Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (November 2017) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

View a machine-translated version of the German article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,119 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

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

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) already in 1870, but they lost contact with each other. 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 on 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.

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.

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