seven fundamental sacraments, which it enumerates as follows: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Absolution, Holy Unction, Holy Matrimony, and Holy Orders. It claims an unbroken apostolic succession through the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht and claims that its orders are 'acknowledged as valid throughout the whole of those churches of Christendom which maintain the apostolic succession of orders as a tenet of their faith." The LCC International has modified their Statement of Principles to read "it (the LCC) has preserved an episcopal succession that is valid, as understood throughout the whole of those churches in Christendom that maintain the apostolic succession as a tenet of their faith." The LCC International permits the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians.[6][7]

Unity of all religions

Further information: Perennial philosophy

The Liberal Catholic Church believes there is a body of doctrine and mystical experience common to all the great religions of the world which cannot be claimed as an exclusive possession by any one of them. Moving within the orbit of Christianity and regarding itself as a distinctive Christian church it nevertheless holds that the other great religions of the world are also divinely inspired and that all proceed from a common source, though religions may stress different aspects of the various teachings and some aspects may even temporarily be ignored. These teachings, as facts in nature, rest on their own intrinsic merit. They form that true catholic faith which is catholic because it is the statement of universal principles. The LCC bases these beliefs on what St. Augustine said: "The identical thing that we now call the Christian religion existed among the ancients and has not been lacking from the beginnings of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, from which moment on the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christian." (Retract I. XIII,3).

See also

• Christianity portal
• Free Church of Antioch
• Maitreya (Benjamin Creme)
• Maitreya (Theosophy)
• Warren Prall Watters

References

1. Deceptio, Falsum, et Dissimulatio. Matthews, Edward M. St. Alban Press, San Diego. 1998.
2. Bate, Alistair (2009). A Strange Vocation: Independent Bishops Tell Their Stories. Berkeley, CA: The Apocryphile Press. ISBN 978-1933993751.
3. https://www.youngriteusa.org/education-celebrants.html
4. "Christianity and reincarnation, Kristendomen och reinkarnation". YouTube. 2010-09-29. Retrieved 2013-08-16.
5. [1] Archived October 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
6. "Services of The Liberal Catholic Church". Liberalcatholic.tripod.com. Retrieved 2013-08-16.
7. [2] Archived July 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine

External links

• Liberal Catholic Church of America
• Liberal Catholic Church of Great Britain
• Liberal Catholic Church of Australia
• Liberal Catholic Church of New Zealand
• Liberal Catholic Community
• The Priestly Society of the Inner Circle and Light
• The Young Rite
• Liberal Catholic Church-Theosophia Synod
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

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Dayananda Saraswati [Mul Shankar Tiwari]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/29/20



Blavatsky and Olcott had set sail for India in 1879 largely on the strength of their relationship with Dayananda Sarasvati and his Arya Samaj. A chance meeting in 1878 between Olcott and Moolji Thackeray, a member of the Arya Samaj of Bombay, led to a cordial correspondence with both organisations somewhat over-estimating the similarity of their aims. The Council of the Theosophical Society voted in favour of a merger with the Arya Samaj, and, in May 1878, even changed its name to the Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj. When Blavatsky and Olcott landed in Bombay, they were helped by the head of the local Arya Samaj. Although a miss-understanding led him to assume they had more wealth than they did and so overdo the lavishness of his arrangements, and although this caused them to have some doubts about his honesty, the underlying warmth of their feeling for the Arya Samaj remained unaffected at this time. Moreover, after their arrival in India, they attracted supporters from within the Indian community, including prominent men such as Subramanian Aiyar, B. M. Malabari, Raganath Rao, Nurendranath Sen, and Kashinath Telang.7 To understand both the attraction of the Arya Samaj to theosophists and the attraction of theosophy to some Indians, we need to recognise that although Blavatsky's doctrines derived from the occult tradition, she made a crucial change to that tradition. She located the source of the ancient wisdom in India, not Egypt. She said, "it has been discovered that the very same ideas [as those the occultists had traced back to ancient Egypt] . . . may be read in Buddhistic and Brahmanical literature" (1972: I,626). The immediate source of the appeal of theosophy to its Indian followers was, of course, just this emphasis on the historical importance and epistemic validity of their Hindu tradition. If we are to understand why this emphasis had the appeal it did, however, we must consider why a number of Indians were ready to welcome a reformulation of their religious heritage. We need to understand how Indians adapted theosophical beliefs for their own purposes. Almost all the Indians who joined the Theosophical Society came from the western-educated elite. The British adopted a policy - most famously expounded by Macaulay - of educating an Indian elite in a western manner with the intention that this elite then would stand between the colonial rulers and the rest of the Indian people. The tension between the indigenous background of this elite and the worldview they encountered during their education left many of them with a sense of cultural crisis. This crisis consisted primarily of a perceived conflict between the Hinduism in which they had been raised and the scientific rationalism of the west; although there was, in addition, a perceived conflict between the social practices of Hinduism and the moral and political values associated with western rationalism and also with Christianity. It was this cultural crisis that provided the background to the neo-Hinduism of the Brahmo Sabha, the Arya Samaj, and also the Indian Section of the Theosophical Society.

The Brahmo Sabha, the Arya Samaj, and the Theosophical Society all reinterpreted Hinduism to bring it more into line with western science and ethics, thereby helping to resolve the cultural crisis described above; and, moreover, they did so in very similar ways. Although there were differences between the three groups, the differences should not obscure the basic similarity of their doctrines. The Brahmo Sabha was formed in 1828 by Rammohun Roy (Kopf 1979). Roy, heavily indebted to Unitarianism, adopted a universalist perspective, according to which all the religions of the world had a shared core dictated by a pure reason; but he also drew on themes found in western indology to argue Vedic Hinduism came nearer to the true universal religion than did Christianity. Thus, Roy called on Hindus to reform their religion so as to return to the pure Vedanta. It was from this perspective that he condemned the contemporary practices of a corrupt Hinduism, speaking out in favour of widows remarrying, and against both child marriage and sati. Although Dayananda came from Gujurat, and although he formed the first Arya Samaj in Bombay, the Arya Samaj soon came to represent a sort of Punjabi response to Brahmoism, which itself was very much a product of Bengal (Jones 1976; Jordens 1978). Dayananda too called for a return to the pure Vedic faith. He too sought to reform not only strictly religious practices such as idol worship, but also social ones such as child marriage. However, Dayananda rejected Roy's universalism in favour of a militant assertion of Hindu superiority - he even maintained a doctrine of Vedic infallibility, according to which the ancient rishis had grasped all the truths of modern science, including the theory of evolution. The important thing for us to note, however, is the extent to which theosophy embraced core doctrines shared by the Brahmo Sabha and the Arya Samaj. Like Roy and Dayananda, Blavatsky reasserted the validity of Indian culture, especially Hinduism, in the face of the attacks on it by some Christian missionaries. Again like Roy and Dayananda, she did so by appealing to a pure Vedic faith that had become corrupted, where this pure Vedic faith more than met the stringent requirements of a properly defined rationalism. And finally like Roy and Dayananda, she went on to champion various religious and social reforms as necessary to purge Hinduism of its corrupt elements and thereby return it to pure Vedanta. It was with these general doctrines that western-educated Indians, from within the Brahmo Sabha, the Arya Samaj, and also the Theosophical Society, responded to the cultural crisis that then confronted them.8 We can conclude, therefore, first, that theosophy was part of a broader neo-Hinduism characterised by specific intellectual commitments, and, second, that the attraction of theosophy to a section of Indian society can be explained in much the same way as can that of other neo-Hindu organisations. Although there were differences between neo-Hindu organisations, differences which appear, for example, in the later disagreement between the theosophists and Dayananda, they still shared various core doctrines in common. Because theosophy incorporated these core doctrines, it came to occupy a place within the neo-Hindu movement.


-- Theosophy and the Origins of the Indian National Congress, by Mark Bevir

At the end of 1543 … Xavier encountered a Brahmin who revealed to him their secret monotheism: there was only a single God, creator of heaven and earth, and they worshipped this God and not the idols, which were demons. This doctrine was taught in their schools, but the Brahmins were obliged not to reveal it. Xavier added that they had books [scripturas], written in a learned tongue, which contained the commandments.…

It was only toward the end of the sixteenth century that the Vedas are first mentioned, by Agostinho de Azevedo, an Augustinian… The Brahmins, the “masters of their religion,” teach a unified doctrine of God, creation, and the corruption of creatures…

Azevedo’s brief account of the content of the four “origins” makes clear that he had no real access to the Vedas themselves. When he comes to elaborate on the content of the fourfold Veda, he in fact names a series of other texts—all in Tamil…

They say that this first cause is God, and that he is a pure spirit, incorporeal, infinite, full of all power and knowledge and truth, and present everywhere, which they call Carvēsparaṉ [Xarves Zibarum] which means the creator of all…

Despite his claim, then, that the Vedas are the original scriptures that prescribe what the gentiles of India are to believe and what rites they are to perform, Azevedo’s actual sources are all much later Tamil sources…

Bernier … notes that having learned Sanskrit,

they ordinarily put themselves to reading the puranas, which are an interpretation and abridgement of the Vedas, which are very large, at least if they are those which were shown to me in Benares. They are also very rare, so much so that my agha could never find them for sale, whatever diligence he used; for they keep them well hidden, fearing that the Mahometans should get hold of and burn them, as they have done several times…

[T]he Brahmins’ texts—and the teachings they contained—were kept secret….

The first Jesuit to name the Vedas is Jacome Fenicio, who had been in India since 1584… In 1603 Fenicio reports writing a manual of Hindu mythology, in which he mentions that he has copied three hundred verses critical of idolatry from a text in Malayalam ascribed to Pākkanār... Fenicio also mentions and names the four Vedas in connection with the mythology of Brahmā, but he does not otherwise show any knowledge of Vedic sources…

Nobili is the first European known to have read parts of the Vedas… Nobili discovered that while some parts of them did indeed refer to “God in the true and absolute sense” (Brahma)—and even contained “an adumbration of the recondite mystery of the most Holy Trinity”—other parts described superstitious rites directed to false deities (Brahmā) so that “the sayings they record are in striking contradiction one with another.”… Significantly, Nobili also notes that the term Veda refers not only to the “law” of the Brahmin but also to knowledge (scientia) more broadly. It was for this reason that he used it in coining many terms to refer to aspects of Christian life and practice, and even to Christianity itself… This usage was followed by Protestants in the following century and beyond…

He concludes that … by metonymy all these works are identified with the Vedas…

[ I]n September 1706 Ziegenbalg reported that books were being copied out for him by the elderly schoolmaster he had engaged to teach him Tamil…

It is clear, both from the fact that the works were being copied in Tamil and from Ziegenbalg’s later catalogue of his library, that these were not the Vedas. As he began reading Tamil texts, Ziegenbalg’s interest in the Vedas receded, and he even came to doubt their very existence… Ziegenbalg says that he doubts the “lawbooks” exist because none of the many thousands of Tamils to whom he has spoken had seen them. They have only been told by the Brahmins that they exist, but none of the Brahmins Ziegenbalg had spoken to had access to them either… He adds that while the Brahmins make much of the four Vedas, they do not allow others even to see, much less to read, them…

In 1711 one of the Jesuits in this mission, Jean-Venant Bouchet, argued that Hindu religious texts were a diabolic imitation of the Christian scriptures. Although he had not been able to obtain copies of the Vedas, he had been able to learn enough of their contents from “certain teachers” to be able to pronounce it an imitation of the books of Moses…

Louis de Bourzes… [states] that to communicate the Veda to others was a crime punishable by many millions of years in hell… He corrects Bouchet (without mentioning his name) on the question of whether there were at first five Vedas, saying that he has been assured constantly that there are only four… he writes that the name Veda is applied by extension to a whole range of other texts that are not, strictly, Veda… The Vedas proper are never read and expounded to the people—they would not be capable of understanding them…

The reputation of the Vedas in Europe around the turn of the eighteenth century demonstrates what Dorothy Figueria has aptly called “the authority of an absent text.” An intriguing demonstration of this is a mention of the Vedas in a text that was as much sought after—and as much discussed in ignorance of its actual contents—as were the Vedas themselves: De tribus impostoribus. The idea of a blasphemous treatise that grouped Jesus Christ, Moses, and Muhammad as the three impostors who had fooled the world begins with an encyclical from Pope Gregory IX against the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in 1239. For the next four centuries, accusations of having authored such a treatise—or even just having possessed a copy of it—swirled around Europe, applied to anyone whose orthodoxy was in doubt—from Thomas Scoto (a Franciscan friar accused, arrested, and probably burned to death in Lisbon in 1335) to Michael Servetus and Giordano Bruno, burned alive in Geneva in 1553 and in Rome in 1600, respectively. The text itself, however, proved elusive. When a version of this notorious text was finally printed, in 1753, it bore a false date of 1598. Caland dated De tribus impostoribus sixty years earlier still, to 1538, and therefore suggested that that De tribus impostoribus was likely the first European text to mention the Vedas. In fact, the reference to the Vedas in De tribus impostoribus is one reason for dating it much later, most likely to a manuscript of 1688 by Johann Müller. ..

From Ziegenbalg, Lacroze learned that the Indians, despite their outward idolatry, preserved also a knowledge of the real nature of the supreme being. Rogerius, Baldaeus, and the Jesuits persuaded him that this could be proven, if only the Vedas could be found and translated… Mosheim acknowledged the reputation of Oriental philosophers for wisdom, but regretted that little more could be said until the “very ancient book of the Brachmans called Vedam” was translated into another language…

In 1726 Gargam told Souciet he had been offered a translation of the Vedas. Even though he had not yet read it, he thought it would be of “very great use to all the missionaries . . . in refuting the errors of the Gentiles.”…

Calmette refers to the Brahmins’ secrecy about the Vedas:

Ever since India has been known, it does not appear that the Europeans have been able to unearth this book which the Brames scruple to communicate and which they transcribe superstitiously in the woods or in remote places where they cannot be seen by any who are not of their caste. (1730: 25v)

I have at last recovered the four Vedas, of which the first is called Rougvedam, the second Ejourvedam, the third Samavedam, the fourth Adarvanavedam. The fourth is that which, so long as there have been missionaries in India, has been said to have been thrown into the sea by the Brahmins. Thus, that which the Brahmins have until now kept hidden more than the Jews have the books of Moses, that which they have communicated to no other nation of the world, not even to Indians if they are not of their caste, finally falls into our hands and the sea itself has given up its prey. (1732: 35r)…

In his letter he describes how both Gargam, his close colleague in the northern reaches of the Carnatic mission, and Jean-François Pons, a Jesuit collecting Sanskrit texts in Bengal, had been deceived into buying texts purporting to be Vedas… while Calmette did obtain the Rg, Yajur, and Sama Veda samhitas, his “Adarvana Vedam” is in fact an assortment of tantric and magical texts connected with goddess worship called Atharvanatantraraja and Atharvanamantraśāstra….

