Dara Shukoh
by Gyani Brahma Singh Brahma
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Dara Shukoh, the eldest son of Emperor Shahjahan, was born of his beloved queen Mumtaz Mahal, of the Taj Mahal fame. He was born in Ajmer and it is said that he was born with the blessings of Khwaja Muinuddin Hassan Chishti Ajmeri, on 19 Safar 1024 A.H. - 20th day of March, 1615 A.D. His grandfather Emperor Jehangir named him Dara Shukoh - King of Glory. When Shahjahan fell seriously ill in 1675 A.D. he passed orders that Dara Shukoh succeeded him as Emperor of Delhi and desired that all officials of the State obeyed him. But Allah willed otherwise, Dara Shukoh had leanings for Tassawwuf and in addition he maintained association with Hindu yogis and sanyasis - a class of sufis or ascetics and renunciates. On this pretext Aurangzeb took him to be a hazard for the Islamic Throne. A belligerency brewed amongst the three brothers resulting in a fierce battle at Samugarh, at a distance of eight miles from Delhi, on the 29th day of May, 1658 A.D. Dara Shukoh was defeated and fate favoured Aurangzeb to be the royal owner of the peerless throne of the vast Mughal empire of India.
Dara Shukoh fled to the Punjab, on way to Iran, to seek succour from Shah Abbas II but was betrayed by Afghan Bulooch Sardar Malik Jiwan, whose life Dara had saved once at Bolan Pass. Dara Shukoh, along with his son Sipar Shukoh and two daughters, was handed over to commander Bahadur Khan who conveyed them to Delhi on the 23rd day of August, 1659 A.D.Misfortune had befallen also earlier when his beloved wife princess Karim-un-nisa Nadira Begum died on June 5th, 1659 A.D. Her mortal coil was sent to Lahore and buried there, the city of Hazrat Mian Mir and his (Dara‟s) Murshid Mulla Shah Badakhshani, being a sacred place for Dara.
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At Delhi he was executed for apostasy under the dictate of Aurangzeb‟s court of Shariat on the 30th day of August, 1659 A.D. He was buried in the compound of Humayun‟s maqbara - tomb.
The whole history of Turkish Sultanate and Mughal Imperialism is a story of violence, chicanery, and counter chicanery. The very Roshan Ara who was Aurangzeb‟s assistant in treachery against Dara and his family was herself later poisoned to death by Aurangzeb, allegedly for inciting Aurangzeb‟s son, Akbar against Aurangzeb.
The Sikh traditions speak of Dara Shukoh‟s protracted sickness when Emperor Shahejahan requisitioned some Ayurvedic herbs as demanded by the royal physician from the Seventh Guru, Guru Har Rai‟s (1620-1661 A.D.) pioneering Chikitsalya - dispensary in Kiratpur, Punjab. The herbs were said to be giant harrar - myrobalm and lovung - cloves. Though Dara had made mention of his illness in his „Sakinat-ul-Aulia’, and its treatment with the divine grace of Hazrat Mian Mir, no mention occurs of the herbs obtained by his royal parent from the Sikh Guru‟s dispensary. However, Dara Shukoh had a great regard for Guru Har Rai and, it is said, Guru Har Rai assisted fugitive Dara Shikoh with his own troops under the command of Sikandar, son of Chaudhry Langah. Unfortunately, Sikandar was betrayed in Sind and fell into the hands of the enemies, who conveyed him to Delhi where he was put to death under Aurangzeb‟s orders. Aurangzeb never swallowed the so-called hostile act of the Guru and as soon as he entrenched himself on the throne, he sent for Guru Har Rai to his court. Sikh history has a long account of this episode. But we shall go into that digression.
“However, the great spiritual leaders of the age ever avoided a mishap of a reckless and unheeding civilisation. In fact they have embraced their portion of human catastrophe and have lived through without rancour to the arbitrary usage of the cosmic power at their finger tips. They have to live within the laws of our physical world.”
As is well known, Guru Har Rai did not go to meet Emperor Aurangzeb in person. He sent his elder son Baba Ram Rai, and suffered the consequences.
