Moncure D. Conway
A window into the mindset that embraced Theosophy in Calcutta is provided by Norendro Nath Sen’s second article by that title which appeared in 1882. Sen (1843-1911), editor of the Indian Mirror, was also a founding member of the Calcutta branch. Referring to “the great demand in Bengal for the new work, called `Esoteric Theosophy’,” Sen explained that his appreciation for Theosophy was not based on the teachings of Blavatsky or any living writer, but rather the TS objective of restoring Indian cultural and religious traditions. “Whether it be called Theosophy or after any other name, what we want to see is that the study of our ancient science, philosophy, and shastras should be earnestly taken up, and diligently pursued by our educated countrymen in every part of India…What entitles them to our respect and confidence, is that they have devoted themselves to the disinterested duty of awakening in us an intelligent curiosity to explore our ancient literature, to study our neglected shastras, and to make researches into our old systems of science and philosophy.” (57) Implicit in this remark is a reason that Bengali intellectuals’ enthusiasm for Theosophy declined after a few years; the TS seemed more interested in promoting its own distinctive doctrines than in appreciating India’s ancient traditions. In 1881, Swami Dayananda had complained in a letter to Blavatsky, “You had come here to become disciples, now you wish to become teachers.” (58) Mohini Chatterji continued to work for the goals that had motivated the original TS/Brahmo alliance, through Bengali channels, for another two decades. Beginning in the late 1880s and continuing until at least 1912, he promoted the teachings of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and other Bengali mystics to Westerners. In 1898, Vivekananda praised him to a Calcutta audience as “one who has seen England and America, one in whom I have great confidence, and whom I respect and love…working steadily and silently for the good of our country, a man of great spirituality.” (59)
The American Transcendentalist and Unitarian clergyman Moncure Conway (1832-1907), who visited TS headquarters in 1883 and wrote a sarcastic but affectionate account of the experience, reported an encounter with Sen on board the ship which bore him away from India, in an account published many years later.
“This Mr. Sen, of the ‘Indian Mirror,’ was a relative of the Brahmo leader, Keshub Chunder Sen. That he did not have perfect faith in the Theosophic miracles was evident to me from the fact of his expressing regret that the movement should be permitted to be anything more than an ethical and religious reformation. He rather complained of myself and others who were interested only in the ‘signs and wonders,’ being thus the means of preventing Theosophy from developing into the great Reformed Religion of India. He was an intelligent man, and I received from him a clear idea of the causes which had given so-called Theosophy its success…there appeared from America this company of people who had abandoned every form of Christianity, taken up their abode in India to lead in the work of at once rehabilitating and revising these ancient systems, and pointed Hindus and Buddhists to their own scriptures and prophets as fountains of faith and hope. They naturally gained a hold on the hearts of these people, and in a few years moved and attracted them more than did the Christian missionaries in as many centuries.” (60)
The mutual influence of Theosophy and the Bengal Renaissance reached its zenith during the meteoric career of Mohini Chatterji as the model chela of Blavatsky’s Mahatmas. By the early twentieth century, it was fading into history, as seen in the comments of Aurobindo Ghose (1872- 1950) in a 1911 manuscript that was not published until 1997. Objecting to Theosophy’s authoritarianism and obscurantism, Aurobindo connected both to the relationship between India and British imperialism. Under the title “The Claims of Theosophy,” he wrote:
“One sees, finally, a new Theocracy claiming the place of the old, and that Theocracy is dominantly European. Indians figure numerously as prominent subordinates, just as in the British system of government Indians are indispensable and sometimes valued assistants. Or they obtain eminence on the side of pure spirituality and knowledge, just as Indians could rise to the highest places in the judicial service or in advisory posts, but not in the executive administration. But if the smaller hierophants are sometimes and rarely Indians, the theocrats and the bulk of the prophets are Russian, American or English. An Indian here and there may quicken the illumination of the Theosophist, but it is Madame Blavatsky or Mrs Besant, Sinnett or Leadbeater who lays down the commandments and the Law…These peculiarities of the Theosophical movement have begun to tell and the better mind of India revolts against Theosophy. The young who are the future, are not for the new doctrine.” (61)
Aurobindo’s judgment, published decades after his death, provides a glimpse of the disappointment felt by Bengali intellectuals after their initial enthusiastic embrace of the TS. The impact of Blavatsky and Olcott in Bengal, seen through the eyes and words of Bengalis like Mohini, Aurobindo, or Sen, lasted only a few years highlighted in this chapter. But the impact of Bengal on Theosophy represents a more enduring legacy of the cultural exchange. In the twentieth century the significance of the TS/Brahmo Samaj encounter faded from the collective memory of both groups. Nevertheless, Theosophical literature of the decade from 1877 to 1887 offers a rich and multifaceted portrait of the short-lived alliance between the two groups, and the “Indo-Western” perspectives that they shared.
Conclusion
Despite the rich evidence in primary sources, the TS relationship with the Brahmo Samaj has been obscured in subsequent accounts. None of four recent biographies of Blavatsky mentions the Brahmo Samaj (62) and David Kopf’s authoritative study of Brahmo history mentions neither Theosophy nor Spiritualism, while providing exhaustive evidence of western Unitarianism as an influential factor in the Brahmo movement. The TS relationship with the Arya Samaj began after that with the Brahmos, and lasted less than four years, yet it has received a disproportionate share of historical attention because it was more dramatic and public. Like an ill-starred marriage that began in mutual misunderstandings and ended in public divorce, the Arya Samaj relationship was a formal alliance, publicly proclaimed and then publicly dissolved in mutual recriminations. The TS/Brahmo relationship was comparable to a friendship that developed informally and gradually and then faded in the same way. Hence the Brahmo Samaj was downplayed as early as the 1890s in Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves, and virtually forgotten in the twentieth century TS. The present study has sought to redress the historical imbalance and restore Brahmo/TS relations to their proper relevance, which has been recently highlighted by the availability of TS membership records.
57 Norendro Nath Sen, “Theosophy in Calcutta,” Reprinted from The Indian Mirror (Calcutta), Vol. XXII, May 2, 1882, p. 2.] <http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/sen1882b.htm> Accessed August 14, 2014.
58 K.C. Yadav, ed. Autobiography of Dayanand Sarasvati (third edition, Delhi: Manohar, 1987), 62.
59 Gopal Stavig, Western Admirers of Ramakrishna and His Disciples (Uttarakhand: Advaita Ashrama, 2010), 453.
60 Moncure Conway, My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906), 203.
61 Aurobindo Ghose, “The Claims of Theosophy,” Sri Aurobindo. Essays Divine and Human // The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.- Set in 37 volumes.- Volume 12 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1997), 67-68. <http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/sa/37_12/0016_e.htm>
62 There are no index entries for the Brahmo Samaj in Marion Meade’s Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth (1980), Jean Overton Fuller’s Blavatsky and Her Teachers (1988), Sylvia Cranston’s HPB (1993), or Gary Lachman’s Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality (2012).