[Calmette] adds that it was remarkable how few Brahmins understood Vedic Sanskrit… Some of these works, like others sent by the Jesuits, were not so much copies of actual Indian texts as verbal abstracts of the texts recited by scholars and recorded, on paper not palm-leaves, by converts who adorned them with Christian symbols…

[T]he Jesuits had thus finally succeeded in obtaining for European libraries at least parts of the Vedas…

The growing reputation of the Vedas in Europe was not without effect in India, however. Among the Jesuits, Gargam and Calmette were convinced of the value of obtaining the Vedas, or at least of responding to the demand for them from Europe. This is perhaps reflected also in that the works of preparatio evangelica composed, probably in French, by the Carnatic Jesuits were labelled “Vedam”… Although Francis Whyte Ellis saw these texts in Pondicherry in 1816, only the Ezour-Vedam survives. While their author cannot be determined with certainty, Ludo Rocher has demonstrated that they were probably produced among the Jesuits of the Carnatic mission…

[T]he Tranquebar missionaries gave a brief account of the Vedas. They report that despite their efforts to see the Vedas, they have been told that they are not written, but that boys (who can only be Brahmins) learn sections of them from a priest by repeating it constantly. The language in which they are recorded, which they call Grantha, is so old that no one can understand it without referring to the sastra. Few learn the fourth part, because it consists of sorcery…

[ I]n 1737, four of these missionaries announced that they had obtained a translation of the Yajur Veda… the text that was published in the Hallesche Berichte had, according to Albrecht Weber, “not the slightest thing to do with the Yajurveda,” instead representing “an encyclopedic and systematically ordered representation of the modern Brahmanical world and life-view.”…

[T]he Vedas [Le Gac] dispatched to Europe… remained unread throughout the eighteenth century… Paulinus saw them in late 1789, but … was not permitted enough time to examine them closely. In 1847 the Jesuit Julien Bach commented wryly: “No Indianist is tempted to make use of it, and it is from these books that we can say: Sacred they are, because no one touches them.”…

Voltaire received a manuscript in French entitled Ezour-Vedam in late 1760… Pierre Sonnerat correctly identified the Ezour-Vedam as “definitely not one of the four Vedams” but rather “a book of controversy, written by a missionary”… Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil Duperron, the leading French Orientalist of his time …defended the authenticity of the Ezour-Vedam as late as 1808… In Surat, Anquetil Duperron was offered, through a Parsi intermediary, manuscripts containing extracts of the four Vedas. He declined… because the Brahmin—and Jain—scholars whom he asked to certify the authenticity of the texts assured him they were incomplete…

While the Ezour Vedam was being discussed by Voltaire and others, the Vedas sent by Calmette languished unread in the Bibliotheque Imperiale. They were even excluded from the catalogue of Sanskrit manuscripts prepared by Alexander Hamilton and Louis-Mathieu Langlès in 1807, again because they were mostly not in Devanagari script...

In 1781–82 Antoine-Louis-Henri Polier, a Swiss Protestant who served in the English East India Company’s army until 1775, had had copies of the Vedas made for him at the court of Pratap Singh at Jaipur. Polier’s intermediary was a Portuguese physician, Don Pedro da Silva Leitão… Jai Singh had assembled a substantial collection of manuscripts from religious sites across India, and in the time of his successor Pratap Singh the library had contained the samhitas of all four Vedas in manuscripts dating from the last quarter of the seventeenth century…

Polier records that he had sought copies of the Veda without success in Bengal, Awadh, and on the Coromandel coast, as well as in Agra, Delhi, and Lucknow and had found that even at Banaras “nothing could be obtained but various Shasters, [which] are only Commentaries of the Baids”…

It is perhaps significant that it was in a royal library, rather than in a Brahmin pathasala, that Polier found manuscripts of the Vedas. But the same is not true of the manuscripts acquired in Banaras only fifteen years later by Henry Thomas Colebrooke, during the period (1795–97) when he was appointed as judge and magistrate at nearby Mirzapur…

I cannot conceive how it came to be ever asserted that the Brahmins were ever averse to instruct strangers; several gentlemen who have studied the language find, as I do, the greatest readiness in them to give us access to all their sciences. They do not even conceal from us the most sacred texts of their Vedas.

The several gentlemen would likely have included General Claude Martin, Sir William Jones, and Sir Robert Chambers. These were all East India Company employees who obtained Vedic manuscripts (Jones from Polier) in the last decades of the eighteenth century.

Why was it so much easier for Polier, Colebrooke, and others to obtain what it had been so difficult for the Jesuits and impossible for the Pietists?...


Despite Calmette’s statement about no European having been able to unearth this text “since India has been known,” the evidence suggests rather that no European other than Nobili had seriously sought to obtain the Vedas. The “false” Vedas obtained by the Pietists two years after Calmette—and by Gargam and Pons six years before—are explicable by the flexibility of the term Veda; we do not need to postulate either duplicity or secrecy on the part of those who transmitted these texts.

The question of the availability of the texts in manuscript form touches on the hotly debated issue of the oral transmission of the Vedas. That there was a powerful presumption against writing down Hindu texts, and the Vedas in particular, is not controversial. “One who reads from a written text” (likhita-pathaka) is included among a list of the six worst types of those who recite the Vedas…. We do not have to fall into what Johannes Bronkhorst calls “the brahmanical trap” —imagining that the Vedas were never written down—in order to accept that the brahminical prejudice against writing down the Vedas would have meant that it was far less likely that European scholars would come across manuscripts of the Vedas than manuscripts of other texts…

Many Europeans—both Jesuits from Xavier to Bouchet and Calmette, and Protestants from Rogerius to Ziegenbalg and his Pietist successors, as well non-clerical authors like Bernier and Alexander Dow—mentioned restrictions on who could hear the Vedas. This alone would have made the Vedas harder to find; most Hindus would not have had access to them either. But we should not overlook that many of the same writers also stated that even among Brahmins the Vedas were not widely known. Thus, in addition to the reasons suggested above, it seems that one reason, other than religious scruple, for the difficulty Europeans experienced in attempting to obtain copies of the Vedas was a simple lack of knowledge of the Vedas, despite their acknowledged authority, on the part of many Indians. In this sense, the Veda was an “absent text” not only for Europeans, but for many Indians too.


-- The Absent Vedas, by Will Sweetman


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Dayananda Saraswati
Personal
Born: Mul Shankar Tiwari, 12 February 1824, Tankara, Company Raj (present-day Gujarat, India)
Died: 30 October 1883 (aged 59)[1], Ajmer, Ajmer-Merwara, British India (present-day Rajasthan, India) [Dayananda Sarasvati, original name Mula Sankara, (born 1824, Tankara, Gujarat, India—died October 30, 1883, Ajmer, Rajputana)]
Religion: Hinduism
Nationality: Indian
Founder of: Arya Samaj
Philosophy: Vedic
Religious career
Guru: Virajanand Dandeesha
Influenced by: Kanada, Yāska, Kashyapa, Patanjali, Pāṇini, Kapila, Akshapada Gautama, Badarayana, Adi Shankara, Ramanuja
Influenced: Madam Cama, Pandit Lekh Ram, Swami Shraddhanand, Shyamji Krishna Varma, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Lala Hardayal, Madan Lal Dhingra, Ram Prasad Bismil, Mahadev Govind Ranade, Mahatma Hansraj, Lala Lajpat Rai
Literary works: Satyarth Prakash (1875); Rigvedadibhashyabhumika; Vyavharabhanu

Quotation:
There are undoubtedly many learned men among the followers of every religion. Should they free themselves from prejudice, accept the universal truths – that is those truths that are to be found alike in all religions and are of universal application-,reject all things in which the various religions differ and treat each other lovingly, it will be greatly to the advantage of the world


Dayananda Saraswati (12 February 1824 – 30 October 1883) was an Indian philosopher, social leader and founder of the Arya Samaj, a reform movement of the Vedic dharma. He was the first to give the call for Swaraj as "India for Indians" in 1876, a call later taken up by Lokmanya Tilak.[2][3] Denouncing the idolatry and ritualistic worship prevalent in India at the time, he worked towards reviving Vedic ideologies. Subsequently, the philosopher and President of India, S. Radhakrishnan called him one of the "makers of Modern India", as did Sri Aurobindo.[4][5][6]

Those who were influenced by and followed Dayananda included Madam Cama, Pandit Lekh Ram, Swami Shraddhanand, Pandit Guru Dutt Vidyarthi,[7] Shyamji Krishna Varma (who established the Indian Home Rule Society and India House in England), Kishan Singh, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Lala Hardayal, Madan Lal Dhingra, Ram Prasad Bismil, Mahadev Govind Ranade, Ashfaq Ullah Khan,[8] Mahatma Hansraj, Lala Lajpat Rai,[9][10] Yogmaya Neupane.[11]

He was a sanyasi (ascetic) from boyhood and a scholar. He believed in the infallible authority of the Vedas. Dayananda advocated the doctrine of Karma and Reincarnation. He emphasized the Vedic ideals of brahmacharya, including celibacy and devotion to God.

Among Dayananda's contributions were his promoting of the equal rights for women, such as the right to education and reading of Indian scriptures, and his commentary on the Vedas from Vedic Sanskrit in Sanskrit as well as in Hindi.

Early life

Dayananda Saraswati was born on the 10th day of waning moon in the month of Purnimanta Falguna (12 February 1824) on the tithi to a Brahmin Hindu family[12] in Jeevapar Tankara, Kathiawad region (now Morbi district of Gujarat.)[13][14] His original name was Mul Shankar because he was born in Dhanu Rashi and Mul Nakshatra. His father was Karshanji Lalji Kapadi, and his mother was Yashodabai.

When he was eight years old, his Yajnopavita Sanskara ceremony was performed, marking his entry into formal education. His father was a follower of Shiva and taught him the ways to impress Shiva. He was also taught the importance of keeping fasts. On the occasion of Shivratri, Dayananda sat awake the whole night in obedience to Shiva. During one of these fasts, he saw a mouse eating the offerings and running over the idol's body. After seeing this, he questioned that if Shiva could not defend himself against a mouse, then how could he be the saviour of the world.[15]

The deaths of his younger sister and his uncle from cholera led Dayananda to ponder the meaning of life and death. He began asking questions which worried his parents. He was engaged in his early teens, but he decided marriage was not for him and ran away from home in 1846.[16][17]

Dayananda Saraswati spent nearly twenty-five years, from 1845 to 1869, as a wandering ascetic, searching for religious truth. He gave up material goods and lived a life of self-denial, devoting himself to spiritual pursuits in forests, retreats in the Himalayan Mountains, and pilgrimage sites in northern India. During these years he practised various forms of yoga and became a disciple of a religious teacher named Virajanand Dandeesha. Virajanand believed that Hinduism had strayed from its historical roots and that many of its practices had become impure. Dayananda Sarasvati promised Virajanand that he would devote his life to restoring the rightful place of the Vedas in the Hindu faith.[18]

Dayanand's mission

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Aum or Om is considered by the Arya Samaj to be the highest and most proper name of God.

He believed that Hinduism had been corrupted by divergence from the founding principles of the Vedas and that Hindus had been misled by the priesthood for the priests' self-aggrandizement. For this mission, he founded the Arya Samaj, enunciating the Ten Universal Principles as a code for Universalism, called Krinvanto Vishwaryam. With these principles, he intended the whole world to be an abode for Nobles (Aryas).

His next step was to reform Hinduism with a new dedication to God. He travelled the country challenging religious scholars and priests to discussions, winning repeatedly through the strength of his arguments and knowledge of Sanskrit and Vedas.[19] Hindu priests discouraged the laity from reading Vedic scriptures, and encouraged rituals, such as bathing in the Ganges River and feeding of priests on anniversaries, which Dayananda pronounced as superstitions or self-serving practices. By exhorting the nation to reject such superstitious notions, his aim was to educate the nation to return to the teachings of the Vedas, and to follow the Vedic way of life. He also exhorted the Hindu nation to accept social reforms, including the importance of Cows for national prosperity as well as the adoption of Hindi as the national language for national integration. Through his daily life and practice of yoga and asanas, teachings, preaching, sermons and writings, he inspired the Hindu nation to aspire to Swarajya (self governance), nationalism, and spiritualism. He advocated the equal rights and respects to women and advocated for the education of all children, regardless of gender.

Dayanand also made critical analyses of faiths including Christianity & Islam, as well as of other Indian faiths like Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. In addition to discouraging idolatry in Hinduism,[20] he was also against what he considered to be the corruption of the true and pure faith in his own country. Unlike many other reform movements of his times within Hinduism, the Arya Samaj's appeal was addressed not only to the educated few in India, but to the world as a whole as evidenced in the sixth principle of the Arya Samaj. As a result, his teachings professed universalism for all the living beings and not for any particular sect, faith, community or nation.

Arya Samaj allows and encourages converts to Hinduism. Dayananda's concept of dharma is stated in the "Beliefs and Disbeliefs" section of Satyartha Prakash, he says:

"I accept as Dharma whatever is in full conformity with impartial justice, truthfulness and the like; that which is not opposed to the teachings of God as embodied in the Vedas. Whatever is not free from partiality and is unjust, partaking of untruth and the like, and opposed to the teachings of God as embodied in the Vedas—that I hold as adharma."

"He, who after careful thinking, is ever ready to accept truth and reject falsehood; who counts the happiness of others as he does that of his own self, him I call just."

— Satyarth Prakash


Dayananda's Vedic message emphasized respect and reverence for other human beings, supported by the Vedic notion of the divine nature of the individual. In the ten principles of the Arya Samaj, he enshrined the idea that "All actions should be performed with the prime objective of benefiting mankind", as opposed to following dogmatic rituals or revering idols and symbols. The first five principles speak of Truth, while the last five speak of a society with nobility, civics, co-living, and disciplined life. In his own life, he interpreted moksha to be a lower calling, as it argued for benefits to the individual, rather than calling to emancipate others.

Dayananda's "back to the Vedas" message influenced many thinkers and philosophers the world over.[21]

Activities

Dayanand Saraswati is recorded to have been active since he was 14, which time he was able to recite religious verses and teach about them. He was respected at the time for taking part in religious debates. His debates were attended by large crowds.

On 22 October 1869 in Varanasi, where he won a debate against 27 scholars and 12 expert pandits. The debate was said to have been attended by over 50,000 people. The main topic was "Do the Vedas uphold deity worship?"[22][23]

Arya Samaj

Main article: Arya Samaj

Dayananda Saraswati's creations, the Arya Samaj, condemned practices of several different religions and communities, including such practices as idol worship, animal sacrifice, pilgrimages, priest craft, offerings made in temples, the castes, child marriages, meat eating and discrimination against women. He argued that all of these practices ran contrary to good sense and the wisdom of the Vedas.

Views on superstitions

He severely criticized practices which he considered to be superstitions, including sorcery, and astrology, which were prevalent in India at the time. Below are several quotes from his book, Sathyarth Prakash:

"They should also counsel then against all things that lead to superstition, and are opposed to true religion and science, so that they may never give credence to such imaginary things as ghosts (Bhuts) and spirits (Preta)."

— Satyarth Prakash


"All alchemists, magicians, sorcerers, wizards, spiritists, etc. are cheats and all their practices should be looked upon as nothing but downright fraud. Young people should be well counseled against all these frauds, in their very childhood, so that they may not suffer through being duped by any unprincipled person."

— Satyarth Prakash


On Astrology, he wrote,

when these ignorant people go to an astrologer and say " O Sir! What is wrong with this person'? He replies "The sun and other stars are maleficent to him. If you were to perform a propitiatory ceremony or have magic formulas chanted, or prayers said, or specific acts of charity done, he will recover. Otherwise, I should not be surprised, even if he were to lose his life after a long period of suffering."

Inquirer – Well, Mr. Astrologer, you know, the sun and other stars are but inanimate things like this earth of ours. They can do nothing but give light, heat, etc. Do you take them for conscious being possessed of human passions, of pleasure and anger, that when offended, bring on pain and misery, and when propitiated, bestow happiness on human beings?

Astrologer – Is it not through the influence of stars, then, that some people are rich and others poor, some are rulers, whilst others are their subjects?

Inq. – No, it is all the result of their deeds….good or bad.

Ast. – Is the Science of stars untrue then?

Inq. – No, that part of it which comprises Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, etc., and which goes by the name of Astronomy is true; but the other part that treats of the influence of stars on human beings and their actions and goes by the name of Astrology is all false.

