By the mid-19th
century Freemasonry was permeating Bombay's intellectual atmosphere with its
ideas of a "religion" underlying all religions, and individual and
societal perfectibility. It seems that western-educated Hindus began
self-consciously to reproduce Freemasonry in their movements of religious and
social reform. There were overlapping memberships in Freemasonry and various
reform movements (e.g., the Prarthana and Arya Samajes, Vivekananda, and the Rahnumai
Mazdayasnan Sabha); and close ideological
similarities; Freemasonry with the Manava Dharma
Sabha and Pararnahansa Mandali.
Masonry provided a
template of ritualism and graded degrees which could be copied and altered,
whether in the Theosophical Society or Saraswati's
"Aryan Masonry," in order to create a bridge between Eastern and
Western religious thought in the 19th century. This template allowed Westerners
and Easterners thrust together by the political bonds of imperialism to explore
each other's religions within the context of something familiar: ritualism and
occultism.
Some of the Masons in
in leadership positions of the Arya Samaj were Harichand Chintaman, Mulji Thakarshi, Chitpavan Brahmin physician, Dr. Anna Moreshwar
Kunte. Thirty-seven Brahmin members of the Samaj, would be initiated in Lodge Islam in 1878, and
affiliated to Lodge Aryan that same year. (Short History of the Aryan Lodge, in
The Aryan Lodge. No. 30 G11, Centennial Jubilee Celebrations, December 9, 1978)
In 1873 Hindu Masons
received a Temporary Warrant from the District Grand Lodge (English
Constitution) of Bombay to found a lodge named Aryan. The Aryan Lodge was
duly constituted in 1877, its aims being to attract and initiate Hindus. Its
founding members were Edward Tyrrell Leith, the lodge's first Master, Dr.
Joseph Anderson, a surgeon, Bal Mangesh Wagle, the "First Advocate of the
High Court of Bombay," Shantaram Narayan and Ghansharn Nilkanth Nadkarni, the
most prominent pleaders of the High Court, Dr. Shantaram
Vithal-Sanzgiri, Dr. Atmararn
Pandurang Tarkhad, and Harichand
Chintaman, who later became first Lodge leader of the
Theososphical society in India. After the formation
of Aryan, a considerable number of western-educated Hindus regularly entered
Freemasonry, men who had important roles in the economics, politics, and social
and religious reformism of the Bombay Presidency.
Membership consisted
of Hindus, Muslims, and Parsis (although, in the case of Aryan, Hindus did
predominate, since it was, after all, founded to screen Hindu applicants). Pherozeshah Mehta, a Parsi, was a member of both Lodge
Rising Star (mostly Parsi) and Lodge Aryan, as was N.G. Chandavarkar,
a Saraswat Brahmin. And Lodge Islam, which was founded in 1876, "has
admitted Hindus, Muslims, Zoroastrians, Jews and various other classes of
people during its life of over a hundred years." (S.P. Sarbadhicary,
How Hindus Were Admitted Into the Mysteries of Freemasonry, p.19-20)
After the formation
of Aryan, a considerable number of western-educated Hindus regularly entered
Freemasonry, men who had important roles in the economics, politics, and social
and religious reformism of the Bombay Presidency.
After co-founders
of the Theosophical Society H.P. Blavatsky and Olcott came to India in 1887, Blavatsky claimed that her Mahatmas belonged
to a lodge of Freemasons.
In fact from as soon
they went to India Blavatsky probable with the knowledge of Olcott attempted to
prepair some kind of Masonic rite. This is confirmed
in a never before (obtained by myself at the TS archive in Adyar) published letter from Masonic patent salesman John Yarker
to Blavatsky dated 2 Jan, 1879, after Blavatsky had already moved to India, where Yarker writes her, seeking instruction:
"I will adopt
your revised Ceremonies - I wish to advance 3 objects -1. Censorial (with the 7
imperfect ceremonies, 4 of which I sent you), 2. Perfection (giving the gist of
the Vedic doctrine), 3. For a select few, the division of the 7 grades
according to the dogma of the East. Or would you make two branches -1. the
Censorial 7 rites, and 2. the ceremony of Perfection, ranking as the first
Eastern grade, Censor the second, and Sponsor the third? By Yama (a mistake)
you mean I think Capt. Archer. He was sometime resident in Manchester, and I
made his acquaintance here through Prince Rhodocanakis.
We sent the Maharajah
of Burwan a Mandate with a complimentary letter, but
he did not reply."
That there was such
an inner group seems confirmed by Blavatsky's letter to Hurrychund
Chintamon, dated 4 May, 1878 where probably speaking
of C.C. Massey she writes: "I have tried hard to make him a Theosophist of
the inner ring - an English Swamee, but failed most
signally."