Dara Shukoh was attracted to Sufism, which holds that there are as many roads to God as there are those who seek Him. He carried out a thorough assessment of Vedic literature and a comparison between Islamic and Christian Scriptures. He was initiated into Vedantic Philosophy by an Udasi mystic Lal Dass who was a prominent exponent of Sant Kabir‟s teachings. He also enjoyed the company of Bhagat Ramanand and Muslim Bairaagi (ascetic) Mirza Saalik Lahori and Mirza Lahori.
Dara Shukoh wrote many books, most of these in Persian: Sakinat-ul-Aulia which contains a biographical sketch of Hazrat Mian Mir, mentions as many as nine other books written by Dara: the important being „Majmaa-ul-Bahreen‟, „Sirr-e-Akbar‟, or Sirr-ul-Asraar, Dar-Swalo- Jawaab Dara Sukohwa Baba Lall Das.
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While writing „Majmaa-ul-Bahreen‟ (Mingling of Two Oceans) the two oceans arguably being Hinduism and Islam, Dara Shukoh had before his vision a clear equality of the creedal doctrines of the faiths of Hinduism and Islam, i.e. Vedanta and Tassawwuf. He writes that, in his detailed discussion in protracted and prolonged meetings with Hindu intellectuals and religious leaders, on the Essence of God - Marfat-e-Rabbaani-Zaat, he had come to the conclusion that the differences between Hinduism and Islam were simply of words and voice. As also while explaining the equality of Kuft and Islam (Darkness and Light) and between Mandir and Masjid, he writes that, „Unique Allah be praised around whose Divine face Islam and Kufr are two zulf - tresses of hair cascading symmetrically on either side, opposite one another, yet none of them hides His beautiful complexion. He adds further, „I am proud that this books has been written for the chosen people of both religions who happen to be capable to benefit from its reading and deep study.‟ Dara Shukoh has also discussed the doctrine of Evolution - Silsilah-e-Aafreenish - within the context of both, Hinduism and Islam, where he finds no difference and speaks of its equality.
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Majmaa-ul-Bahreen has prized significance that, in it, he has endeavoured- and succeeded - to discuss comparative study of two faiths, one whose antiquity has still to be established, and the other whose expansion and development in a millennium and a half continued to amaze great thinkers of the world.
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Sirr-e-Akbar - The Great Secret or Sirr-e-Asraar - The secret of secrets - The great Mystery was the result of Dara Shukoh‟s extreme fascination with the greatness, vastness, depth, and glory, of the ancient Hindu lore. He was of the opinion that Sanskrit was unsurpassed in systematising and perfecting knowledge - gyan - ilm on the earth. He had made a thorough study of Persian, Arabic, and other akin languages, yet he had expressed this opinion in his translation of fifty-two Sanskrit Upanishads into Persian, and had named it Sirr-e-Akbar or Sirr-e-Asraar. In its foreword Dara Shikoh writes that, “I had collected a large number of Hindu pundits and sanyasis from Benaras, the center of the Hindu lore and wisdom, with whose help I completed this work within six months in Delhi”, i.e. by the 28th of June, 1675 A.D. He was of 42 years of age then. His interest in these was not that of a mere scholar but that of a deep religious thinker.
He found the Doctrine of the Unity of God within the Upanishads, and he is said to believe that “the reference in Al Qur’an to the hidden books - ummau-Kitab was to the Upanishads, because they contain the essence of unity and they are the secrets which had to be kept hidden, the most ancient books.” The Al-Qur’an reads:-
That (this is indeed a a noble Qur‟an. In a book kept hidden, which none toucheth save the purified. A revelation from the Lord of the worlds. (Sura LVI-77-80 and LXXXV-21-22)
A century later Anquietil Duperron, a French scholar translated the Persian texts into French, and later into Latin, in the years 1801-1802 A.D.
The Latin version fell into the hands of Scopenhauer Shelling who popularised its study in Germany and said, “It has been the solace of my life and I hope it will be the same after my death.” Thus the entire world was introduced to the teaching and wisdom of the Upanishads.
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Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708 A.D.), Tenth Guru of the Sikh faith, builder of the Khalsa Singhs (1699 A.D.) is believed to have get transferred Sirr-e-Akbar into Punjabi (Gurmukhi) from the original Persian, by his court poets, both Hindus and Muslims, bestowing on them liberal gifts in kind and coin. The total literature so translated and produced by the Guru and his court poets is documented to be about 9 maunds and named Vidyasagar - Essence of knowledge. But, unfortunately, all this rare literary wealth was washed away in the torrential waters of the Satluj after the Guru, his family, and the troops, had evacuated Anandpur Sahib - City of Bliss, the seat of the Khalsa, in December 1704 A.D., following a protracted siege by Aurangzeb‟s army to route the Sikh Guru for his alleged rebellion.