— Chapter 2.2 Satyarth Prakash


He makes a clear distinction between Jyotisha Shaastra and astrology, calling astrology a fraud.

"Thereafter, they should thoroughly study the Jyotisha Shaastra – which includes Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Geography, Geology, and Astronomy in two years. They should also have practical training in these Sciences, learn the proper handling of instruments, master their mechanism, and know how to use them. But they should regard Astrology – which treats of the influence of stars and constellation on the destinies of man, of auspiciousness and inauspiciousness of time, of horoscopes, etc. – as a fraud, and never learn or teach any books on this subject.

— Under "The scheme of studies" Page 73 of the English Version of Satyarth Prakash


Views on other religions

Islam


See also: Criticism of Islam

He viewed Islam to be waging wars and immorality. He doubted that Islam had anything to do with the God, and questioned why a God would hate every non-believer, allowing the slaughter of animals, and command Muhammad to slaughter innocent people.[24]

He further described Muhammad as "imposter", and one who held out "a bait to men and women, in the name of God, to compass his own selfish needs". He regarded Quran as "Not the Word of God. It is a human work. Hence it cannot be believed in".[25]

Christianity

See also: Criticism of Christianity and Criticism of Jesus § Dayanand Saraswati

His analysis of the Bible was based on an attempt to compare it with scientific evidence, morality, and other properties. His analysis claimed that the Bible contains many stories and precepts that are immoral, praising cruelty, deceit and that encourage sin.[26] One commentary notes many alleged discrepancies and fallacies of logic in the Bible e.g. that God fearing Adam eating the fruit of life and becoming his equal displays jealousy. His critique attempts to show logical fallacies in the Bible, and throughout he asserts that the events depicted in the Bible portray God as a man rather than an Omniscient, Omnipotent or Complete being.

He opposed the perpetual virginity of Mary, he added that such doctrines are simply against the nature of law, and that God would never break his own law because God is omniscient and infallible.

Sikhism

See also: Criticism of Sikhism

He regarded Guru Nanak as "rogue", who was quite ignorant about Vedas, Sanskrit, Shashtra, and otherwise Nanak wouldn't be mistaking with words. [27]

He further pointed that followers of Sikhism are to be blamed for making up stories that Nanak possessed miraculous powers, met Gods. He slammed Guru Gobind Singh, and other Gurus to have been "invented fictitious stories", although he also recognized Gobind Singh to be "indeed a very brave man."[28]

Jainism

See also: Criticism of Jainism

He regarded Jainism as "a most dreadful religion", writing that Jains were intolerant and hostile towards the non-Jains.[21]

Buddhism

See also: Criticism of Buddhism

Dayananda described Buddhism as ridiculous and "atheistic".[29] He describes the type of "salvation" Buddhism as being attainable even to dogs and donkeys. He further criticized the Cosmogony of Buddhism, stating that the earth was not created.

Assassination attempts

Dayananda was subjected to many unsuccessful attempts on his life.[22]

According to his supporters, he was poisoned on a few occasions, but due to his regular practice of Hatha Yoga he survived all such attempts. One story tells that attackers once attempted to drown him in a river, but Dayananda dragged the assailants into the river instead, though he released them before they drowned.[30]

Another account claims that he was attacked by Muslims who were offended by his criticism of Islam while meditating on the Ganges river. They threw him into the water but he is claimed to have saved himself because his pranayama practice allowed him to stay under water until the attackers left.[31]

Assassination

In 1883, the Maharaja of Jodhpur, Jaswant Singh II, invited Dayananda to stay at his palace. The Maharaja was eager to become Dayananda's disciple, and to learn his teachings. During his stay, Dayananda went to the Maharaja's rest room and saw him with a dancing girl named Nanhi Jaan. Dayananda asked the Maharaja to forsake the girl and all unethical acts, and to follow the dharma like a true Arya (noble). Dayananda's suggestion offended Nanhi, who decided to take revenge.[1]

On 29 September 1883, she bribed Dayananda's cook, Jagannath, to mix small pieces of glass in his nightly milk.[32] Dayananda was served glass-laden milk before bed, which he promptly drank, becoming bedridden for several days, and suffering excruciating pain. The Maharaja quickly arranged doctor's services for him. However, by the time doctors arrived, his condition had worsened, and he had developed large, bleeding sores. Upon seeing Dayananda's suffering, Jagannath was overwhelmed with guilt and confessed his crime to Dayananda. On his deathbed, Dayananda forgave him, and gave him a bag of money, telling him to flee the kingdom before he was found and executed by the Maharaja's men.[1]

Later, Maharaja arranged for him to be sent to Mount Abu as per the advice of Residency, however, after staying for some time in Abu, on 26 October 1883, he was sent to Ajmer for better medical care.[32] There was no improvement in his health and he died on the morning of Hindu festival of Divali on 30 October 1883 chanting mantras.[32][33]

Cremation and commemoration

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Information board inside Navlakha Mahal.

He breathed his last at Bhinai Kothi near Ajmer, and his ashed were scattered at Ajmer in Rishi Udyan as per his wishes.[34] Rishi Udyan, which has a functional Arya Samaj temple with daily morning and evening yajna homa, is located on the banks of Ana Sagar Lake off the NH58 Ajmer-Pushkar Highway. An annual 3 day Aruasamaj melā is held every year at Rishi Udyan on Rishi Dayanand's death anniversary at the end of October, which also entails vedic seminars, vedas memorisation competition, yajna, and Dhavaja Rohan flag march.[35] It is organised by the Paropkarini Sabha, which was foudned by Swami Dayanand Saraswati on 16 August 1880 in Meerut, registered in Ajmer on 27 February 1883, and since 1893 has been operating from its office in Ajmer.[35]

Every year on Maha Shivaratri, Arya Samajis celebrate Rishi Bodh Utsav during the 2 days mela at Tankara organised by Tankara Trust, during which Shobha Yatra procession and Maha Yajna is held, event is also attended by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and Chief Minister of Gujarat Vijay Rupani.[36]

Navlakha Mahal inside Gulab Bagh and Zoo at Udaipur is also associated with him where he wrote the scond edition of his seminal work, Satyarth Prakash, in Samvat 1939 (1882-83 CE).[37]

Legacy

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Dayananda Saraswati on a 1962 stamp of India

Maharshi Dayanand University in Rohtak, Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati University in Ajmer, DAV University in Jalandhar are named after him. So are over 800 schools and colleges under D.A.V. College Managing Committee, including Dayanand College at Ajmer. Industrialist Nanji Kalidas Mehta built the Maharshi Dayanand Science College and donated it to the Education Society of Porbandar, after naming it after Dayananda Saraswati.

Dayananda Saraswati is most notable for influencing the freedom movement of India. His views and writings have been used by different writers, including Shyamji Krishna Varma, who founded India House in London and guided other revolutionaries was influenced by him; Subhas Chandra Bose; Lala Lajpat Rai; Madam Cama; Vinayak Damodar Savarkar; Lala Hardayal; Madan Lal Dhingra; Ram Prasad Bismil; Mahadev Govind Ranade;[8] Swami Shraddhanand; S. Satyamurti; Pandit Lekh Ram; Mahatma Hansraj; and others.

He also had a notable influence on Bhagat Singh.[38] Singh, after finishing primary school, had joined the Dayanand Anglo Vedic Middle School, of Mohan Lal road, in Lahore.[39] Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, on Shivratri day, 24 February 1964, wrote about Dayananda:

Swami Dayananda ranked highest among the makers of modern India. He had worked tirelessly for the political, religious and cultural emancipation of the country. He was guided by reason, taking Hinduism back to the Vedic foundations. He had tried to reform society with a clean sweep, which was again need today. Some of the reforms introduced in the Indian Constitution had been inspired by his teachings.[40]


The places Dayanand visited during his life were often changed culturally as a result.[citation needed] Jodhpur adopted Hindi as main language, and later the present day Rajasthan did the same.[41] Other admirers included Swami Vivekananda,[42] Ramakrishna,[43] Bipin Chandra Pal,[44] Vallabhbhai Patel,[45] Syama Prasad Mookerjee, and Romain Rolland, who regarded Dayananda as a remarkable and unique figure.[46]

American Spiritualist Andrew Jackson Davis described Dayanand's influence on him, calling Dayanand a "Son of God", and applauding him for restoring the status of the Nation.[47] Sten Konow, a Swedish scholar noted that Dayanand revived the history of India.[48]

Others who were notably influenced by him include Ninian Smart, and Benjamin Walker.[49]

Works

Dayananda Saraswati wrote more than 60 works in all, including a 16 volume explanation of the six Vedangas, an incomplete commentary on the Ashtadhyayi (Panini's grammar), several small tracts on ethics and morality, Vedic rituals and sacraments, and a piece on the analysis of rival doctrines (such as Advaita Vedanta, Islam and Christianity). Some of his major works include the Satyarth Prakash, Satyarth Bhumika, Sanskarvidhi, Rigvedadi Bhashya Bhumika, Rigved Bhashyam (up to 7/61/2)and Yajurved Bhashyam. The Paropakarini Sabha located in the Indian city of Ajmer was founded by Saraswati to publish and preach his works and Vedic texts.

Complete list of works

1. Sandhya (Unavailable) (1863)
2. Bhagwat Khandnam OR Paakhand Khandan OR Vaishnavmat Khandan (1866)[50]
3. Advaitmat Khandan
4. Panchmahayajya Vidhi (1874 & 1877)
5. Satyarth Prakash (1875 & 1884)
6. VedantiDhwant Nivaran (1875)
7. Vedviruddh mat Khandan OR Vallabhacharya mat Khandan (1875)
8. ShikshaPatri Dhwant Nivaran OR SwamiNarayan mat Khandan (1875)
9. VedBhashyam Namune ka PRATHAM Ank (1875)
10. VedBhashyam Namune ka DWITIYA Ank (1876)
11. Aryabhivinaya (Incomplete) (1876)
12. Sanskarvidhi (1877 & 1884)
13. AaryoddeshyaRatnaMaala (1877)
14. RigvedAadibBhasyaBhumika (1878)
15. Rigved Bhashyam (7/61/1,2 only) (Incomplete) (1877 to 1899)
16. Yajurved Bhashyam (Complete) (1878 to 1889)
17. Asthadhyayi Bhashya (2 Parts) (Incomplete) (1878 to 1879)

1. Vedang Prakash (Set of 16 Books)

1. Varnoccharan Shiksha (1879)
2. Sanskrit Vakyaprabodhini (1879)
3. VyavaharBhanu (1879)
4. Sandhi Vishay
5. Naamik
6. Kaarak
7. Saamaasik
8. Taddhit
9. Avyayaarth
10. Aakhyatik
11. Sauvar
12. PaariBhaasik
13. Dhatupath
14. Ganpaath
15. Unaadikosh
16. Nighantu 1. Gautam Ahilya ki katha (Unavailable) (1879)
2. Bhrantinivaran (1880)
3. Bhrmocchedan (1880)
4. AnuBhrmocchedan (1880)
5. GokarunaNidhi (1880)
6. Chaturved Vishay Suchi (1971)
7. Gadarbh Taapni Upnishad (As per Babu Devendranath Mukhopadhyay) (Unavailable)
8. Hugli Shastrarth tatha Pratima Pujan Vichar (1873)
9. Jaalandhar Shastrarth (1877)
10. Satyasatya Vivek (Bareily Shastrarth) (1879)
11. Satyadharm Vichar (Mela Chandapur) (1880)
12. Kashi Shastrarth (1880) Note:- For other miscellaneous Shastrarth please read 1.Dayanand Shastrarth Sangrah published by Arsh Sahitya Prachar Trust, Delhi and 2. Rishi Dayanand ke Shastrarth evam Pravachan published by Ramlal Kapoor Trust Sonipat (Haryana).
13. Arya Samaj ke Niyam aur Upniyam (30 November 1874)
14. Updesh Manjari (Puna Pravachan) (4 July 1875) (Please see point 2 of note for some more Pravachan)
15. Swami Dayanand dwara swakathit Janm Charitra (During Puna pravachan) (4 August 1875)
16. Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati Jivan Charitra Photo Gallery[51]
17. Swami Dayanand dwara swakathit Janm Charitra, for the Theosophist Society's monthly Journal: Nov & 1 Dec
18. Rishi Dayanand ke Patra aur Vigyapan

See also

• Cow protection movement
• List of Hindu gurus and saints
• Dayananda Saraswati (Arsha Vidya)

References

Citations


1. Krant (2006) Swadhinta Sangram Ke Krantikari Sahitya Ka Itihas. Delhi: Pravina Prakasana . Vol. 2, p. 347. ISBN 81-7783-122-4
2. Aurobindo Ghosh, Bankim Tilak Dayanand (Calcutta 1947 p1)"Lokmanya Tilak also said that Swami Dayanand was the first who proclaimed Swaraj for Bharatpita i.e.India."
3. Dayanand Saraswati Commentary on Yajurved (Lazarus Press Banaras 1876)
4. Radhakrishnan, S. (2005). Living with a Purpose. Orient Paperbacks. p. 34. ISBN 978-81-222-0031-7.
5. Kumar, Raj (2003). "5. Swami Dayananda Saraswati: Life and Works". Essays on modern Indian Abuse. Discovery Publishing House. p. 62. ISBN 978-81-7141-690-5.
6. Salmond, Noel Anthony (2004). "3. Dayananda Saraswati". Hindu iconoclasts: Rammohun Roy, Dayananda Sarasvati and nineteenth-century polemics against idolatry. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-88920-419-5.
7. "Gurudatta Vidyarthi". Aryasamaj. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
8. "Mahadev Govind Ranade: Emancipation of women". Isrj.net. 17 May 1996. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
9. "Lala Lajpat Rai". culturalindia.net. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
10. Lala Lajpat Rai (Indian writer, politician and Escort) – Britannica Online Encyclopedia
11. Neupane, Dr. Kedar (2014). बहुमुखी व्यक्तित्वकी धनी योगमाया by Pawan Alok. Kathmandu: Nepal Shrastha Samaj. pp. 15–21. ISBN 9937-2-6977-6.
12. Robin Rinehart (2004). Contemporary Hinduism: Ritual, Culture, and Practice. ABC-CLIO. pp. 58–. ISBN 978-1-57607-905-8.
13. "Devdutt Pattanaik: Dayanand & Vivekanand". 15 January 2017.
14. ઝંડાધારી – મહર્ષિ દયાનંદ – Gujarati Wikisource
15. "History of India". indiansaga.com. Retrieved 5 October 2018.
16. "Dayanand Saraswati". iloveindia.com. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
17. "Swami Dayanand Saraswati". culturalindia.net. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
18. "Sarasvati, Dayananda – World Religions Reference Library". World Religions Reference Library – via HighBeam Research (subscription required). 1 January 2007. Archived from the original on 10 June 2014. Retrieved 5 September 2012.
19. "Swami Dayananda Sarasvati by V. Sundaram". Boloji. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
20. "Light of Truth". Archived from the original on 28 October 2009. Retrieved 9 October 2010.
21. P. L. John Panicker (2006). Gandhi on Pluralism and Communalism. ISPCK. pp. 30–40. ISBN 978-81-7214-905-5.
22. Clifford Sawhney (2003). The World's Greatest Seers and Philosophers. Pustak Mahal. p. 123. ISBN 978-81-223-0824-2.
23. Sinhal, p. 17
24. Title = "Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Volume 19, Issue 1", publisher = ICPR, year = 2002, page = 73
25. Saraswati, Dayanand (1875). "An Examination Of The Doctrine Of Islam". Satyarth Prakash (The Light of Truth). Varanasi, India: Star Press. pp. 672–683. Retrieved 2 April 2012.
26. J. T. F. Jordens (1978). Dayānanda Sarasvatī, his life and ideas. Oxford University Press. p. 267.
27. Kumar, Ram Narayan (2009). "Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab". Reduced to Ashes. Vol. 1. p. 15. doi:10.4135/9788132108412.n19. ISBN 978-99933-53-57-7.
28. V. S. Godbole (1987). God Save India. Swatantraveer Savarkar Sahitya Abhyas Mandal. p. 9.
29. Jose Kuruvachira (2006). Hindu Nationalists of Modern India: A Critical Study of the Intellectual Genealogy of Hindutva. Rawat Publications. p. 14. ISBN 978-81-7033-995-3.
30. Bhavana Nair (1989). Our Leaders. 4. Children's Book Trust. p. 60. ISBN 978-81-7011-678-3.
31. Vandematharam Veerabhadra Rao (1987) Life Sketch of Swami Dayananda, Delhi. p. 13
32. Garg, pp. 96–98
33. Arya Samaj founder Swami Dayanand Saraswati's idea of a modern India, India Today, 2018-10-30.
34. Ramananda Chatterjee, 1933, The Modern Review, Volume 54, Page 593.
35. Rishi Dayanand mela start in Ajmer Arya scholors in Ajmer, Rajasthan Patrika, 20 November 2015.
36. Rishi Ustsav celebrated in presence of CM, First Paper.
37. "Udaipur Garden Palace now a shrine to Arya Samaj founder". Timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. Retrieved 8 November 2016.
38. Dhanpati Pandey (1985). Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. p. 8.
39. K. S. Bharathi (1998). Encyclopaedia of eminent thinkers. 7. Concept Publishing Company. p. 188. ISBN 978-81-7022-684-0.
40. Garg, p. 198
41. Regina E. Holloman; S. A. Aruti︠u︡nov (1978). Perspectives on ethnicity. Mouton. pp. 344–345. ISBN 978-90-279-7690-1.
42. Basant Kumar Lal (1978). Contemporary Indian Philosophy. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 3. ISBN 978-81-208-0261-2.
43. Christopher Isherwood (1980). Ramakrishna and His Disciples. Vedanta Press. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-87481-037-0.
44. Narendra Nath Bhattacharyya (1996). Indian religious historiography. Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. p. 58. ISBN 978-81-215-0637-3.
45. Krishan Singh Arya, P. D. Shastri (1987) Swami Dayananda Sarasvati: A Study of His Life and Work. manohar. p. 327. ISBN 8185054223
46. Sisirkumar Mitra; Aurobindo Ghose (1963). Resurgent India. Allied Publishers. p. 166.
47. Andrew Jackson Davis (1885). Beyond the Valley: A Sequel to "The Magic Staff": an Autobiography of Andrew Jackson Davis ... Colby & Rich. p. 383.
48. Har Bilas Sarda (Diwan Bahadur) (1933). Dayanand Commemoration Volume: A Homage to Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati, from India and the World, in Celebration of the Dayanand Nirvana Ardha Shatabdi. Vedic Yantralaya. p. 164.
49. "Ninian Smart & Benjamin Walker were influenced by Dayananda Saraswati". Archived from the original on 18 April 2016. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
50. Bhagwat Khandan – Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Internet Archive. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
51. Maharshi Dayanand Jivan Charitra

