Notes for
Chapter 2 - Socio-Historical Context for SRM's Emergence
19. Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, 1949, Pondicherry: SriAurobindo Ashram, p. 2.
20. Ibid., p. 3.
21. Ibid., pp. 5-6.
22. Ibid., p. 11.
23. Ibid., p. 16.
24. Aurobindo's vision of human unity and the development of his movement are compared to that of Maharishi and the TM movement in the next section on symbolic revitalization.
25. For an illustration of the Indian conception of time and history, see Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, On the Bhagavad Gita, 1967, New York: Penguin, pp. 251-255.
26. Starting in the mid-1950's, American sociologists became increasingly interested in millennial and messianic movements in non-Western societies. Studies of "cargo cults," for example, have shown how the sources of national ideology and independence movements in Third World countries may be found in such a faith in spiritual regeneration as declared here by Aurobindo. See N. Cohn, ThePursuit of the Millennium, 1957, London: Secker and Warburg: E.J.Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, 1959, Manchester, England: Manchester University Press: Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound, 1957, New York: Schocken; and for a study of messianic movements in India -Stephen Fuchs, Rebellious Prophets, 1965, Bombay: Asia Publishing House.
27. From an article entitled "The Future Results of British Rule in India," published by the New York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853, cited by T.N. Madan, Western Sociologists on Indian Society, 1979, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, p. 22. He also observed that "Hindustan is an Italy of Asiatic dimensions," bearing similar geophysical diversity, variety in agricultural products, and political disjunctiveness:
Just as Italy has from time to time been compressed by the conqueror'ssword into different national masses, so do we find Hindustan, whennot under the pressure of the Mohammedan or the Mogul or the British,dissolved into as many independent and conflicting states as itnumbered towns and villages.(page 3).
28. Romila Thapar, A History of India, vol. 1, 1966, New York: Penguin, p. 304.
29. Stanley Wolpert, A New History of India, 1977, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 131.
As popular as Akbar's policies of tolerance and mutual accommodation were throughout India, they were supersededby even greater dictatorial domination and terrorization of the Hindu majority by his Mughal successors. The lust for power and control of both territory and "public morals" reached its height under Aurangzeb's reign (1658-1707), fostering revolts among Jat peasants, Sikhs, Rajputs, and Marathas, who could never unite in opposition to their Islamic oppressors.
30. The history of South India, comprising the present states in which non-Aryan languages are spoken (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh) and sometimes including all lands south of the Vindhyas (add Maharashtra), is little known before 600 A.D., compared to that of Hindustan which extends well beyond 600 B.C.
31. Thapar, op.cit., p. 180.
32. On this point of royal respect for the brahmins, ThaparIbid.p. 184) has the following to add:
No doubt the kings felt that to conform with the Vedic pattern would bestow a higher status on them. The brahmans claim to being in communication with the gods, and their supposed ability to manipulate the unseen powers, was more convincing to the Tamil kings than the claims of the indigenous priests.
33. Ibid., p. 188.
34. Ibid.pp. 211-212.
35. For a more thorough explanation of the importance of religious conversion for personal and social change of status in India, see David G. Mandelbaum, Society in India, vol. 2, 1970, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, pp. 523-572.
36. Thapar, op.cit., p. 324.
37. Ibid., p. 335.
38. For a treatment of the earliest contact between India and the West up to the fall of Rome, see H.G. Rawlinson, Intercourse Between India and the Western World, 1916, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
39. Quoted by L.S.S. O'Malley in his chapter, "The Impact of European Civilization," part of his edited volume, Modern India and theWest, 1941, London: Oxford University Press, p. 50.
40. Ibid., pp. 51-52.
41. From Sir J. Malcolm's Life of Clive, vol. 2, p. 379, quoted in Ramsay Muir, The Making of British India, 1756-1858, 1923, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 76; and taken from Wolpert, op.cit., p. 187.
42. Wolpert, op.cit., p. 206.
43. Ibid., p. 205.
44. O'Malley, op.cit., p. 61.
45. Quoted by Wolpert, op.cit., p. 215.
46. J.R. Cunningham, "Education," chapter in L.S.S. O'Malley, op.cit., pp. 150-151.
47. In this sense, English education served the upper castes like religious conversion did the lowest castes; see footnote 35.
48. Cunningham, op.cit. p. 182.
49. P.N. Chopra, et al, History of South India, vol. III, 1979, New Delhi: S. Chand and Company, pp. 177-217.
50. L.S.S. O'Malley, "General Survey - Contacts," Modern India and the West, 1941, London: Oxford University Press.
51. Ibid., pp. 581-582.
52. J.N. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements in India, 1967, Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, pp. 29-74.
53. From A Nation in the Making, 1925, p. 308, quoted in O'Malley, loc. cit., p. 766.
54. From Memorials of the Life and Letters of Major-General Sir Herbert B. Edwardes, vol. 2, 1886, p. 280, quoted in O'Malley, loc.cit., p. 767.
55. Farquhar, op.cit., pp. 101-110.
56. Charles Heimsath, Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform, 1964, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 122.