Guru Gobind Singh has portrayed some significant events of the protracted siege and his forced desertion in his historic misaal - Zafar Naama - Letter of victory, in Persian script, to Aurangzeb before the latter passed away in February of the year 1707 A.D.
Dar Swaal-o-Jawaab Dara Shukoh wa Baba Lal Dass - a booklet in question and answer format, between Dara Shukoh and Sufi Sant Kabir‟s (1398-1518 A.D.) prominent follower Lal Dass expounding the philosophy of Hindu religion and Sufistic lore. This Rasaala - booklet is of great interest to both the followers of Hinduism and Islam.
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Baba Lal, a Mundeya Bairagi was a Hindu Khatri by caste and belonged to the town of Kasur, district Lahore, now in Pakistan, but he spent most of his life in village Dhyanpur, near Batala, Punjab. He was a close friend of Hazrat Mian Mir. Dara Shukoh held him in high esteem. He has been mentioned by Dara Shukoh in his Mahjmaa-ul-Bahreen, along with other prominent Sufi Mashaiekh. Dara Shukoh happened to meet him in Lahore while returning from an unsuccessful war in Qandhar, sometime in the middle of December 1653 A.D. They had long discussions, or dialogue - (Do-Log) spread over seven sittings. Munshi Chander Bhan Brahmin of Patiala, who was Dara Shukoh‟s head amanuenses brought to writing these discussions under orders of the Prince. The writings show that truth and devotion towards God do not have an exclusive claim of any one religion. These discussion were first published in Urdu translations by Mujib Hind Press, Darya Ganj, Delhi. Their Urdu translation had lately been published again by a Hindu named Chiranji Lal. (Bazm-e-Teimuri by Sayed Sukaima Naqvi - page 403).
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Dara Shukoh also translated into Persian the renowned philosophic treatises of Yog Vashisht and Gita. This show that Dara Shukoh had made an expansive study of the Epic poem, Mahabharata, claimed to be the fifth Veda by the Hindus, since Gita forms the last and eighteenth chapter of the epic.
Dara Shukoh‟s exclusive and undiluted aim was to educate and equip Ahl-e-Islam with the knowledge of religious and social beliefs and customs of Hindus whom the Great Mughals ruled. He hoped this would result in induction of peace and harmony in the Indian subjects.
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It is one of the greatest tragedies of the Indian history that Aurangzeb overcame the legitimate heir of the Mughals, Dara Shukoh, and imposed his own blinkered vision of Islam on India, obscuring the finer points of Islamthat had so much to offer the country of its adoption in terms of equality and energetic administration. Had Dara come to the throne, even Akbar, India‟s greatest of rulers, would have been outshone by the great grandson‟s ability to weld different faiths into a mighty nation. Dara was executed by Aurangzeb for declaring Hinduism and Islam to be twin brothers.
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“Some Hindus view Akbar as an Avatar and, unquestionably, of all the mortal rulers history recorded, he came nearest to fitting the bill.”
(The wonder that was India - Mussa Rizvi)
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Dara Shukoh was a born poet, a virtuoso calligrapher and painter, apart from his being a sufi with the seal of royalty on him. All his poetical compositions were in Persian, drenched in his belief in the doctrine of Wahadat-ul-Wajud. He was accepted to be, in Sufi and non-Muslim circles, an incarnation of his great-grandfather Akbar the Great who also was an advocate of Wahdat-ul-Wajud.
Wahdat-ul-Wajud postulates that, “The absolute is the One creator of all creatures and is pervading into all.” Sheikh Ibn Irabi is accepted to be the founder of this doctrine though in itself, it is as old as the Upanishads. Dara Shukoh expresses the fact thus:
Dar Zaat, dooeyee na deed hoshiar
Mao tu bavad, baraaeye guftaar;
Aadaad meaaney yak eeyaan beein
Az yak benigar keh gashat bisseeyaar.
i.e.
The wise see not a second in essence
We and you are mere calling words,
See One contained evident in many -
See One hath formed in shapes many.