Bibliography

• Garg, Gaṅgā Rām (1984). World Perspectives on Swami Dayananda Saraswati. Concept Publishing Company.
• Sinhal, Meenu (2009). Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Prabhat Prakashan. ISBN 978-81-8430-017-8.
• Satyarth Prakash

Further reading

• Dayananda Saraswati, Founder of Arya Samaj, by Arjan Singh Bawa. Published by Ess Ess Publications, 1979 (1st edition:1901).
• Indian Political Tradition, by D.K Mohanty. Published by Anmol Publications PVT. LTD. ISBN 81-261-2033-9. Chapter 4: Dayananda Saraswati Page 92.
• Rashtra Pitamah Swami Dayanand Saraswati by Rajender Sethi (M R Sethi Educational Trust Chandigarh 2006)
• Aurobindo Ghosh, in Bankim Tilak Dayanand (Calcutta 1947 p 1, 39)
• Arya Samaj And The Freedom Movement by K C Yadav & K S Arya -Manohar Publications Delhi 1988
• The Prophets of the New India, Romain Rolland p. 97 (1930)
• Satyarth Prakash (1875) Light of Truth – first English translation 1908 [1] [2]
• R̥gvedādi-bhāṣya-bhūmikā / An Introduction to the Commentary on the Vedas. ed. B. Ghasi Ram, Meerut (1925). reprints 1981, 1984 [3] Archived 28 October 2009 at the Wayback Machine
• Glorious Thoughts of Swami Dayananda. ed. New Book Society of India, 1966 Dayananda Saraswati at Google Books
• An introduction to the commentary on the Vedas. Jan Gyan-Prakashan, 1973. An Introduction To The Commentary On The VEDAS: Dayananda Flipkart.com review
• Autobiography, ed. Kripal Chandra Yadav, New Delhi : Manohar, 1978. Autobiography of dayanand saraswati ISBN 0685196682
• Yajurvēda bhāṣyam : Samskr̥tabhāṣyaṃ, Āndhraṭīkātātparyaṃ, Āṅglabhāvārthasahitaṅgā, ed. Mar̲r̲i Kr̥ṣṇāreḍḍi, Haidarābād : Vaidika Sāhitya Pracāra Samiti, 2005.
• The philosophy of religion in India, Delhi : Bharatiya Kala Prakashan, 2005, ISBN 81-8090-079-7
• Prem Lata, Swami Dayananda Sarasvati (1990) [4]
• Autobiography of Swami Dayanand Saraswati (1976) [5]
• M. Ruthven, Fundamentalism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, USA (2007), ISBN 978-0-19-921270-5.
• N. A. Salmond, Hindu Iconoclasts: Rammohun Roy, Dayananda Sarasvati and nineteenth-century polemics against Idolatry (2004) [6]
• 'THE RENAISSANCE RISHI' By Brigadier Chitranjan Sawant,VSM [7]

External links

• Dayananda Saraswati at Curlie
• Works by or about Dayananda Saraswati at Internet Archive
• Dayanand Saraswati (1824–1883)
• Life and Teaching of Swami Dayanand

**************

Theosophical and Mystic Publications
The Theosophist (Adyar).Lucifer. On the Watch-Tower
December 15, 1895. No. 100

Vol. XVII No. 2: -- Colonel Olcott gives an account of a discussion with Svami Dayanand on Yoga an dthe Siddhis. This discussion was reported in an early number of The Theosophist, and is of much interest. The Svami holds to the view that a Raja Yogi must, in the present life or a past one, have practised Hatha Yoga, or physical training, before he can successfully achieve possession of the higher mental and spiritual powers. Miss Edger contributes a paper entitled "Man, his own Creator." The "Notes on Scientific Experiments" scarcely appear in keeping with the style of the magazine, but will probably be of service. One or two serious errors have been allowed to pass, such as that of the wavelength of sound, which is given as the distance sound travels in a second. "The Jain Theory of Karma" promises to be of much interest.

A

***********

The Theosophical Thinker
(Bellary, Madras)
Lucifer. On the Watch-Tower
August 15th, 1893. No. 72
London

Vol. I, Nos. 15019: -- A Hindu writer makes short work of Prof. Max Muller's recent criticism of "Esoteric Buddhism," and reminds us that "Swami Bhaskaranand Saraswati, of Jodpore, the renowned disciple of the late Swami Dayanand Saraswati, says that, 'Prof. Max Muller has made over 600 important mistakes in his translation of Vedic hymns and other Sanskrit works.'" We still prefer to get our Orientalism from the Orient.
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James Martin Peebles
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/30/20

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James Martin Peebles
Born: March 23, 1822, Whitingham, Vermont
Died: February 15, 1922 (aged 99), Los Angeles, California
Occupation: Physician, writer

James Martin Peebles (March 23, 1822 – February 15, 1922) was an American physician, prolific author and organizer of many professional, medical, and religious associations.

Biography

Peebles was born in Whitingham, Vermont.[1] Peebles was a member of the Indian Peace Commission of 1868,...

The Indian Peace Commission (also the Sherman, Taylor, or Great Peace Commission) was a group formed by an act of Congress on July 20, 1867, in order "to establish peace with certain hostile Indian tribes." It was composed of four civilians and initially three—later four—military leaders. Throughout 1867 and 1868, they negotiated with a number of tribes, including the Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho, Kiowa-Apache, Cheyenne, Lakota, Navajo, Snake, Sioux, and Bannock. The treaties that resulted were designed to move the tribes to reservations, to "civilize" and assimilate these native peoples, and transition their societies from a nomadic to an agricultural existence.

As language and cultural barriers affected the negotiations, it remains doubtful whether the tribes were fully informed of the provisions they agreed to. The Commission approached the tribes as a representative democracy, while the tribes made decisions via consensus: Indian chiefs functioned as mediators and councilors, without the authority to compel obedience from others. The Commission acted as a representative of the United States Congress, but while Congress had authorized and funded the talks themselves, it did not fund any of the stipulations that the commissioners were empowered to negotiate. Once treaties were agreed to, the government was slow to act on some, and rejected others. Even for those treaties that were ratified, promised benefits were often delayed, or not provided at all. Congress was not compelled to support actions taken in its name, and eventually stopped the practice of treaty making with tribes in 1871.

The Indian Peace Commission was generally seen as a failure, and violence had reignited even before it was disbanded in October 1868. Two official reports were submitted to the federal government, ultimately recommending that the U.S. cease recognizing tribes as sovereign nations, refrain from making treaties with them, employ military force against those who refused to relocate to reservations, and move the Bureau of Indian Affairs from the Department of the Interior to the Department of War. The system of treaties eventually deteriorated to the point of collapse, and a decade of war followed the commission's work. It was the last major commission of its kind...

Their work was organized around three main goals in an effort to solve the "Indian question":

1. to remove, if possible, the causes of war;
2. to secure, as far as practicable, our frontier settlements and the safe building of our railroads looking to the Pacific;
3. to suggest or inaugurate some plan for the civilization of the Indians.


-- Indian Peace Commission, by Wikipedia


United States Consul at Trebizond, Turkey,...

A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the people of the two countries.

A consul is distinguished from an ambassador, the latter being a representative from one head of state to another, but both have a form of immunity. There can be only one ambassador from one country to another, representing the first country's head of state to that of the second, and their duties revolve around diplomatic relations between the two countries; however, there may be several consuls, one in each of several major cities, providing assistance with bureaucratic issues to both the citizens of the consul's own country traveling or living abroad and to the citizens of the country in which the consul resides who wish to travel to or trade with the consul's country.

A less common usage is an administrative consul, who takes a governing role and is appointed by a country that has colonised or occupied another...

Consuls of various ranks may have specific legal authority for certain activities, such as notarizing documents. As such, diplomatic personnel with other responsibilities may receive consular letters patent (commissions). Aside from those outlined in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, there are few formal requirements outlining what a consular official must do. For example, for some countries, consular officials may be responsible for the issue of visas; other countries may limit "consular services" to providing assistance to compatriots, legalization of documents, etc. Nonetheless, consulates proper will be headed by consuls of various ranks, even if such officials have little or no connection with the more limited sense of consular service.

Activities of a consulate include protecting the interests of their citizens temporarily or permanently resident in the host country, issuing passports; issuing visas to foreigners and public diplomacy. However, the principal role of a consulate lies traditionally in promoting trade—assisting companies to invest and to import and export goods and services both inwardly to their home country and outward to their host country. Although it is not admitted publicly, consulates, like embassies, may also gather intelligence information from the assigned country...

Consulates are subordinate posts of their home country's diplomatic mission (typically an embassy, in the capital city of the host country). Diplomatic missions are established in international law under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, while consulates-general and consulates are established in international law under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Formally, at least within the US system, the consular career (ranking in descending order: consul-general, consul, vice-consul, honorary consul) forms a different hierarchy from the diplomats in the strict sense. However, it is common for individuals to be transferred from one hierarchy to the other, and for consular officials to serve in a capital carrying out strictly consular duties within the consular section of a diplomatic post; e.g., within an embassy...

In the social life of 19th-century Lübeck as depicted in Thomas Mann's novel Buddenbrooks – based on Mann's thorough personal knowledge of his own birthplace – an appointment as the consul of a foreign country was a source of considerable social prestige among the city's merchant elite. As depicted in the book, the position of a consul for a particular country was in practice hereditary in a specific family, whose mansion bore the represented country's coat of arms, and with that country confirming the consul's son or other heir in the position on the death of the previous consul. As repeatedly referenced by Mann, a consul's wife was known as "Consulin" and continued to bear that title even on the death of her husband. Characters in the book are mentioned as consuls for Denmark, the Netherlands and Portugal.

-- Consul (representative), by Wikipedia


and representative of the American Arbitration League [Association]...

Chapter II: The Pattern Changes in America, Excerpt from “American Arbitration: Its History, Functions and Achievements”
by Frances Kellor

The new era in American arbitration began in 1920. It was characterized by the modernizing of arbitration law, systematic planning, organization of machinery, the cultivation of a spirit of arbitration, and the construction of foundations of knowledge. Its incentive came from World War I and the resolve to avoid future wars insofar as the settlement or control of disputes through arbitration could accomplish that end.

In thus changing the historical pattern, Americans had before them some invaluable lessons in previous undertakings. One of these lessons arose out of the Conferences of 1899 and 1907 which had laboriously established the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. The Conventions there adopted carefully defined the processes of inquiry, mediation, and arbitration, set up rules of procedure for each process, and provided machinery for their administration. High hopes were held that this Court might prove an instrumentality for the prevention of future wars. But one fundamental omission was made. No provision was made for cultivating the spirit of arbitration, or for education either governments or their people in the knowledge and use of arbitration. So, the first World War came without the Court’s having functioned in the settlement of major issues.

A second mistake was made in the next great international adventure when the League of Nations was organized. It also provided for arbitration and committed its members in principle. It went further and established the first Permanent Court of International Justice with ample machinery for its operation. But the League also failed to cultivate the spirit of arbitration or to teach nations or peoples its use either in their home affairs or in international relations. So, the second World War came, without the League or the Court having been able to settle differences among states.1

In the meantime, a third experiment had been tried. Over a period of half a century, the American Republics, acting through a central organization, known as the Pan American Union, were pursuing a different course. They were binding the Republics together in peace through a network of conventions, agreements, arrangements, and undertakings which established the central principle of settlement of disputes through amicable processes, including arbitration.2 Not only were these agreements consummated, but the Pan American Union unceasingly, through many different educational and scientific undertakings, cultivated the spirit of arbitration and educated governments in the use of pacific processes of settlement.2 This experiment held these Republics together under the stress of international war and the strain of threatened wars among themselves. This experiment furnished both the inspiration and the hope for a new era in American arbitration and for a change in the historical pattern.

The event that was the precipitate this change in pattern, like so many inconspicuous events that later proved momentous, gave no indication of its significance either to American life or to international peace and security. It was, on the contrary, the rather drab event of enacting a modern arbitration law in 1920 in the State of New York – the first of its kind in the United States.4 This law possessed the unusual features of looking forward instead of backward, and of enabling parties in dispute to control future disputes as well as to settle existing disputes. Although similar features had existed in British and Scottish laws for many generations, it proved to be a revolutionary step in the Americas as it had not been in other countries.