W.Q. Judge is quoted
in P. Deveney "Astral Projection or Liberation
of the Double and the work of the Early Theosophical Society" p. 54 as
mentioning the existence of such an inner group that "continued secretly
over the years, with Blavatsky alone having the power to promote members in the
grades." A letter by Blavatsky
published in Theosophia 1947 indicates that she also
associated her "Mahatmas" in India with masonry:
"They are
members of an occult brotherhood, not of any particular school in India ... its
origin is of untold antiquity, and is as much Masonic as present masonry is
little Masonic." (Manly P. Hall, ’Madame Blavatsky - A Tribute, ”Theosophia, May-June 1947, pp. 10-11.)
Dayanand Sarasvati,
who was considered a Mahatma, and member of the White Lodge by Blavatsky and
Olcott, is supposed to have compiled a ritual for the use of the London and New
York TS. (Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, vol. 1, pp. 468-69.)
Blavatsky claimed
that "The Rishis of the Vedic school were, of course, also Founders of the
Masonic." (The Theosophical Society or Universal Brotherhood, in The
Theosophist, vol. 1, no. 7, April, 1880: 179) And is a clear attempt to use
antiquarianism to appropriate Freemasonry to ancient Hinduism, and make the
Vedic Rishis the earliest exponents of the Craft. The colonized is attempting
to alter the moral relations between him and the colonizer by placing the
origin of the West's most cherished and venerable organization (after the
Church) in India.
The new an expanded
set of "Principles, Rules, and By-Laws" of the T.S. at a meeting held
at the palace of the Maharaja of Vizianagram in
Benares on 17 December 1879 (revised and ratified in February 1880), strongly
bear the impress of Freemasonry.
The Society was
formed, “upon the basis of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity," a
principle not contained in the former foundation by –laws of the 1875 T.S. in
New York.
Like Freemasonry the
T.S. initiated its members and had three degrees: the Third and lowest, the
Second, and the First and highest "Sections." Once initiated, the new
Theosophist was to be invested with the secret signs, words, or tokens by which
Theosophists of the third (probationary) Section make themselves known to each
other, a solemn obligation upon honour having first
been taken from him in writing, and subsequently repeated by him orally before
witnesses that he will neither reveal them to any improper person, nor divulge
any other matter or thing relating to the Society.
Creeds and modes of
worship may differ but the idea that God is one is common to the whole race.
And in the love of God, common to humanity is to be found that harmony which it
is the mission of the Universal Religion not only to preach but which it
strives to make an actuality of life.... Saints, therefore, ask you to look
beyond yourselves-to a centre that is within
yourself, and it is only when the seed of goodness will have been sown there
that it will fructify into what is called Universal Brotherhood, Universal
Love, and Universal Religion. (speech delivered at the Social Reform
Association, Mangalore, 1900, in The Speeches and Writings of Sir Narayen
Ganesh Chandavarkar, 88.)
An important goal of
the Hindu reform movements looked at here was not only to modernize society,
but to elaborate a universal religion which could serve as the basis for a new,
universal polity, although for practical purposes this meant a unified
Indian/Hindu nation (whether Hindu or Indian was not always made clear) whose
diverse elements would be harmonized by a latitudinarian spirituality which
stressed fraternity. In the words of Narayen Chandavarkar,
In his presidential
address at the 1893 Indian National Congress, Naoroji
concluded with almost the same words he had used in Lodge Yarborough
twenty-five years earlier: ... The day, I hope, is not distant when the world
will see the noblest spectacle of a great Nation like the British holding out
the hand of true fellow-citizenship and of justice to the vast mass of humanity
of this great and ancient land of India with benefits and blessings to the
human race. (Dadabhai Naoroji,
quoted in Annie Besant How India Wrought For Freedom: The Story of the National
Congress Told From Official Records, Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House,
1915, p.165)
At the time that Dadabhai Naoroji was speaking of
brotherhood and racial harmony in Lodge Yarborough, he and his associates were
seeking parity with the British in the Indian Civil Service the "steel
frame" of the Raj and the key institution in governing India. (Dadabbai Naoroji, speech at Lodge
Yarborough, published September 19, 1868, in Bristol Guardian Newspaper)
Many Freemasons,
following an ideological trajectory which began in the Renaissance, finally
"de-centered" Christianity and, by the late 19th century and early
20th centuries, had come to see Freemasonry as a universal "religion"
supple enough to serve the needs of empire, nationalism, and socio-religious
reform. In the case of Empire, unlike the Theosophical Society, many Raj
officials belonged to Freemasonry, which makes it all the more intriguing.