Udham Singh
Sardar Shaheed Udham Singh played a significant role in the history of the Indian freedom movement. Sardar Udham Singh, who is also known by various other names viz. Sher Singh, Ude Singh, Ram Mohammad Singh Azad and Frank Brazil. Ram Mohammad Singh Azad symbolizing the unification of the three major religions of India: Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism. Every Indian in general and Punjabi in particular is proud of him. He was a worthy son of our motherland. He occupies a distinguished position in the galaxy of Sukhdev, Rajguru, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Shaheed Bhagat Singh and other great patriots.
Sher Singh was born in Sunam in the Sangrur district of Punjab situated in the Malwa area to a farming family headed by Sardar Tehal Singh who was of Kamboj caste (known as Chuhar Singh before taking the Amrit). Sardar Tehal Singh was at that time working as a watchman on a railway crossing in the neighbouring village of Uppli. Sher Singh's mother died in 1901. His father followed in 1907.
With the help of Bhai Kishan Singh Ragi, both Sher Singh and his elder brother, Mukta Singh, were taken in by the Central Khalsa Orphanage Putlighar in Amritsar on October 24, 1907. They were given pahul at the orphanage and received new names: Sher Singh became Udham Singh, and Mukta Singh became Sadhu Singh. Sadhu Singh died in 1917, which came as a great shock to his brother. While at orphanage, Udham Singh was trained in various arts and crafts. He passed his matriculation examination in 1918 and left the orphanage in 1919.
He was present in the Jallianwala Bagh on the fateful Baisakhi day, 13 April 1919, when a peaceful assembly of people was fired upon by Michael O’ Dwyer, killing over one thousand people. The event which Udham Singh used to recall with anger and sorrow, turned him to the path of revolution. Soon after, he left India and went to the United States of America. He felt thrilled to learn about the militant activities of the Babar Akalis in the early 1920's, and returned home. He had secretly brought with him some revolvers and was arrested by the police in Amritsar, and sentenced to four years imprisonment under the Arms Act. On release in 1931, he returned to his native place Sunam, but harassed by the local police, he once again returned to Amritsar and opened a shop as a signboard painter, assuming the name of Ram Muhammad Singh Azad. This name, which he was to use later in England, was adopted to emphasize the unity of all the religious communities in India in their struggle for political freedom.
Udham Singh was deeply influenced by the activities of Bhagat Singh and his revolutionary group. In 1935, when he was on a visit to Kashmir, he was found carrying Bhagat Singh's portrait. He invariably referred to him as his guru. He loved to sing political songs, and was very fond of Ram Prasad Bismal, who was the leading poet of the revolutionaries. After staying for some months in Kashmir, Udham Singh left India. He wandered about the continent for some time, and reached England by the mid-thirties. He was on the lookout for an opportunity to avenge the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy. The long-waited moment at last came on 13 March 1940. On that day, at 4.30 p.m. in the Caxton Hall, London, where a meeting of the East India Association was being held in conjunction with the Royal Central Asian Society, Udham Singh fired five to six shots from his pistol at Sir Michael O'Dwyer, who was governor of the Punjab when the Amritsar massacre had taken place. O'Dwyer was hit twice and fell to the ground dead and Lord Zetland, the Secretary of State for India, who was presiding over the meeting was injured. Udham Singh was overpowered with a smoking revolver. He in fact made no attempt to escape and continued saying that he had done his duty for his country.
On 1 April 1940, Udham Singh was formally charged with the murder of Sir Michael O'Dwyer. On 4 June 1940, he was committed to trial, at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, before Justice Atkinson, who sentenced him to death. An appeal was filed on his behalf which was dismissed on 15 July 1940. On 31 July 1940, Udham Singh was hanged in Pentonville Prison in London.
Udham Singh was essentially a man of action and except his statement before the judge at his trial, there was no writing from his pen available to historians. Recently, letters written by him to Shiv Singh Jauhal during his days in prison after the shooting of Sir Michael O'Dwyer have been discovered and published. These letters show him as a man of great courage, with a sense of humour. He called himself a guest of His Majesty King George, and he looked upon death as a bride he was going to wed. By remaining cheerful to the last and going joyfully to the gallows, he followed the example of Bhagat Singh who had been his ideal. During the trial, Udham Singh had made a request that his ashes be sent back to his country, but this was not allowed. In 1975, however, the Government of India, at the instance of the Punjab Government, finally succeeded in bringing his ashes home. Lakhs of people gathered on the occasion to pay homage to his memory.