Under the provisions of this new law, agreements to submit to arbitration future disputes arising out of the contract containing such agreements, were made legally valid, enforceable, and irrevocable save as any other contract is revocable. Hitherto only existing disputes had enjoyed such legal protection. Furthermore, this law closed the courts to parties to arbitration agreements until they had complied with their arbitration agreements and it brought to the aid of the parties the powers of the court in enforcing agreements and awards by authorizing them to appoint arbitrators or otherwise expedite arbitration upon default of one of the parties.5

Little was it dreamed in 1920 that under this and subsequent laws of a similar nature, arbitration clauses in contracts would become the foundation stones of wide flung systems of arbitration.6

The enactment of this law might, however, have proved no more significant in the United States than had similar laws in other countries, but for the fact that it led to the organization of the first permanent independent institution of arbitration.

This new institution was organized in 1922 as the Arbitration Society of America. It offered arbitration a normal, active career of its own, with its own headquarters and personnel. It made possible the organization of systems of tribunals administered by an independent and responsible institution. It freed arbitration from commodity and geographical limitations to serve all of the people all of the time.

This change in pattern from indifference and casualness to scientific organization was effected not only by a new type of organization but by the adoption of different methods for the advancement of arbitration. Under a distinguished leadership, this institution put on an educational campaign that carried arbitration to the people in a new way throughout the country.

Under this stimulus, arbitration made front page headlines in the press. It went out to luncheon and to dinner; receptions were held in its honor, and forums were dedicated to its exposition. It became the subject of conference, debate, and instruction. It frequented exclusive clubs and found its way into homes, churches, schools and theatres. It passed the exclusive portals of law offices, banks, and corporation board rooms. It came out of dry law books, where only the difficulties were recorded, and found a place in general as well as special periodicals, books, and pamphlets. Sometimes arbitration wore evening clothes; at other times it appeared in overalls, or in a professor’s gown; but always it aroused curiosity and interest.

Nowhere in the world had arbitration ever had such an audience as when sixty members of the New York Judiciary sat down to dinner in its honor, followed by a conference at which more than four hundred business and professional men discussed its future.7

But, other experiments were to come. One morning the Arbitration News made its appearance – and the first arbitration publication was born. Arbitration had become news, for the things that were done and said about it were spotlighted and its leaders became known to the public. Along with Arbitration News, “Learn to Arbitrate” became the slogan of the new Arbitration Society, and a stamp bearing this slogan made its appearance.

A highlight of the Society’s endeavor to make arbitration better known, occurred in 1923, when May 7-12 was made “Arbitration Week.” Charles L. Bernheimer, Chairman of the Arbitration Committee of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, arranged a program in which more than fifty trade and commercial organizations participated. The educational work carried on during that week marked a sharp departure from the traditional treatment of arbitration.

During its first year and a half, the Society recorded the distribution of 158,000 pieces of literature at 1,200 meetings, conferences or gatherings where arbitration was discussed. It received 600 applications for information or for the settlement of disputes. And during its lifetime, from 1922-26, there were enacted modern arbitration laws in Massachusetts and New Jersey. The Society was also instrumental in effecting the enactment of the United States Arbitration Law in 1925, applicable to interstate commerce and foreign trade transactions.

The influence of the Society spread in many directions. Trade and commercial organizations began to furbish their own facilities and services for their own groups and to participate in making this broader pattern of arbitration a reality. For example, in 1923, Will H. Hays, soon to become a Director of the Society, established an arbitration system in the Film Boards of Trade for the motion picture industry. A report on this system, set forth in the Congressional Record, was instrumental in furthering the enactment of the United States Arbitration Act.

Not less significant was the new leadership developed by the Society. It brought business men together in a common endeavor. It found staunch and distinguished advocates to champion the cause of arbitration, not solely as judges in disputes, but for its general advancement. These advocates changed the passive role of arbitration to one of action and gave it a new prestige. No longer was it submerged in contracts or limited to resolutions and endorsements, not to having its failures publicized in law books. On the contrary, arbitration sought the people; it besieged their conscience to recognize its usefulness in the control of future disputes. It stormed the American’s complacency over the social consequences of discord and disputes. It confronted men in their trade press; it challenged their attention at meetings; it stared at them from cartoons and haunted their conference tables.

During the four years of its existence, from 1922-26, this new Society substantially changed the pattern of arbitration. It brought arbitration out of its austere juridical area into the limelight as an instrumentality which people themselves could use generally for the voluntary settlement of many kinds of differences. It made arbitration procedures readily accessible to the people through the establishment and operation of a commercial arbitration tribunal. It created a new leadership through panels of arbitrators and trade groups. It directed public attention to a hitherto drab and obscure subject. It flung a challenge of self-regulation to private enterprise. It opened the eyes of lawyers to a new practice in arbitration tribunals. It envisioned the dawn of a new profession by starting a panel of arbitrators and beginning their education. It brought arbitration to the people in a simple yet dramatic way and stimulated their faith in this age-old method of solving differences and maintaining friendships. It introduced into the American way of life a new institution for building and maintaining good faith, goodwill, and confidence in human relations.

All of this was the contribution of a single leader, Moses H. Grossman, and the devoted group of men who comprised the Society’s first Board of Directors and their associates of the bar, bench, business, education, and the professions. It was, therefore, representative of people from all walks of life, participating in a new concept of arbitration.

Having experienced this change from indifference to approval, from a passive role to action, and from obscurity to public acclaim, arbitration could never again become a forgotten way of American life and was destined to find its way eventually upon a broad international highway.

_______________

Notes:

1. Frances Kellor and Antonia Hatvany, Security Against War, I, International Controversy and the Machinery for Peace; II, International Courts and the Outlawry of War. (New York, Macmillan & Co., 1924)

2. For a summary, see The Basic Principles of the Inter-American System. (Pan American Union [1943].)

3. Among these treaties and agreements were the Gondra Treaty of 1923, which sought to avoid or prevent conflicts; followed in 1929 by a General Convention of Inter-American Conciliation, a General Treaty of Inter-American Arbitration, and an additional Protocol of Progressive Arbitration; then by an Anti-War Treaty of Non-Aggression and Conciliation in 1933. In 1936, there appears a scientific note, namely a Convention for the Maintenance, Preservation, and Reestablishment of Peace; and a Convention to Coordinate, Extend, and Assure the Fulfillment of the Existing Treaties between the American States. The same year, 1936, also witnessed an Inter-American Treaty on Good Offices and Mediation and one on the Prevention of Controversies.

4. The enactment of this law was due largely to the initiative taken by the New York State Bar Association, and to the support given by the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York and other commercial organizations. The publication of Commercial Arbitration and the Law by Julius Henry Cohen in 1918 was influential in obtaining the law.

5. For a full description of the provisions of this law and its application, see Suggestions for the Practice of Commercial Arbitration in the United States, published for the American Arbitration Association in 1928 by Oxford University Press.

6. This law was followed by the enactment in 1925 of the U.S. Arbitration Act and by similar statutory laws in the states of Arizona, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.

7. At the home of Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Astor [elder son of John Jacob Astor IV, a wealthy businessman and inventor, and his first wife, Ava Lowie Willing, an heiress from Philadelphia], February 28, 1923.


at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.

The Paris Peace Conference was the formal meeting in 1919 and 1920 of the victorious Allies after the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. Dominated by the leaders of Britain, France, the United States and Italy, it resulted in five controversial treaties that rearranged the map of Europe and imposed financial penalties. Germany and the other losing nations had no voice which gave rise to political resentments that lasted for decades.

The conference involved diplomats from 32 countries and nationalities, and its major decisions were the creation of the League of Nations and the five peace treaties with the defeated states; the awarding of German and Ottoman overseas possessions as "mandates," chiefly to Britain and France, the imposition of reparations upon Germany, and the drawing of new national boundaries, sometimes with plebiscites, to reflect ethnic boundaries more closely.

The main result was the Treaty of Versailles with Germany; Article 231 of the treaty placed the whole guilt for the war on "the aggression of Germany and her allies." That provision proved to be very humiliating for Germany and set the stage for the expensive reparations that Germany was intended to pay (it paid only a small portion before its last payment in 1931). The five great powers (France, Britain, Italy, Japan and the United States) controlled the Conference. The "Big Four" were French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, US President Woodrow Wilson, and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. They met informally 145 times and made all major decisions before they were ratified.

The conference began on 18 January 1919. With respect to its end, Professor Michael Neiberg noted, "Although the senior statesmen stopped working personally on the conference in June 1919, the formal peace process did not really end until July 1923, when the Treaty of Lausanne was signed."

It is often referred to as the "Versailles Conference," but only the signing of the first treaty took place there, in the historic palace, and the negotiations occurred at the Quai d'Orsay, in Paris.

-- Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), by Wikipedia


A former Universalist minister, he became an Episcopalian after the American Civil War, and then a Spiritualist and Theosophist. Many of his books are on spiritualist subjects, although he also penned a quite popular book, titled How to Live a Century and Grow Old Gracefully.[2][3][4]

Peebles obtained a diploma in 1876 from the fraudulent Philadelphia University of Medicine and Surgery.[5][6][7] He obtained a Doctor of Philosophy from the Medical University of Chicago in 1882.[1][8] He was a professor in the Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati.[3]

The Eclectics

Separate from the Thomsonians and the physio-medicals were the eclectics (from the Greek eklego, meaning to choose from), whose botanic system of medicine filled an important void in family practice. The name came from its use by Celsus, Agathinos of Sparta, Archigenes of Syria, Galen, and other medical men who preferred to stand apart from prevailing medical schools by choosing whatever curative measures most benefited their patients. Archigenes, styled the "founder of eclecticism," and his pupil Aretaeus were characterized by the lack of bigotry, choosing their curative agents from among the pneumatic, methodic, and dogmatic sects without adhering to any one particular creed. Although this early sect prospered over seven centuries, it lost ground during the age of the Roman Empire. Later descendants took their place in Germany, Italy, France, and England, but none obtained the importance or duration of these forebearers.

The term "eclectic" seemed to define adequately the nature of this reform philosophy, but Alexander Holmes Baldridge (1795-1874), one of the early pioneers of reform medicine, suggested an alternative, the "American School of Medicine." More expressive of the school's protestant origins, it failed to elicit the same level of sujpport. Nonetheless, individual reformers used the terms "eclectic" and "American School" interchangeably.45

American eclecticism had its origins in the first quarter of the nineteenth century in the investigations of Jacob Tidd, a German herb doctor from East Amwell, New Jersey, and his student Wooster Beach (1794-1868) [father of American Reformed Practice] of Trumbull, Connecticut. A graduate of the medical department of the University of New York, Beach parted ways with allopathic medicine by identifying almost exclusively with vegetable medicines and by being catholic in his selection of the most efficacious principles and agents from all medical systems. Beach was conversant with the botanical literature of his generation, including German physician and botanist Johann David Schoepf (1752-1800); Benjamin Smith Barton's Elements of Botany (1803) and his unfinished Collections for an Essay Towards a Materia Medica of the United States (1798-1804); Samuel Henry's A New and Complete American Medical Family Herbal (1814); Jacob Bigelow's American Medical Botany (1817-20); Constantine Samuel Rafinesque's Medical Flora: Or, Manual of the Medical Botany of the United States of North America (1828-30); the writings of Robley Dunglison (1798-1869) and William Tully (1785-1859); as well as the United States pharmacopoeias of 1820 and 1830. Having adopted the motto vires vitales sustinete (sustain the vital forces), Beach took exception to the practice of bloodletting and the use of strong mineral remedies and moved unhesitatinly toward a more kindly treatment of disease. This he did in opposition to both the Thomsonians and the allopaths.46

As part of his crusade to detect the errors of modern practice, Beach began privately instructing students at his New York City home in 1825, and two years later opened a clinical school known as the United States Infirmary. In 1829, he enlarged the school, calling it the Reformed Medical Academy; a year later, it bore the name Reformed Medical College of the City of New York.47 Assisting him at the college were Thomas Vaughn Morrow, Ichabod Gibson Jones, and John J. Steele, all graduates of regular schools. Each shared Beach's catholic view of botanic medicine and opposed the restrictive and authoritarian views of Samuel Thomson. Beach intended his reformed system of medicine "to release the mind from the dogmas of creeds and systems, the philosophy of medical schools, as they were then taught, and to direct it to an unlimited field of inquiry."48

In 1833, Beach published his popular three-volume American Practice of Medicine, presenting his views on reformed medicine. The founding principles of his system included admonitions against mercury and other mineral drugs; opposition to salivation and long-continued regimens of depletion; condemnation of bloodletting in all forms; and rejection of unnecessary surgery. Although Beach borrowed extensively from Rafinesque, William P.C. Barton, Jacob Bigelow, and Elisha Smith, his American Practice of Medicine became one of the more popular texts of botanical literature in the nineteenth century. His one-volume condensed version (1846) went through fourteen editions and received numerous testimonials and medals of recognition from abroad. Other popular works written by Beach included his Treatise on Pulmonary Consumption, Phthisis Pulmonalis, with Remarks on Bronchitis (1840), Medical and Botanic Dictionary (1847), and Am Improved System of Midwifery (1851).49

The eclectics were as forcibly opposed to the sweating, vomiting, and enervating regimen of the Thomsonians as they were to the bleeding, blistering, and mercurial purging and salivating regimens of the regulars. Both seemed unsound to eclectic thinking, wedded to obsolete theories of disease and disease nosology. Operating on a parallel but more kindly road to wellness, the eclectics introduced a distinctive pharmacy based on indigenous plant remedies -- the resin of podophyllum as a substitute for calomel; betony as an emetic and cathartic; maidenhair for pleurisy and jaundice; compound tar plaster in place of old-school applications of croton oil, catharides, and tartar emetic; and compound tincture of sanguinaria for emesis.50 In general, the eclectics favored the natural curative processes of the organism through the use of noninjurious medication; demanded freedom of thought and investigation; supported the development of the vegetable materia medica as the safest method of treating disease; supported the inductive method of investigation; advocated simplicity in prescribing; determined the value of a drug through the treatment of the sick patient rather than through laboratory experimentation; and condemned the extremes of over drugging and therapeutic nihilism.51

Throughout their history, the eclectics had an affinity for homeopathy, partly because they found common cause in facing the power and politics of old-school medicine. This affinity also derived from the strength homeopathy claimed among many wealthy and cultured Americans who objected to the "sledgehammer" doses of medicines then in vogue. Equally important, the eclectics were enamored with the homeopath's minimalist approach, believing excessive doses of innocuous drugs retarded the body's natural affinity for self-repair.52

Before 1860 thirteen colleges had organized as eclectic or a mixture of eclectic and phsio-medical. These included the New York Reformed Medical College (1826-39); College of Medicine, Botanic, in New York City (1836-46); Reformed Medical College of Georgia (1845-61); Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati (1845-1939); Wooster Medical Institute (1846-59); Eclectic Medical Institute of New York (1847-48); Randolph Eclectic Medical Institute (1848-49); Central Medical College of New York (1849-52); Memphis Institute (1849-50); Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania (1850-80); Metropolitan Medical College of the City of New York (1853-62); American Medical College (1853-57); and the Cincinnati College of Eclectic Medicine and Surgery (1856-59).

By the end of the century, the eclectics numbered 9,703 compared with 72,028 allopaths, 8,640 homeopaths, and 1,553 physio-medicals.53 By then, there were eight eclectic colleges, one national and thirty state societies, ten medical journals, and more than sixty medical texts, many of which had become standard works of reference and study. The approved list of eclectic colleges as determined by the national association consisted of the American Medical College at 407 Jefferson Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri (1873); Bennett College of Eclectic Medicine and Surgery at the corner of Ada and Fulton Streets, Chicago, Illinois (1868); California Medical College at 1466 Folsom Street, San Francisco, California (1879); Eclectic Medical College of the City of New York at 239 East 14th Street, New York (1865); Eclectic Medical Institute at 1009 Plum Street, Cincinnati, Ohio (1845); Georgia College of Eclectic Medicine and Surgery at Tanner Street, near Edgewood, Atlanta, Georgia (1886); Lincoln Medical College at 121 South 14th Street, LIncoln, Nebraska (1899); and the American College of Medicine and Surgery, Chicago, Illinois (1901). Together, they formed the National Confederation of Eclectic Medical Colleges.54 Graduates held positions in private practices, colleges, hospitals, insurance companies, governmental sanitary boards, and as surgeons in the army and navy. Eclectics perceived themselves as an established force in the medical world "and as likely to be permanent as any other doctrine now held in the whole realm of art and science."55

-- A Profile in Alternative Medicine: The Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati, 1845-1942, by John S. Haller, Jr.