The Masonic scholar
LS.M. Ward in 1921 poetically expressed the point to which Freemasonic
religious formulations had been evolving for a century:
The Preserver,
whether they call him the Madi, Or speak of the Christ returned to earth As the
sun in his heat and glory From His throne in the azure sky. Sucks up the mist
and dew, Whether they hail Him by Buddha's name And returning them to earth, Or
Kalki, of Vishnu sprung, Renews the verdant plain,
They tell us a truth for all the same So the Lord of Death and Birth And by
every mystic sung. Returns to us again. (J.S.M. Ward, Freemasonry and the
Ancient Gods, p. 344)
W.C. Bonnerjee and Rash Behari Ghosh must have been members of
the Congress (or at least sympathizers)-when he spoke of people of all races,
castes, and religions, whether of the East or West, joining together to give
the practical effect to the Grand teachings of our Order. This mirrored the
pluralistic vision of India, as well as the desire for a closer and more
equitable union between India and Britain, that the Indian National Congress
espoused. At the same time, this was also a vision of what the British Empire
could be, and it could not have been lost on the consciousness of the Hindu and
other Indian Masons at this meeting that one of their own had just been honored
with membership in a Canadian lodge, half a world away. Masonic membership
meant joining a world-wide fraternity, and membership could lead to
international recognition and honors within that fraternity (which no doubt
commanded the respect of even the British in India).
Freemasonry and Indian Nationalism
The Masons of Bengal
in the 1860s knew what opening up Freemasonry to Indians would mean, and they
were dead set against it. It was Lord Zetland (the
English Grand Master) and his deputy, Lord Ripon, who in the 1860s had to
insist upon the principle of universal brotherhood and, in doing so, promoted,
albeit from the top down, a new vision of empire among Masons.
Indian Masons assimilated
only too well to the British imperial community-to the point of becoming
"brothers" to the English, Scotish, and
Welsh-and they strove to obtain the rights and privileges which attended this
fraternal assimilation. This was the genesis of the nationalist impulse among
the western-educated Indians.
They envisioned and
expected to live in an empire of nationalities, in which Indians played an
equal role with whites in governing the Indian Empire. Unfortunately for them,
the British were simultaneously forging a national identity based on their
superior position in the Empire. In the contest between these two nationalisms,
British and Indian, the middle path of an imperial brotherhood based on parity
would necessarily lose out. Indian Masons, then. who had gone a long way in
reaching parity with the British in the lodge, sought the same thing in the Raj
as nationalists, but were to find that parity there was "blocked," or
at least too slow in coming.
At the first Congress
in 1885, Dadabliai Naoroji
explained what drew the westerneducated Indians
politically to the British: 'What attaches us to this foreign rule with deeper
loyalty than even our own past Native rule, is the fact that Britain is the
parent of free and representative Government and that we, as her subjects and
children, are entitled to inherit the great blessing of freedom and
representation.' (Briton Martin, New India, 1885, p. 298)
In the front ranks of
Indian leaders in the early Congress Party (and even before) were a number of
Masons: Dadabliai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta, Badruddin Tyabji, Narayan Chandavarkar, among those in Bombay. In Bengal, there was
W.C. Bonnedee, Man Mohan Ghosh, and Rash Behari
Ghosh, and probably others whom research in lodges there would no doubt turn
up.
What these men wanted
was respect, to be treated like equals, to be "brothers" with the
British in running India, just as they were "brothers" with them in
the lodges.
An examination of the
Masonic Presidents of the Indian National Congress from its inception in 1885
to the Surat "split" between Moderates and Extremists in 1907, is
impressive. Of the Congress Presidents from the Bombay Presidency, a staggering
seventy-eight percent-were Freemason. In addition, one President-Lal Mohan
Ghosh was the brother of the Mason, Man Mohan Ghosh, and thus may have been a
Mason himself (which would have made forty-eight percent of the I.N.C.
Presidents Masons):
1885 W.C. Bonnedee
Mason (Bengal)
1886 Dadabhai Naoroji Mason (Bombay)
1887 Badruddin Tyabji Mason (Bombay)
1888 George Yule Unknown
1889 Williarn Wedderburn
Unknown
1890 Pherozeshah Mchta Mason (Bombay)
1891 P. Ananda Charlu
Unknown
1892 W.C. Bonnedee Mason
(Bengal)
1893 Dadabhai Naoroji Mason (Bombay)
1894 Alfred Webb, M.P. Unknown
1895 Surendranath Banedea Unknown
1896 Rahirntulla
Muhammad Saymni Mason (Bombay)
1897 Sir C. Sankaran Nair Unknown
1898 Ananda Mohan Bose Unknown
1899 Ramesh Chandra Dutt
Unknown
1900 Narayen Ganesh Chandavarkar
Mason (Bombay)
1901 Dinshaw EduIji Wacha Doubtful (Bombay)
1902 Surendranath Banedea Unknown
1903 Lal Mohan Ghosh Unknown (brother of M.M.
Ghosh)
1904 Sir Henry Cotton Unknown
1905 Gopal Krishna Gokhale Doubtful (Bombay)
1906 Dadabhai Naoroji Mason (Bombay)
1907 Rash Behari Ghosh Mason (Bengal)
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