Premananda Bharati
by Richard Rosen
Baba Premananda Bharati was born Surendranath Mukherji in 1858 to an influential Calcutta family. His uncle was a judge on the same Calcutta High Court on which John Woodroffe would sit between 1904 and 1922. Surendranath became a journalist and worked for a couple of newspapers before starting one of his own, the Gup and Gossip–gup means “idle gossip,” as opposed to, I suppose, the hard-working kind–that reported on the comings and goings of Calcutta society. He was also involved with a group of Bengali intellectuals attracted to Ramakrishna, a group which included Narendranath Datta.
In 1884, Surendranath had his requisite life-changing experience. It happened as he watched a performance of Chaitanya Lila (“Play of Chaitanya,” which can mean “soul” or “intellect”), [1] a bio-play about the Bengali monk and Bhakti Yogin, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486-1534). Known as the “Golden Avatar,” he’s identified to this day by millions of faithful as the most recent (and next to last) incarnation of Krishna. Chaitanya founded what’s known as Gaudiya Vaishnavism, [7] a kind of Bhakti Yoga involving intense devotional worship of Krishna as the one true God. [8] Powerfully affected by the play’s depiction of divine love, Surendranath resolved to abandon his relatively successful secular life and devote himself wholeheartedly to the spiritual. For reasons that aren’t clear, it took him six years to get it done, but in 1890 he was officially initiated by his guru, one Swami Brahmananda Bharati, and spiritually reborn as Baba Premananda Bharati. [4]
Before leaving on a a two-month pilgrimage across India that covered 1000 miles–sound familiar?–Baba met with his guru’s guru, another Baba by the name of Lokanatha Brahmachari. In 1890, Lokanatha was in the last year, all 160 of them, of his life. He supposedly left home at 11, practiced Raja Yoga for 25 years and then spent the ensuing 50 years meditating in the Himalayas ... in full ascetic regalia, which is to say, naked. He finally achieved enlightenment at age 90–better late than never–and at 136 settled in a place called Baradi where he spent the rest of his days. He must have been an imposing figure: seven feet tall and very gaunt, he never slept or, for that matter, closed his eyes–he didn’t even blink.
After completing his pilgrimage, Baba then spent the next 10 years spreading the Gaudiya Vaishnava gospel. In 1900 he had a vision of Krishna, who directed him to retire from the world and become a hermit, which he dutifully did for the next two years. In 1902 Krishna was back with another visionary assignment, which essentially spun Baba around 180 degrees: he was instructed to go teach in the “Far West,” which everybody assumed meant the US.
And so in 1902, like Vivekananda before him and Yogananda after, Baba bravely headed West. He stopped for a while in Paris and then London, where to earn a few extra pounds to help finance his trip, he briefly resumed his former occupation as a reporter, contributing to a London paper. Finally, in October of that year, three months after Vivekananda passed on, Baba landed in New York City, becoming the first Gaudiya Vaishnava missionary in this country. While he hadn’t aroused much media interest in Europe, three New York papers, the Times, the Herald, and the Tribune, reported extensively on his arrival and intentions, though at least one befuddled reporter pegged Baba as a Buddhist missionary.
Over the next couple of years, Baba kept busy organizing and lecturing. He established the first Krishna Samaj (Society) in the US shortly after his arrival. In 1903, he spoke at Green Acre in Maine (where Vivekananda had taught a decade earlier), sharing the stage with another of our bit actors, Rama Tirtha (more on him next). Hoping to make a Vivekananda-like impact on the American public, he attended the St Louis World’s Fair [2] in 1904, but apparently his appearance fell flat, and no wonder: how could he compete with exhibits like the Hereafter, where visitors could tour mockups of Heaven and Hell, admission 25¢, children 15¢, or Mysterious Asia, which featured Princess Rajah–like Little Egypt 10 years earlier in Chicago–performing the scandalous Hootchy-Kootchy.
From St Louis, Baba made his way to Boston, where he invited himself, a la Vivekananda, to an International Peace Conference. After wrangling a place on the program, by all accounts his presentations were considerably more successful than those in St Louis. In 1904 Baba also published his first book, Shri Krishna: the Lord of Love. It was more or less a retelling of the Bhagavatam Purana, [9] a bhakti text focusing on Krishna as the God of gods. Baba’s ambitious goal was to recount the “history of the Universe from its birth to its dissolution,” and to embody “true Hinduism,” or “purely Eastern thought in purely Eastern dress.” [carney xci].