A few organizations Peebles took a leadership role in are the National Spiritualist Association,...

The National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC) is one of the oldest and largest of the national Spiritualist church organizations in the United States. The NSAC was formed as the National Spiritualist Association of the United States of America (NSA) in September 1893, during a three-day convention in Chicago, Illinois. Although American Spiritualists had previously tended to resist institutional or denominational organization, early NSA leaders hoped organization would help promote the truths of the religion both spiritually and practically. Organization could help non-Spiritualists distinguish genuine mediumship from the rapidly proliferating varieties of fraudulent mediumship, increase communication among Spiritualists, prevent the legal prosecution of spirit mediums under fortune telling and medical licensing laws, and counterattacks by "orthodox" ministers in the press. To these reasons, early leaders added the material support of spirit mediums and healers, just as other religious groups provided for the support of their clergy.

Among the NSA's first leaders were W. H. Bach, Harrison D. Barrett (former Unitarian clergymen), Luther V. Moulton, James Martin Peebles, and Cora L. V. Scott (spiritualist medium). The association is also important for its adoption of a number of statements on Spiritualism which have become a standard to which other Spiritualist bodies more or less adhere...

The influence of Unitarianism is obvious in the definition of God in principle one.

1. We believe in Infinite Intelligence;
2. We believe that the phenomena of Nature, both physical and spiritual, are the expression of Infinite Intelligence;
3. We affirm that a correct understanding of such expression and living in accordance therewith constitute true religion;
4. We affirm that the existence and personal identity of the individual continue after the change called death;
5. We affirm that communication with the so-called dead is a fact, scientifically proven by the phenomena of Spiritualism;

6. We believe that the highest morality is contained in the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Principles 1-6 adopted in Chicago, Illinois, 1899. Principle 6 revised in Ronkonkorma, New York, 2004.[citation needed])
7. We affirm the moral responsibility of the individual, and that we make our own happiness or unhappiness as we obey or disobey Nature's physical and spiritual laws;
8. We affirm that the doorway to reformation is never closed against any soul here or hereafter; (Principles 7-8 adopted in Rochester, New York, 1909 and revised in Rochester, New York, 2001.)
9. We affirm that the precept of Prophecy and Healing are Divine attributes proven through Mediumship. (Principle 9 adopted in St. Louis, Missouri, 1944, revised in Oklahoma City, 1983 and in Westfield, New Jersey, 1998.)...

"Are Spiritualists also Christians?" was debated by the NSAC and generally decided in the negative. While the NSAC has drawn heavily on the Christian faith, from which most members came, it identifies its members as Spiritualists. The specifically "Christian Spiritualists" were found in other bodies such as the Progressive Spiritualist Church and the Spiritual Church Movement. Some Spiritualists differentiate between primitive Christianity, which they believe themselves to be following and practicing, and contemporary orthodox Christianity, which they strictly differentiate from both primitive Christianity and Spiritualism...

The Center for Spiritualist Studies (CSS) in Lily Dale, New York is located on the grounds of the NSAC-chartered Lily Dale Assembly, the world's largest Spiritualist camp. The CSS is incorporated as a religious seminary by the New York State Board of Regents. The goal of the curriculum is the training of Spiritualist Clergy, Teachers, Mediums and Healers...

The Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York is the governing body of the University of the State of New York.

The board was established by statute on May 1, 1784. The members were divided into five classes: 1) ex officio members including the Governor of New York, the Lieutenant Governor of New York, the Secretary of State of New York, the New York Attorney General, and the Speaker of the New York State Assembly, the Mayor of New York City, the Mayor of Albany, New York, 2) two people from each of the then twelve existing counties, 3) one representative of each religious denomination in the state, chosen by their congregation, 4) founders of any college or school in the state (and their heirs or successors), and 5) representatives from selected colleges.[1]

The regents were spread across the state and getting a necessary quorum proved difficult given the size of the state and travel demands. On November 26, 1784, 33 additional members were appointed, twenty of them from New York City and affiliated with King's College (now known as Columbia University). This arrangement also proved ineffective, so on April 13, 1787, the Legislature legislated the existing regents out of office, and a new set of regents was appointed: the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor continued as ex officio members, and 19 regents were appointed for life. This legislation also shifted the regents' focus from Columbia to schools, colleges, and universities across the state. On April 8, 1842, the Secretary of State was added again as an ex officio member, and on March 30, 1854, the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Vacancies were filled by joint ballot of the state legislature.

The regents were made a constitutional body, no longer defined by statue, in 1894. In 1904, the Board was reorganized again and the ex officio members were legislated out. The offices of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Secretary of the Board of Regents were abolished and the duties of both transferred to the Commissioner of Education, who "serves at the pleasure" of the Board of Regents. The regents continued to be elected by joint ballot of the Legislature. Eleven of the sitting 19 regents were chosen by the Legislature to continue in office, and were classified to serve for different term lengths, so that every year one seat came up for election, for a full term. The number of board members was reduced to eight, one Regent per New York State Judicial District (based on the 1876 Act establishing the districts.), plus three "at large" members.

-- Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, by Wikipedia


The National Spiritualist Summit (TNS) is the official publication of the National Spiritualist Association of Churches. It has been continuously published each month since 1919. The Spotlight is a magazine, published 10 times a year, for Children of all ages produced by the National Spiritualist Association of Churches and maintains a continued emphasis on the progression of Spiritualism through teaching children.

-- National Spiritualist Association of Churches, by Wikipedia


the California College of Sciences, the Peebles College of Science and Philosophy, the California Centenarian Club, and the California Humanitarian League. Peebles was an opponent of vaccination and vivisection.[1] He authored Vaccination a Curse and a Menace to Personal Liberty in 1900.[9] He was editor of the monthly magazine Temple of Health and Psychic Review.[1]

Peebles was influenced by Sylvester Graham and opposed the consumption of alcohol, coffee, meat, tea and tobacco.[10]

The Reverend Sylvester Graham (July 5, 1794 – September 11, 1851) was an American Presbyterian minister and dietary reformer known for his emphasis on vegetarianism, the temperance movement, and eating whole-grain bread. His preaching inspired the graham flour, graham bread, and graham cracker products. Graham is often referred to as the "Father of Vegetarianism" in the United States of America...

Like other members of the temperance movement, Graham viewed physical pleasure and especially sexual stimulation with suspicion, as things that excited lust leading to behavior that harmed individuals, families, and societies. Graham was strongly influenced by the Bible and Christian theology in his own idiosyncratic way. He believed that people should eat only plants, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and believed that plague and illness were caused by living in ways that ignored natural law. He urged people to remain calm, and not allow worry or lust to shake them from living rightly – perhaps one of the first people to claim that stress causes disease.

From these views, Graham created a theology and diet aimed at keeping individuals, families, and society pure and healthy – drinking pure water and eating a vegetarian diet anchored by bread made at home from flour coarsely ground at home so that it remained wholesome and natural, containing no added spices or other "stimulants" and a rigorous lifestyle that included sleeping on hard beds and avoiding warm baths. The regimen has been described as an early example of preventive medicine. The emphasis on milling and baking at home was part of his vision of America in which women remained at home and nursed their families into health and maintained them there, as his wife had done for him. Graham believed that adhering to such diet would prevent people from having impure thoughts and in turn would stop masturbation (thought by Graham to be a catalyst for blindness and early death) His piece On Self-Pollution, published in 1834, contributed to the masturbation scare in antebellum America. He believed youthful masturbation was dangerous to children's health because of the immaturity of their reproductive organs.

As a skilled and fiery preacher, his peculiar message, combining patriotism, theology, diet, lifestyle, and messages already prevalent from the temperance movement, captured the attention of the frightened public and outraged bakers and butchers, as well as the medical establishment. When the cholera epidemic reached New York in 1832, people who had followed his advice appeared to thrive, and his fame exploded. When he published his first book in 1837, Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making, his lectures in New York and Boston that year were thronged; the Boston lecture was disrupted by a threat of riots by butchers and commercial bakers.

As his fame spread, "Grahamism" became a movement, and people inspired by his preaching began to develop and market Graham flour, Graham bread, and graham crackers. He neither invented nor endorsed any specific product, nor did he receive any money from their sale. Graham influenced other Americans including Horace Greeley and John Harvey Kellogg, founder of the Battle Creek Sanitarium.

Grahamite boarding-houses were established in the 1830s. The Grahamites applied dietetic and hygienic principles to everyday life including cold baths, hard mattresses, open windows, a vegetarian diet with Graham bread and drinking cold water. Animal flesh was banned from Grahamite homes but eggs were allowed to be eaten at breakfast and were an important component of Grahamite diets...

Graham died of complications after receiving opium enemas, as directed by his doctor, at the age of 57 at home in Northampton, Massachusetts. His early death was the source of criticism and speculation. Historian Stephen Nissenbaum has written that Graham died "after violating his own strictures by taking liquor and meat in a last desperate attempt to recover his health".

Russell Trall, who had visited Graham, noted that he had strayed from a strict vegetarian diet and was prescribed meat by his doctor to increase his blood circulation. Trall wrote that before his death Graham regretted this decision and "fully and verily believed in the theory of vegetable diet as explained in his works".


After his death, vegetarians distanced themselves from Grahamism. However, his vegetarian message was disseminated far into the 20th century.

Food historians cite Graham as one of the earliest food faddists in America.

-- Sylvester Graham, by Wikipedia


He a vegetarianism activist and contributed articles to The Vegetarian Magazine. His diet was ovo-lacto vegetarian, he ate butter, cheese, eggs, milk, fruits, nuts and vegetables.[11]

Peebles was married to Mary M. Conkey, and they had three children, none of whom lived past infancy.
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Part 2 of 2

Quackery

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Peebles Epilepsy Remedy

He was the Chairman of Peebles' Institute of Health in Battle Creek, Michigan. The institute sold a dubious "epilepsy cure", which medical experts considered quackery.[5][12][13] His epilepsy remedy was examined by the American Medical Association's Chemical Laboratory which revealed it was made from "mainly a hydro-alcoholic solution of extractives with flavouring."[5] The "indiscriminate use" of bromides was considered dangerous to epileptics.[12]

PEEBLES' INSTITUTE OF HEALTH

Peebles' "epilepsy cure" is put out by the Dr. Peebles' Institute of health, Battle Creek, Mich. This company has for its chairman, J.M. Peebles, M.D., and for its treasurer and general manager, W.T. Bobo, M.D.

J.M. Peebles, according to our records, is over 92 years old, and holds a diploma, received in 1896 -- after he was 50 -- from the Philadelphia University of Medicine and Surgery, that was fraudulent when it became extinct in 1880. Peebles has held forth at Hammonton, N.J.; San Antonio, Tex.; San Diego, Cal.' Battle Creek, Mich., and is at present at Los Angeles. In addition to quacking it in the "epilepsy cure" line, Peebles supplements his income by selling a book, "Vaccination, A Curse and a Menace to Personal Liberty" -- price One Dollar. W.T. Bobo, M.D., the treasurer and general manager of the Peebles Institute was, according to our records, graduated in 1899 by the Marion-Sims College of Medicine, St. Louis. Bobo not only has an interest in the "epilepsy cure" but also advertises a goiter "cure." Altogether the personnel of the Peebles Institute is strictly in keeping with its business.

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The Peebles Institute reaches its victims in the usual manner: advertisements in not-too-particular newspapers and magazines. A "free trial treatment" and a booklet containing much "scare" material forms part of the bait. Pictures showing a man followed by a demon (epilepsy) -- a victim of the disease falling from a housetop -- the horribly distorted features of an epileptic in an attack -- a madman raving in his cell as a result of epilepsy -- thus does the Peebles Institute drum up trade. In common with practically all "epilepsy cures" the Peebles Institute leads the public to believe that it does not use those drugs commonly prescribed by physicians in such cases. Also in common with its kind, the concern, of course, uses bromids. It is not very long ago that the Peebles Institute in circulars sent to prospective victims declared:

"We could have done what many 'FIT SPECIALISTS' do, and sent a sedative or bromid mixture that would have deadened and partly paralyzed the brain and nervous system and checked the spells while the remedies were being used, but we do not treat our patients in that way."

The Peebles Institute no longer makes this statement -- directly. It does, however, still make such claims by inference. The fact that the concern now uses more guarded language may be due to the government's successful prosecution of the Peebles epilepsy cure in which the stuff was declared misbranded, and the company fined! A specimen of the Peebles nostrum -- price Five Dollars -- was purchased direct from the concern and the preparation submitted to the Association's laboratory for examination:

LABORATORY REPORT

The "Peebles Epilepsy Treatment," manufactured by the Peebles Health Institutes, Battle Creek, Mic., was submitted to the Chemical Laboratory for examination. The treatment consisted of two original bottles, labeled, respectively, No. 1 and No. 2.

Peebles Epilepsy Treatment No. 1. -- The bottle of "Peebles' Epilepsy Treatment No. 1" contained 350 c.c. (12 fluidounces) of a brown liquid with extractive matter present and had an odor resembling celery and valerian. The liquid seemed to consist mainly of a hydro-alcoholic solution of extractives with flavoring. The specific gravity at 15.6C. was 1.1040. The solid residue weighed 29.4 per cent, and the ash weighed 1.17 per cent. Quantitative determination showed 11.40 per cent. absolute alcohol by volume. The dose is 1 teaspoonful at mealtime.

Peebles Epilepsy Treatment No. 2. -- The bottle of "Peebles Epilepsy Treatment No. 2" contained about 350 c.c. (12 fluidounces) of a brown liquid, having extractive matter present and a valerian-like odor. The specific gravity at 15.6C. was 1.1061. Qualitative tests demonstrated the presence of alcohol, ammonium, potassium, sodium (traces) bromid and chlorid.

Essentially, each 100 c.c. of the solution contains 7.3 grams of ammonium bromid and 17.9 grams of potassium bromid. Calculating from the bromid determination, each dose, one teaspoonful (1 fluidram), contains the equivalent of 16.8 grains of potassium bromid, and each daily dose (three teaspoonfuls) corresponds to 50.4 grains of potassium bromid.

The report shows, as might have been expected, that the Peebles epilepsy treatment consists, essentially, in giving bromids -- (From The Journal A.M.A., Jan. 30, 1915.)