57. Kenneth W. Jones, Arya Dharm: Hindu Consciousness in 19th Century Punjab, 1976, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 114.
58. Quoted by Farquhar, op. cit., p. 111-112.
59. Lala Lajpat Rai, The Arya Samaj, 1915, London: Longmans Green & Co., p. 155, quoted in The Arya Samaj: Hindu Without Hinduism, by D. Vable, 1983, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, p. 121.
60. Prior to 1857, the British administrations had vigorously pursued direct annexation of lands owned by the East India Company's princely allies under the doctrines of "lapse" and "paramountcy". Responding to the War of 1857-58 (the "Mutiny"), the British Parliament passed the Government of India Act on August 2, 1858, transferring all rights of administration from the Company to the Crown. Perceiving the recent upheaval to be anti-modernist, i.e., anti-Western in character, the new administration rejected Dalhousie's doctrine of "lapse" and left more than 560 enclaves of autocratic princely rule intact during the ensuing ninety years, thus securing large areas of loyal yet independent territory against future resistance.
61. Chopra, et al, op. cit., pp. 239-252.
62. Theosophist, vol. 1, October, 1879, p. 11, cited by Hal W. French in his chapter, "Directions of Reform and Renewal Throughout India: 1858-1900" in Religious Ferment in Modern India, co-authoredwith Arvind Sharma, 1981, New York: St. Martin's Press, p. 44.
63. Chopra, et al, op. cit., p. 255.
64. Ibid., p. 258.
65. For a more extensive account of the British attitude towards the non-brahmin movement in Madras Presidency from 1916-1929, see Eugene F. Irschick, Politics and Social Conflict in South India,1969, Berkeley: University of California Press.
66. Chopra, et al, op. cit., p. 265.
67. Ibid.
68. Irschick, op. cit., p. 334.
69. Wolpert, op. cit., Chapter 23, "The Nehru Era," pp. 351-373.
70. Ibid., p. 378.
71. C.J. Fuller, The Nayars Today, 1976, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, p. 22.
72. Ibid.
73. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's caste background is a matter of some uncertainty because it is the tradition of yogis, ascetics, and renunciants to relinquish their family ties. His education and family status are known by many long-time movement members, however. Shrivastava is the family name of his cousins and nephews, and that name can be traced to the Hindu Kayasthas.
74. Reported in "Preacher of Peace - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi," NewYork Times, January 22, 1968, p. 24. The article also stated that Maharishi "worked for a time in a factory."
75. Reported as May 20, 1953, in The Whole Thing, the Real Thing- A Brief Biography of Shri Gurudeva, English version by Prem C. Pasricha, transcreated from the Hindi book by Rameswar Tiwari, 1977, New Delhi: Delhi Photo Company, p. 69. It is reported here and in official SRM publications ("Our Guiding Light") that Brahmananda was Shankaracharya for 12 years. Maharishi repeatedly stated in his lectures that he had spent 13 years as his disciple; thus it appears that Maharishi met his guru before he was installed as Shankaracharya (April 1, 1941).
76. Maharishi's years of devoted service to the Shankaracharya and the reasons for his insufficient status to succeed him were substantiated by the current Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, SwamiVishnudevanand, in an interview given in Joshimath, June 12, 1983.
77. Learned from a discussion with T. Rama Rao in Bangalore, February 24, 1983.
78. Reported in Torch Divine, January, 1959, vol. 1, no. 3, p. 50. (SRM newsletter published at Madras)
79. In lecture delivered at Spiritual Development Conference at Cochin, October 23-25, 1955, reported in Beacon Light of theHimalayas, p. 45, (Souvenir of the conference, published at Ernakulam).
80. Ibid., pp. 45-46.
81. Evidence of this type of high status contact is provided in a photograph of Maharishi with Rashtrapathi Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the President of India, when he came to visit the Shankaracharya (Brahmananda Saraswati) on December 4, 1952 (to be found in Beacon Light of the Himalayas).
82. Beacon Light of the Himalayas, pp. 15 and 49.
83. Ibid., p. 34.
84. Ibid., p. 22.
85. Edgar Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India,1909, Madras: Government Press, p. 412.
86. Ibid., pp. 412-413.
87. Fuller, op. cit., pp. 17-25.
88. Beacon Light of the Himalayas, p. 27.
89. Ibid., p. 24.
90. Ibid., pp. 51-52.
91. Ibid., p. 28.
92. Ibid., p. 29.
93. Ibid., p. 104.
94. Torch Divine, op. cit., issue no. 1.
95. Ibid., p. 13.
96. Ibid., pp. 3-4.
97. Ibid., p. 1.
98. Ibid., issues 2-4.
99. In later talks, Maharishi would acknowledge the importance of the "five minute ovation" given at the Madras seminar following his remark, "With the results we have so far, we can envision the spiritual regeneration of all mankind". The next day he officially inaugurated SRM. (Reported by Jack Forem in TranscendentalMeditation, 1973, New York: E.P. Dutton, p. 209.
100. In an interview with a Swiss journalist, Maharishi stated, "To revive India, I had to think in terms of the whole world . . the world is too interconnected, all is in suffering today - India and the West. The same knowledge must be revived everywhere."