Surprisingly it seems, for the first decade of the 20th century, the book was reviewed in major newspapers like the Boston Evening Transcript, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. And maybe even more surprisingly, it was taken seriously and generally favorably reviewed. The Evening Transcript, for example, praised the “remarkable ... completeness with which it covers the subject ... a clear, succinct history of the origin, nature, and evolution of the universe as the Oriental mind perceives it.” The reviewer finished with a “conviction that there is more, far more of truth and wisdom in the ideas of the so-called Pagan East than perhaps he had dreamed of.” [carney lvii] The Oriental Review went way out on a limb–considering it was not even 1910–and deemed Shri Krishna to be the “greatest book of the century” [carney lxi]
But not everybody thought so. As reported in the Baptist Missionary Magazine in January, 1906: [113]
There came into our office the other day a short man, wearing a long, black coat, and long, gray-black hair. Baba Premanand Bharati wished us to have a copy of his famous work, “Sree Krishna,the Lord of Love.” Supposing that it was for review, and not having it in our library, we said that we could make reference to it and some statements concerning its nature–a frank one, of course–and thanked him for his gift. “O no,” he said; “I came to sell it.”
We did not flatter ourselves that the far-famed Baba Bharati, while “fulfilling his great mission to the benighted Back Bay of Boston,” had seen our editorial comment on his “needed work.” It gave us, however, reason to regret that one of the confreres of our visitor had pulled down the sign in front of the elevator: “No agents allowed in this building.”
Despite all the positive press, by 1905 Baba was beginning to attract the scowls of various Christian clergymen and other morality watchdogs. It’s not hard to figure out why. In his lectures, he’d taken to comparing Jesus with Krishna, railing against the West’s “Christianizing” of Indians, and claiming that Hinduism was the “soul” or “parent” of all religion. And in yet another bizarre parallel with Vivekananda, one day on his way to a lecture, he was chased by a gang of unruly boys–the newspaper report called them “urchins”–who tore at his clothes.
Seeing that a Parliament of Religion-type event was being held in Los Angeles, Baba decided it might be the right time to head even farther West. So in August, 1905, he arrived in LA and spoke almost daily at the religion gathering, which was covered daily by two LA papers, the Times and the Herald. He must have liked the atmosphere, because after a brief visit back East, he returned to LA and set up shop. In the next two years, before his return to India in 1907, he established the first Krishna Home in the US and began publishing and writing for a house magazine, the Light of India. After three years in India, Baba revisited the US and stayed for about a year, his goals to build a permanent Krishna temple–he did but it failed soon after Baba departed–and solicit contributions for the Zenana Society, an organization he founded aimed at “de-Westernizing” and “de-Christianizing” Hindu women and educating them in traditional Hindu ways. [5] He went back to India in 1911 and left his body in 1913 at the relatively young age of 56.
TEACHING
Like Vivekananda, Baba blasted the West for its treatment of India and Indians. I won’t say much about this, except to note that, as he considered himself the guardian of authentic Hinduism, he had particularly choice words for the Western “thieves”–read Christian Scientists and Theosophists–who had “stolen” Eastern thought. Interestingly thought, Baba also went after the Neo-Vedantists, beginning with Ram Mohan Roy and including Vivekananda. He accused them of “Christianizing” Hinduism and Vedanta, making it “scientific” and “rational,” simplifying and “sanitizing” it to make it more palatable India’s British overlords.
Biographer Carney notes that, like Vivekananda again, Baba adapted his spiritual message to suit the needs and understanding of his audience. The foundation of his teaching was non-sectarian New Thought, the edifice a blend of esoteric Christianity and devotional Vaishnavism. It’s no wonder Baba riled the Christian establishment: according to him Christianity was properly an Eastern religion, misrepresented, even “crucified,” by its Western proponents. He didn’t stop there. Essentially, he continued, Christianity is the same religion as Vaishnavism, the one “true” religion, Jesus being none other than an incarnation of Krishna, relaying the same “Eternal Truths” as the Veda, which he simply adopted to the needs and understanding of his time and place.