-- Nostrums and Quackery: Articles on the Nostrum Evil, Quackery and Allied Matters Affecting the Public Health; Reprinted, With or Without Modifications, from The Journal of the American Medical Association, Prepared, Compiled or Edited by Arthur J. Cramp, M.D., Director of the Propaganda Department and Bureau of Investigation of The Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume II, 1921


Peebles also set up psychic healing institutes in California, New Jersey and Texas.[6]

Bibliography (partial)

• 1859 Henry W. Beecher on Theodore Parker's Platform: Signs of the Times, Orthodoxy and Infidelity: Spiritualism. Battle Creek, Michigan: Steam Press of the Review and Herald Office.
• with Joseph Osgood Barrett and Eben Howe Bailey, The Spiritual Harp: A Collection of Vocal Music for the Choir, Congregation, and Social Circle, Boston, New York,: W. White & company.
• 1868 The Practical of Spiritualism: Biographical Sketch of Abraham James, Historic Description of His Oil-Well Discoveries in Pleasantville, Pa., through Spirit Direction. Chicago: Horton & Leonard.
• 1869 Seers of the Ages or Spiritualism Past & Present, W. White & Co. Boston USA & J. Burns London, England
• 1871 with Hudson Tuttle, The Year-Book of Spiritualism for 1871, Boston: W. White and Company.
• 1872 Witch-Poison and the Antidote, Troy, New York: The Troy Children's Progressive Lyceum.
• 1874 with Joseph Osgood Barrett, The Gadarene, or, Spirits in Prison. Boston: Colby and Rich.
• 1875 Around the World: Or, Travels in Polynesia, China, India, Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Other 'Heathen' Countries, Boston: Colby and Rich.
• 1876 The Conflict between Darwinianism and Spiritualism, or, Do All Tribes and Races Constitute One Human Species?: Did Man Originate from Ascidians, Apes, and Gorillas?: Are Animals Immortal? Boston: Colby & Rich
• 1877 with Ann Lee (spirit), Oriental Spiritualism: From the Spirit of Mother Ann Lee to J.M. Peebles. Mt. Lebanon, N.Y.: s.n.
• 1878 Buddhism and Christianity Face to Face, or, an Oral Discussion between the Rev. Migettuwatte, a Buddhist Priest, and Rev. D. Silva, an English Clergyman: Held at Pantura, Ceylon. Boston: Colby and Rich.
• 1878 Christ, the Corner-Stone of Spiritualism, or, the Talmudic Proofs of Jesus' Existence : Who Was Jesus?: The Distinction between Jesus and Christ: The Moral Estimate That Leading American Spiritualists Put Upon Jesus of Nazareth: The Commands, Marvels, and Spiritual Gifts of Jesus Christ: The Philosophy of Salvation through Christ : The Belief of Spiritualists and the Church of the Future. London: James Burns.
• 1880 Immortality, and Our Employments Hereafter, Boston: Colby and Rich.
• 1880 Spiritual Harmonies. 2nd. ed. Boston: Colby and Rich.
• 1884 How to Live a Century and Grow Old Gracefully. New York: M. L. Hollbrook.
• 1887 with Frederick W. Evans, J. P. MacLean, Shakerism in London : Addresses by Frederick W. Evans, Elder in the Order of Shakers, Dr. Peebles, J. Burns, and Others, at Claremont Hall, Penton St., London, N., Sunday Evening, July 3, 1887. London: Reprinted from the Medium and Daybreak.
• 1890 Nihilism, Socialism, Shakerism, Which? Mt. Lebanon, N.Y.: s.n.
• 1895 Magic: One of a Series of Lectures. San Diego, California: Peebles Publishing House.
• 1898 Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Spiritualism, at Its Birthplace. Battle Creek, Michigan: Drs. Peebles & Burroughs.
• 1898 Seers of the Ages: Embracing Spiritualism, Past and Present : Doctrines Stated and Moral Tendencies Defined. 8th ed. Boston: Banner of Light Publishing Co.

J. M. Peebles, from Spiritual Pilgrim 1872
• 1898 Three Journeys around the World, or, Travels in the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Australia, Ceylon, India, Egypt and Other Oriental Countries. Boston: Banner of Light Publishing Co.
• 1899 Spiritualism in All Lands and Times: Address to the International Congress of Spiritualists, Held in London, June, 1898. Battle Creek, Mich.: Drs. Peebles & Burroughs.
• 1900 Priest-Rejected Proofs of Immortality: Its Naturalness, Its Possibilities, and Now-a-Day Evidences Refused a Hearing by Rev. Canon Girdlestone and Other Churchmen Connected with the Victoria Institute and Philosophical Society of Great Britain. Battle Creek, Mich.: Published by the author.
• 1902 A Series of Seven Essays Upon Spiritualism Vs. Materialism, Appearing in the Free-Thought Magazine. Battle Creek, Mich.: Dr. Peebles Institute of Health Publishing Co.
• 1902 The Eightieth Birthday Anniversary of Dr. J.M. Peebles: Celebrated in Melbourne, Australia, and Printed in Part in W.H. Terry's Harbinger of Light (April and May 1902): With an Essay on How I Am Living to Live a Century. London: Published at the office of Light.
• 1903 The First Epistle of Dr. Peebles to His Seventh Day Adventist Critics. Battle Creek, Mich.: Dr. Peebles Institute of Health.
• 1904 Reincarnation, or, the Doctrine of the "Soul's" Successive Embodiments: Examined and Discussed Pro and Con. Battle Creek, Mich.: Peebles Medical Institute.
• 1905 The Demonism of the Ages : Spirit Obsessions, So Common in Spiritism, Oriental and Occidental Occultism. 3rd ed. Battle Creek, Mich.: Peebles Medical Institute.
• 1905 Vaccination a Curse and a Menace to Personal Liberty, with Statistics Showing Its Dangers and Criminality. Battle Creek, Michigan.
• 1906 The Spirit's Pathway Traced; Did It Pre-Exist and Does It Reincarnate Again into Mortal Life? Battle Creek, Michigan,: Dr. Peebles Institute of Health.
• 1909 Spirit Mates, Their Origin and Destiny, Sex-Life, Marriage, Divorce. Battle Creek, Michigan: Peebles' Publishing Company.
• 1910 Five Journeys around the World. Battle Creek, Michigan,: Peebles Publishing Company.
• 1910 What Is Spiritualism? Who Are These Spiritualists? And What Can Spiritualism Do for the World? 5th ed. Battle Creek, Michigan: Peebles Publishing Company.
• 1912 Death Defeated, or, the Psychic Secret of How to Keep Young. 5th ed. Los Angeles: Peebles Publishing Company.
• n.d. with Henry A. Hartt, The Pro and Con of Spiritualism. Boston, Mass.: Banner of Light Publishing Company.
• 1970, Reverent William Rainen published his channeled messages from Dr. Peebles through his own publications in the 60's, 70's and later was a major contributor for a monthly magazine called, 'Spirit Speaks,' along with other famous names during that time frame. William channeled Dr. Peebles for decades, and taught many how to raise their vibration and communicate with Dr. Peebles too. Thomas Jacobson was one of his students who later became known when his journey was documented in to Dance with Angles. Others have followed since. Rev. Rainen also lectured on these same principles in the USA, and abroad.
• 1990, Don Pendleton, and Linda Pendleton, To Dance with Angels : An Amazing Journey to the Heart with the Phenomenal Thomas Jacobson and the Grand Spirit, Dr. Peebles. N.Y.: Kensington Books. 5th edition, CA: Pendleton Artists (Book is written by Don and Linda Pendleton. Includes channeled material from Dr. Peebles, channeled through mediumship of Thomas Jacobson).
• 2012, Three Principles of Angelic Wisdom, The Spiritual Psychology of the Grand Spirit Dr. Peebles by Linda Pendleton. CA: Pendleton Artists. Biographical information on Dr. James Martin Peebles.

References

1. Guinn, James Miller. (1915). A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs, Volume 3. Historic Record Company. pp. 527-533
2. James Peebles (1884) How to Live a Century and Grow Old Gracefully, M. L. Holbrook & Co., New York
3. "Lives Only Days Short of Century" (Feb 16, 1922) Los Angeles Times
4. Joseph Osgood Barrett (1872) Spiritual Pilgrim: A Biography of James M. Peebles, Boston: William White and Company
5. Cramp, Arthur J. (1921). Nostrums and Quackery: Articles on the Nostrum Evil, Quackery and Allied Matters Affecting the Public Health, Volume 2. Press of American Medical Association. pp. 148-150
6. Massie, Larry B; Schmitt, Peter J. (1984). Battle Creek, the Place Behind the Products: An Illustrated Business History. Windsor Publications. p. 62. ISBN 0-89781-117-8 "He paused from his travels to pick up a quick diploma from the fraudulent Philadelphia University of Medicine and Surgery in 1876. Dr. Peebles then bounced around the country, setting up psychic healing institutes at Hammonton, New Jersey, San Antonio, Texas; and San Diego, California."
7. "Ludwig Bruck's List of Unregistered Practitioners". "Philadelphia University of Medicine and Surgery (Philadelphia,Pa.) Fraudulent institution. Extinct."
8. Lowe, Berenice Bryant. (1976). Tales of Battle Creek. Albert L. and Louise B. Miller Foundation. p. 71
9. Buescher, John Benedict. (2006). The Remarkable Life of John Murray Spear: Agitator for the Spirit Land. University of Notre Dame Press. p. 335. ISBN 978-0268022006 "Many American spiritualists were also active anti-vaccinationists — see, for example, James Martin Peebles, Vaccination a Curse and a Menace to Personal Liberty, with Statistics Showing Its Dangers and Criminality."
10. Wilson, Brian C. (2014). Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the Religion of Biologic Living. Indiana University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-253-01447-4
11. Anonymous. (1897). James M. Peebles, A.M., M.D. Food, Home and Garden 1 (12): 179-180.
12. Anonymous. (1915). Dr. Peebles Institute of Health: A Fraudulent and Dangerous "Cure" for Epilepsy. Journal of the American Medical Association 64 (5): 455-456.
13. "Ads and Labels From Early 20th-Century Health Fraud Promotions". AMA Journal of Ethics.

Further reading

• Anonymous. (1915). Dr. Peebles Institute of Health: A Fraudulent and Dangerous "Cure" for Epilepsy. Journal of the American Medical Association 64 (5): 455-456.
• Joseph Osgood Barrett. The Spiritual Pilgrim: A Biography of James M. Peebles. Boston.

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Lives Only Days Short of Century: Dr. Peebles Passes Away at Home Just before His Hundredth Birthday
by the Los Angeles Times
February 16, 1922

Death thirty-six days before his birthday anniversary prevented Dr. James Martin Peebles from realizing his ambition to live 100 years. He died at 3:30 p.m. yesterday at his apartment at 1839 South Main Street [Los Angeles]. He had been ill for nearly a year with valvular trouble of the heart, but had striven by will power to continue his life until March 23, when he would have been 100 years of age. Dr. N. MacFarlane, the attending physician, stated that the patient’s advanced age prevented his recovery. The body was taken to Pierce Brothers’s undertaking establishment, where the funeral will be conducted Saturday at 3 p.m.

He was born in Whittingham, VT., and was graduated from Oxford Academy in Chenango County, N.Y. in 1841. He later won degrees at Pennsylvania University of Medicine and Surgery and Philadelphia University. He owned and operated a number of publications, and he toured the world five times, lecturing in oriental countries.

He was a member of the Indian Peace Commission which in 1868 settled Indian troubles in the Middle West, and in 1869 he was United States Consul at Trebizond, Turkey. Later he represented the American Arbitration League at the International Peace Conference in Paris.

One of his oft-repeated remarks was “I am truly an eclectic not only in medicine, but in all things.” In evidence of this he preached for several years in the pulpit of the Universalist Church, Baltimore, before the Civil War. Then he became an Episcopalian and later a Spiritualist and Theosophist.

For three years Dr. Peebles was professor in the Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati, he was president of the California College of Sciences for four years, and in 1914 he founded and became president of the Peebles College of Science and Philosophy in Los Angeles. He founded the California Centenarian Club and served as president of the California Humanitarian League. He was a member of numerous societies organized for advancement of science, art, health, philosophy and psychic research.

Dr. Peebles married Miss Mary M. Conkey in Canton, N.Y. She died many years ago, and their three children died in infancy. His sister, Mrs. C.C. Beach of Battle Creek, is the only close relative.

In addition to his widely read book, “How to Live a Century” he wrote eleven others on religion, psychology and similar subjects.

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James Martin Peebles, 1822-1922)
by Linda Pendleton
todancewithangels.com
© Copyright 2002, 2006

“The ancestors of James Martin Peebles, originally from the ancient town of Peebles in Peebleshire, Scotland, settled in the north of Ireland more than three hundred years ago. Staunch Protestants with very pronounced religious convictions, they endured much persecution during a period of intense and bitter controversies. In 1718, Robert and Sarah Peebles and children, emigrated from Ulster, Ireland to America and settled in Pelham, Massachusetts. Their eldest son, Patrick Peebles, was fifteen at the time. In 1737, Patrick's eldest son, Robert was born in Pelham, Massachusetts. James Martin Peebles' grandfather, Patrick Peebles, son of Robert Peebles, was born about 1770-1772, and by the time Patrick's first son, James Peebles Sr. was born in 1796, the family lived in Whitingham, Vermont.”

“In 1820, James Peebles, Sr., married Whitingham schoolmistress, Nancy Brown, daughter of Deacon Jonas and Lois Brown, and a seventh generation descendant of Thomas Brown, who was living in Concord, Massachusetts as early as 1640. James Peebles Sr. served as a Captain in the Vermont Militia for many years and held various township offices.”

“James Martin Peebles was born March 23, 1822, at the family homestead in Whitingham, Vermont, the second born of eight children of James and Nancy Peebles. The young James excelled as a student and at the age of sixteen entered the Oxford Academy in New York State to continue his studies, majoring in Latin, Greek, and the Classical Literature of the ancient periods. While a student at the Academy he became a teacher, with some of his students even older than himself.”

“At the age of twenty he was ordained a Universalist minister and preached in Kellogsville, Oswego and Elmira, New York; and in Baltimore, Maryland. During this period, a new spiritual movement began to sweep across America and overseas. The Reverend James M. Peebles was one who chose to stand in the bright light of the new Spiritualism.”

“By 1856, Dr. Peebles was preaching Spiritualism at the Free Spiritualist Church in Battle Creek, Michigan. In 1860, he went to Sacramento, California, where he spent nearly two years ministering throughout the gold mine camps in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was not long until he became known as ‘the spiritual pilgrim’ as he enthusiastically spread his Spiritualists’ philosophy through lectures, writings, and travels around the United States and the world. Himself a medium, he was surrounded by what he called his ‘band of angels’ from whom he received inspiration and spiritual guidance.”

“Aaron Knight was the first of Dr. Peebles’ ‘angels’ or spirit guides to come to his attention. Mr. Knight, the Elucidator, was the spokesman for a group of nine guides, which included Dr. Peebles’ deceased brother, Lorenzo; Mozart, the Spiritual Harmonizer; Madame Elizabeth, the Love-angel and sister of Louis XVI of France; Parasee Lendanta, an Italian scientist; Hosea Ballou, known as the Sermonizer; Caná, known as the Positivist; James Leonard; and John W. Leonard, a clergyman from Edinburgh, Scotland. As Reverend Peebles became more conscious of angel-presence surrounding him, he came to understand his ‘band of angels’ was larger than the aforementioned nine. There were two intertwining bands associated with Dr. Peebles: Chief Powhatan, father of Pocahontas, and known as the Magnetic Cleanser; a Pawnee Chief; two doctors known as the Analyzers; a quaint and witty Irishman; and John, the Beloved, around whom the whole band revolved as planets around their central sun.”


“In 1852, James married Mary Conkey, a teacher in the Clinton Liberal Institute of Clinton, New York. Mary was considered refined, intelligent, well educated. She excelled as a painter and in later years became a spirit artist. The couple lost three children, either through miscarriages or as infants, and in 1861, their adopted son, Louie, died at the age of ten. In 1867, James and Mary bought a large home in Hammonton, New Jersey. Mary maintained the home, most often in the absence of her husband, who for health reason preferred a warmer climate, and who apparently believed the calling of his life's work was more important than maintaining a ‘normal’ married life. Mary died at the Hammonton, New Jersey home in 1909 at eighty-three years of age.”

