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Theosophical society
Context:
During the Indian National movement, Theosophical society of India has played a significant role especially in South India. However, still there is less knowledge around its establishment in India and its foreign roots.
So, let us explore a few information regarding the Theosophical society.
About
- The Theosophical Society was founded by Madame H. P. Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott in New York in 1875.
- In 1882, the headquarters of the Society were established in Adyar, near Madras (now Chennai) in India.
- Theosophy was a philosophy combining mysticism and spiritualism (with heavy influences from Buddhist and Hindu thought) with metaphysics.
- Main objectives of the society:
- Promoting universal brotherhood of humanity
- The study of comparative religion and philosophy, especially from the eastern world, and
- To investigate unexplained laws of nature and powers latent in man.
- Apart from spirituality, the Society encouraged reforms and framed educational schemes to work them out.
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Madam Blavatsky was believed to have had such psychic powers, including her ability to communicate through letters on an astral plane with the ‘Mahatmas’, who inspired the founding of the society. |
Contribution of Annie Besant
- Annie Besant had joined the Theosophical Society in 1889. She was a firm believer in the teachings of Vedas and Upanishads.
- She considered the Indian soil to be so liberating and enlightening at the same time that she took the nation as her own and made it her permanent abode.
- She was a protestor against the prevalent evils of the then Indian Society like child marriage, unacceptability of widow remarriage etc. in her attempt to bring education at every doorstep; she started the Banaras Central School.
- It was around this very nucleus that the present Banaras Hindu University culminated.
- South India also saw a wave of her efforts in various Schools and colleges being established.
Reasons for society to shift in India:
- A special relationship could be established between a person’s soul and God by contemplation, prayer, revelation, etc.
- The Society accepted the Hindu beliefs in re-incarnation, Karma and drew inspiration from the philosophy of the Upanishads and Samkhya, Yoga, and Vedanta School of thoughts.
- The movement aimed at the quest of the Hindu spiritual wisdom through Western enlightenment.
- The movement revived and strengthened faith in the ancient doctrines and philosophies of the Hindus.
- To study and preach Aryan philosophy and religion.
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