Mriganka Mukhopadhyay

This essay investigates the well-known, yet understudied, Bengali Theosophist Mohini Mohun Chatterji. In this essay, Mohini Chatterji's life and career will be discussed in relation to the Theosophical Society. His case will be seen as an example of how Bengali Theosophists played a significant role in the transcultural, entangled history of the global Theosophical movement, thus connecting Vedantic philosophy with occultism.

This chapter investigates the spiritualist and occult activities of the first Bengali Theosophist Peary Chand Mittra (1814–1883). Known for his social activism and literary works, Mittra was one of the most celebrated intellectuals of nineteenth-century Bengal. He earned a reputation in the spiritualist circles through his writings published in the notable spiritualist journals of Britain and America. It was through these works that Henry S. Olcott (1832–1907) and Helena P. Blavatsky (1831–1891) learned about him and inducted him as member of the Theosophical Society. He eventually went on to become the first President of the Calcutta lodge of the Theosophical Society. Tracing the footprints of Mittra, this chapter analyses the transcultural networks of esotericism and occultism, thus examining the early days of Theosophy in India.

This is a summary of discussion I had with Jaishree Kanan, Erica Georgiades, and Bernd Jesse in early 2020 on the necessity of cataloguing the archives and libraries of the Theosophical Society in India. An extensive catalogue will help scholars around the world to locate rare books and documents in the remote TS lodges of India. I suggested that FOTA (Friends of Theosophical Archives) and the Adyar Archives should jointly take the initiative to create such a grand catalogue. For this purpose, a round table meeting should be arranged for further brainstorming. I made these suggestions during my meeting and email conversations with the above-mentioned people. Erica Georgiades (Editor, FOTA Newsletter) was very kind to publish my suggestions (made in one of my emails) in the FOTA newsletter.

The role of the Bengali Theosophist Mohini Mohun Chatterji in the history of transcultural spirituality in the modern world

Mohini Mohun Chatterji (1858-1936) joined the Bengal Theosophical Society in 1882. He soon became a significant member of the Theosophical movement and travelled to Europe and America in the 1880s. His popularity, as an oriental mystic in 19th-century Britain, influenced many prominent intellectuals including William Butler Yeats. Widely known as the first Theosophist to translate the Bhagavad Gita into English, Chatterji produced a large body of writings which has hardly received any attention in the academic world or in popular discourse.

Chatterji popularized Vedantic ideas in the West a few years before Swami Vivekananda’s arrival in America. Chatterji also brought together Vedanta philosophy on one hand and Theosophy and occultism on the other. This talk discusses how Chatterji’s publications created a distinctive identity for modern Hindu spirituality in the Western intellectual world of the late 19th and early 20th century. His translations of Sanskrit philosophical texts, original essays and his public lectures shaped the western world’s understanding of oriental spirituality. More importantly, as a Bengali Theosophist and a philosopher, he became a major figure in the history of transcultural spirituality in the modern world.