“James began a study of medicine in his youth, studying with Dr. O. Martin, but it was not until the age of fifty-four that he completed his medical studies at the University of Medicine and Surgery in Philadelphia. He initiated his medical practice in Philadelphia, and soon after had a sanitarium at his home in Hammonton, New Jersey. For several years, Dr. Peebles was a member of the faculty of the Eclectic Medical College, Cincinnati, Ohio, and later served as president of the College of Science in Los Angeles. In 1892, he had a sanitarium in San Antonio, Texas and by 1894 was living and practicing medicine at his health-home sanitarium in San Diego, California. In 1896, he opened a branch sanitarium in Indianapolis, Indiana, under the direction of Dr. John A. Burroughs. During this time, he also published his Temple of Health Journal. In 1902, he founded the Peebles' Institute of Health in Battle Creek, Michigan. Within a short few years, he moved to Los Angeles where he continued medical practice.”

“An international lecturer, prolific and talented author and journalist, Dr. Peebles published more than thirty books and endless newspaper articles and essays during his long lifetime. For many years he was a regular columnist for the Spiritualist paper, The Banner of Light. He journeyed the world five times; the first time in 1865 aboard the Cunarder Persia, and wrote of his adventures within several editions of his book, Around the World. He completed his fifth trip in June 1913, at the age of 91, returning to New York on the Atlantic Transport liner Minnehaha from London, at which time he was interviewed by the New York Times as to the secret of his vitality at 91 years of age. He was probably best known as an author, for his books, Seers of the Ages: Embracing Spiritualism Past and Present, published first in 1869, and followed by several later editions; What is Spiritualism and Who are these Spiritualists?, published in 1903; How to Live a Century and Grow Old Gracefully, published in 1881; and in medical circles for Vaccination, A Curse and a Menace to Personal Liberty, published in 1905.”

“Two authorized biographies of James Martin Peebles were published: the first, Spiritual Pilgrim by J. O. Barrett in 1871, and the second, A Biography of James Martin Peebles by Edward Whipple was published in 1901. In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Dr. Peebles to the position of U.S. Counsel at Trebizonde, Turkey, where he served for nearly two years. He was a member of the Congressional American Indian Peace Commission and a delegate to several international peace conferences, and an active and outspoken participant in the anti-slavery, temperance, and women's suffrage movements. Dr. Peebles delivered the first series of Sunday evening lectures on Spiritualism in London, Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania. He often shared the lecture platform with Garrett Smith, Henry Wright, William Lloyd Garrison, Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, and others. Dr. Peebles was affiliated with the Freemasons; Knight Templars; Odd Fellows; Sons of Temperance; Independent Order of Good Templars; and Theosophy. Several times he toured India with Col. Henry Steel Olcott, who founded Theosophy with H.P. Blavatsky. Dr. Peebles was instrumental in establishing educational facilities in India and Ceylon with Col. Olcott. Dr. Peebles was a fellow of the Anthropological Society, London; the Psychological Society, London; Academy of Arts and Sciences, Naples; and several other societies. He founded the Peebles College of Science and Philosophy in Los Angeles in 1914, the California Centenarian Clubs in 1915, and was president of the California Humanitarian League.”

“James Martin Peebles died in Los Angeles, February 15, 1922, days short of his one hundredth birthday, and at a posthumous centennial birthday banquet celebration held in his honor in Los Angeles, his communication from the other side through a medium and his message from Heaven was reported in a number of major newspapers across the country, and elsewhere, including the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. Dr. Peebles' communication with those of us on Earth has continued since that time.”

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Globe Trotter at 91: Dr. Peebles Does Things Instead of Talking of By-Gones
by the New York Times
June 17, 1913

The only passenger on the Atlantic Transport liner Minnehaha, which arrived from London last night, who did not seem to mind the heat was Dr. J. M. Peebles of Los Angeles, Cal., who will be 92 on March 23 next. Dr. Peebles has arranged to start on his sixth trip around the world in the Fall of 1915. Dr. Peebles is over six feet tall, with snow white hair and beard and clear gray eyes. He told the reporters last night that he owed his good health to avoidance of drugs, eating proper food, and regular rest and exercise.

"I have been a vegetarian for sixty years," said Dr. Peebles, "and neither drink nor smoke, but I am not a bigot. I was born in Bennington, [Whitingham] Vermont, and was one of the seven founders of the Independent Order of Good Templars in New York State. I stayed in the East until I was 28 years old. I contracted tuberculosis and then went to California to save my life, and have lived there practically ever since."

"What is the real secret of your vitality at the age of 91?" he was asked.

"Just behaving myself, proper living, and always being up and doing account for it," said Dr. Peebles. "I have the will power to compel myself to do things instead of sitting in a corner talking about the by-gone days, when I stood on the anti-slavery platform with Garrison and other good men before the war."

"I feel that I am in the morning of my youth, and have no fear of death because I believe that it merely means the shedding of the outer shell and going to sleep, to wake up in a new world."

Dr. Peebles, who was accompanied by R. Peebles Sudall, his adopted son, was anxious to have the reporters know that he was opposed to vaccination and to vivisection. He was in the active practice of medicine for fifty years, and still treats some of his old patients. He served as a surgeon in the civil war, and was appointed a Consul in Asiatic Turkey by President Grant during his first term, but only served eighteen months of his term of office, as he found the life too tedious for endurance.

At the present time Dr. Peebles is a correspondent of thirty-one newspapers and periodicals, of which nine are in India. Two are Mahommedan papers. He made his first trip across the Atlantic in 1865 in the Cunarder Persia, an iron paddle wheel steamship of 3,300 gross tons, with a speed of 14 knots.

Mr. Sudall said that Dr. Peebles when at his home in Los Angeles generally arose about 4:30 o'clock in the morning and breakfasted about 5 o'clock. He is accustomed then to go to his rose garden. He retires as a rule between 8 and 9 o'clock at night unless he has a lecture to deliver. He intended to attend the international convention of spiritualists in Geneva this month, but the London fogs affected his throat. After lying in bed for a week Dr. Peebles got up and said he was going back to California.

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A Man Who Knew Dr. Peebles: "He hasn't changed a bit."
by Linda Pendleton
todancewithangels.com
© Copyright 2001 by Linda Pendleton

During the writing of our book, To Dance With Angels, Don and I heard about a man who had met Dr. Peebles in Los Angeles in about 1920. In 1987, this man had attended the Church of Inner Light in Los Angeles where Thomas Jacobson had channeled Dr. Peebles. His comment that day about Dr. Peebles had been, "He hasn't changed a bit." We had tried to locate the man during the writing of our book but had been unsuccessful.

A month before To Dance With Angels was published we did locate him. Nelson Westphalen agreed to an interview. We arraigned a get together at his home and were accompanied by Thomas and Connie Jacobson:

Image
Nelson Westphalen and Thomas Jacobson. Photograph by Linda Pendleton

Los Angeles, July 30, 1990

Nelson Westphalen, who observed his 90th birthday at his home in West Los Angeles, California this past December is one of few persons still living who could have known James M. Peebles in the flesh. It is fortunate then, that Nelson attended a special service at the Church of Inner Light in 1987 where trance-medium Thomas Jacobson brought forward the spirit of Dr. Peebles in a demonstration of trance channeling.

"As a young man," Nelson recalled during our interview, "I had the privilege of attending a meeting in Los Angeles when Dr. Peebles was the guest speaker for George Francis, a popular psychic of the time. It was on the 8th floor of the old Hamburger Building at 8th and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. I'll never forget that night, and I have held both Dr. Francis and Dr. Peebles close to my heart ever since.

"Well, so I was very interested in hearing Thomas Jacobson and seeing if this was real [the channeling]. But I knew it was him [Dr. Peebles] the minute he started speaking. Same powerful voice, same Scottish accent, the same humor and the same wisdom. I had a chance to ask a question, so I decided to ask about George Francis, who also of course had been dead for many years.

"Dr. Peebles replied that he still saw George on the spirit side from time to time, and that his favorite topic for conversation was still 'man's inhumanity to man.' That sealed it right there. I had to slap my leg. That was George's favorite theme while I knew him."

Nelson described Dr. Peebles as a dynamic lecturer even though he was at that time close to one hundred years old. He recalled Dr. Peebles to have been distinguished looking and that he stood tall even though he used a cane. Nelson chuckled when he told us that Dr. Peebles had been accompanied by an attractive, full bosomed, younger woman.

Dr. Peebles' words had apparently had a tremendous impact on young Nelson for he carried with him the memory of their meeting for so very many years. Nelson's wife Dorothy, a delightful woman, confirmed for us that Nelson, indeed, had often spoke of the impact that both Dr. Peebles and George Francis had on him and of the respect and admiration he had for them.

We had an enjoyable afternoon with Nelson and Dorothy. Nelson was thrilled when Thomas offered to do a trance session for him and bring Dr. Peebles to our get together. Nelson had a lively and humorous discussion with his old "friend."

Don and I saw Nelson and Dorothy one more time after that, at the Church of Inner Light. Sadly, Nelson died several months later.

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Dr. Peebles' Letter to a Friend, Edited from excerpts Spiritual Pilgrim by O.J. Barrett, 1871
by Linda Pendleton
todancewithangels.com
© Copyright 2001 by Linda Pendleton

Mrs. H. F. M. Brown was a fellow Spiritualist and very active in the Spiritualist movement. In 1860 or so, she was living in Cleveland, Ohio, but according to later Spiritualist registers she lived in California. The Spiritual registers list her as a traveling lecturer, as they did Dr. Peebles. It is obvious by Dr. Peebles letter to her that they had a close relationship.

This letter was written in 1861 shortly after the death of Dr. Peebles' adopted ten-year-old son, Louis. He was devastated by his son's death. Shortly before writing this letter to his friend Frances Brown, in deep mourning, he had a discourse with his "band of angels."

"Oh, I loved Louie!" said he.

"So do we," was the reply of the angel.

"But he was necessary to my happiness."

"So he was to others."

"I had superior claim."

"You think so, brother? Where is your philosophy in the superiority of the spiritual over the material?"

"I could have made him spiritual here."

"Suppose it be proved that Louie's departure is a mutual and eternal blessing?"

"But I loved him from my soul's depths."

"No doubt you did: the angels, however, loving him better, transplanted him into their heavenly gardens."

"The angels have need of these youthful buds
In their gardens so fair;
They graft them on immortal stems,
To bloom forever there."

He said, "Well, I go mourning over the world, now that Louie is gone."

"Go mourning, O philosopher! to render him and you more unhappy? So many beautiful buds, flowering out on the immortal shore to prepare a paradise for you! So unhappy over it, child?"


It is said this spiritual interchange apparently calmed him to a silence, sweet as the night's rest. Not long after he wrote this letter, accepting that the "angel rules the human at the saddest of losses."

"Sacramento, Cal., March 1861"

"Dear Mrs. Brown...I am sad, oh, so sad and tearful, to-night, Frances! None, however see my tears. There may be something of pride in this; but I long ago resolved that no shadow upon my face should ever filch the sunshine from others. Why sad, do you ask? Aye, last week's mail brought the tidings of the severe sickness and departure to the better land of our darling Louis, -- a precious bud, transplanted to bloom in the garden of God. Oh, how I pity my poor wife! Lonely must she be without the echoes of his dancing feet, and the lyric cadence of his voice. He was a promising, a beautiful child of hardly ten summers, and the very idol of our hearts.

"This deep affliction will weigh heavily upon my wife. I shall hasten home on her account. Home! how many sweet associations cluster around the endearing word! Put me in my library room, and I'm happy; and yet, dearly as I love books, family, home, and home comforts, a divine voice is ever saying to me, "Go forth, -- go among all nations; preaching the ministry of spirits, and the principles of the Spiritual Philosophy.

"Though gifted in intellect, Frances, you are equally sympathetic, and will readily understand the sorrow that will come over me like a cloud upon crossing my threshold in Battle Creek, -- my wife glad to welcome me, gratified with my improved health, but mourning for Louis. It is all well. He has gone to join and become a companion of our own three dear little ones, who left the mortal ere earth's ills had tinged the gossamer of their spirit-garments with a single stain. Angels are their teachers; progress their eternal destiny. Oh, how blessed is Spiritualism in all the trying scenes of life! Would I had a thousand tongues to tell its glories and sing its praises! To its promulgation under the inspiration of a circling band of spirits, I have consecrated my powers, dedicated my life. So have you, and many, many other noble souls.

"Deeply do I sympathize with reform workers, lecturers, and media, negative and sensitized from the heavens. Oftentimes their sorrows are many, their joys few. Beautiful are the crowns that await them in the glorious hereafter.

"Were it not for the impaired health of my wife, and sudden departure of Louis, I should remain here at least a year, and do earnest missionary work in behalf of Spiritualism. I am stopping in an excellent family, Victor B. Post's; the spirits have named them "Peace and Harmony." These, with many other dear friends, entreat me to remain another year; but duty calls me home.

"I must tell you, by the way, that I have formed the acquaintance of Mrs. Eliza W. Farnham; met her in the lunatic asylum, Stockton, Cal. She is the matron; and her brilliant, solid intellect, boundless benevolence, and deep comprehension of principles, charmed me. During several evenings, she read from unpublished volumes she is preparing, -- read me select passages from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," and several European poets. She told me she delivered the first lecture upon Spiritualism ever given in California. She spoke highly of you, Mary F. Davis, and others of her sex laboring for woman and the great interest of reform. And, only think, -- little, anxious, jealous souls, hardly worthy to unloose her shoe-latches, have tried to traduce this great, noble woman. Blessings upon her! I'm proud I ever clasped her hand, a prelude to abiding friendship."


Several months later Dr. Peebles wrote to a male friend who had given him a message from his departed son and had promised there would be more to come.

"Accept my thanks for the love message sent me from Louie through you. Oh, the dear pet child, how I want to press him to my bosom upon my return home! You know, Charlie, that I am enthusiastic in my love nature; loving not only children, but music, flowers, and friends, almost to distraction. The news of Louie's leaving the earth life almost overcame me at first. I was not prepared for it…."


In To Dance With Angels, Don and I quoted from his biography, Spiritual Pilgrim, a description of Dr. Peebles written by Mrs. H. F. M. Brown at some point prior to 1871.

"Mr. Peebles's leading characteristic is, perhaps, individuality. He is independent in thought and speech, condemns cowardice and jealousies without stint: he commands where he can, never looking to see which way the tide is setting, or waits public approval. But he is quite willing that others should live their lives, if principles are not compromised. He is orderly, generous, social, mirthful, and a great lover of the beautiful. In personal appearance, he is tall, straight, of slender form, brown hair, blue eyes, his face is of Roman mold: his teeth faultless. He dresses with great care, avoiding alike the dandy and the sloven. He is tall and slim as a May-pole; as fair and frail as a delicate woman. Consumption looks him in the face occasionally; but, by sailing the world half round, he has eluded the unwelcome phantom. But, after all, the mistake might have been in putting the right soul into the wrong body. Spiritwise, Mr. Peebles is a mountaineer. He is calm in a storm, laughs at the lightning, and listens to the thunder as friend to friend. His thoughts, like mountain streams, gush forth with freshness, music, and originality. If he is a thought-borrower, his benefactions are the ferns, the dewy mosses, the wild-flowers, the cloud-crowned hills, and green valleys of his native state. I said to my soul, while listening to him, Emerson had this very man in his mind when he said, 'In your heart are birds and sunshine: in your thoughts the brooklets flow.'"


A beautiful tribute to a friend.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Mon Aug 31, 2020 8:11 am

"And so, without further ado, here's the author of Mind Over Matter..."
Gary Larson
1981

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"And so, without further ado, here's the author of Mind Over Matter..."
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