A rare experiment in Advaita and monasticism
Three Benedictine monks who tried to experiment with Advaita constitute the Trinity of Tannirpalli.They are Jules Monchanin or Swami Arupiananda(1895-1957),Henri Le Saux,very well known as Swami Abhishikthananda(1910-1973) and Bede Griffiths or Swami Dayananda(1906-1993).The unsuccessful attempt of Monchanin and Le Saux was made partially successful by Griffiths.What surprised me was the fact that Monchanin and Griffiths were invited to India by individuals from my state of Kerala in South India.Monchanin got the invitation from Fr Kalathil on his last sacrament day and he survived death.Griffiths was brought to India by Fr Benedict Alappat.Tannirpalli is a large village on the banks of Kaveri river in Tiruchirapally,Tamil Nadu where Monchanin and Le Saux founded the Saccidananda Ashram in Santivanam. |
| Monchanin |
The missionary enterprise in India has a chequered past. "An arrogant and intolerant Christian exclusivism has sometimes been an accomplice in a rapacious empire building",notes Harry Oldmeadow,who wrote on the first two of the trinity.Roberto De Nobli(1577-1656),Ippolito Desideri(1684-1733),Matteo Ricci (1552-1610)and Francis Xavier (1506-1552) tried to dispel the European ignorance and open their eyes to the spiritual riches of the East.After the advent of Vasco da Gama and Pedro Cabral,the search for spices was soon joined by the quest for souls.The earliest European missionaries were Franciscans and Dominicans,followed by Jesuits.In the middle of the 16th century Jesuits entrenched in Goa and its hinterlands and mastered languages.In 1579,the British Jesuit Thomas Stephens wrote the 11000 verse Christian Purana.Nobili took it to a new level trying doctrinal rapprochement.He found in Upanishads a Pristine monotheism and even intimations of the "recondite mystery of the most sacred trinity."He knew early fathers had lend their ears to the Greek thought.Nobili was a model for Griffiths.
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| Abhishikthananda |
Heinrich Roth(1620-1668) produced the first European Sanskrit Grammar.Another Jesuit,Fr J F Pons wrote the Grammar of Sanskrit in Latin in 1733.The protestants Abraham Roger,Philippus Baldaens and the Moravian Bartholomaus Ziegenbalg too did pioneering work.The missionaries of 17th and 18th centuries laid the foundation for Indological research though Jones,Wilkins and Colebrook are considered to be the proper British Orientalists.Max Mueller and Monier Williams followed;Scottish missionary in Kolkata John Nicol Farquhar(1861-1929) was the most influential.Farquhar corrected the infamous statement of T E Slater,"all religions wait for their fulfilment in Christianity", thus:"The vedanta is not Christianity,and never will be-simply as the vedanta:but a very definite preparation for it....it is our belief that the living Christ will sanctify and make complete the religious thought of India.For centuries her saints have been longing for Him,and her thinkers,not least the thinkers of vedanta have been thinking His thought".
Macaulay had notoriously boasted in 1836:"The English education would see to it that thirty years hence there will not be a single idolator(Hindu) among the respectable classes in Bengal".
Oldmeadow observes:"In India Christian triumphalism was quite misplaced,that the rates of conversion are pitifully small,that while most Hindus are perfectly willing to accept Christ as an avatar among many,they remain impervious to the fulfilment theory and its many variants".The "problematic " nature of missionizing is dramatically personified in the modern times in the work of the Trinity of Tannirpalli,each of whom wished to reconcile Hinduism and Christianity.
Monchanin was born in Lyons,France.For the first 40 years in his life he did nothing spectacular.He completed Theological training in 1922,didn't complete doctoral studies.He served in three parishes and while he was Chaplain in a Boys Boarding School,fell fatally ill.He in early 30s had dreamt of a monastic life in India.While he was receiving the last sacrament on Passion Sunday in 1932 from Fr Edouard Duperray,he vowed that he would serve in India,if he recovers.By evening,the invitation from Fr Kalathil came."Consecration to India,he would note later,"for death and for life,according to God alone".Monchanin was assigned to work under the Bishop of Tiruchirapally,James Mendonca.Fr John Kalathil was also working there.Fr Kalathil(1900-1994),a Jesuit priest born in Kerala and assigned to Madurai and Andhra provinces was the first Indian to obtain a doctorate from Gregorian University.He was Rector at St Paul's Seminary,St Joseph's College,Trichy and later of Loyola College,Madras.He was a rare combination of a philosopher and an agriculturist;he started a dairy farm in Loyola.A P J Abdul Kalam,former President of India,in his address to the students of Colombo University on January 24,2012 fondly remembered Kalathil's moral science classes on Mondays,in St Joseph's,Trichy.
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| Trinity temple in Ashram |
Monchanin was a Benedictine monk or the Black monk,referring to the dress.Benedictine is a Roman Catholic religious order but an autonomous monastic community.They follow the rule of Saint Benedict of Nurcia(C.529).He found a dozen monasteries in Italy,the first of which was in Sabiaco.The monks in the order take the vows of stability,conversion to manners and obedience.Monchanin had to do several negotiations with the Abbot.Finally he was allowed to go to India on one condition.He will have to work under a local Bishop,discarding his vows.It was painful because the monastery was much more free.He left Marseilles in 1939.
The next decade was one of struggle and deprivation.In 1950 he was allowed to open a monastery of his own on the banks of river Kaveri in Tannirpalli,near Kulithalai.He was accompanied by fellow Benedictine, Le Saux.He was sent in 1948 to India to join Monchanin.They were destined to part ways later.
Le Saux was born in Brittany.He joined the Benedictine order in 1929.He always had a call of India.
For the Tannirpalli Saccidananda Ashram,Le Saux set the agenda:"Our goal:to form the first nucleus of a monastery which buttresses the rule of St Benedict-a primitive,sober,discrete rule.Only one purpose:to seek God.And the monastery will be in Indian style.We would like to crystallize and trans substantiate the search of the Hindu sanyasis.Advaita and the praise of the Trinity are our only aim.This means we must grasp the authentic Hindu search for God in order to Christianize it,starting with ourselves first of all,within".He hoped:"What is deepest in Christianity maybe grafted on to what is deepest in India.To fathom the depths of Christianity with the aid of the wisdom of India".
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| Road to Saccidananda Ashram |
They took new names,became Swamis and began to wear ochre.
After setting up Ashram,both went to Ramana Maharshi in Thiruvannamalai.It made a profound impression on Le Saux:"Even before my mind was able to recognize the fact ,and still less to express it,the invisible halo of this Sage had been perceived by something in me deeper than any words.Unknown harmonies awoke in my heart..In the Sage of Arunachala of our time I discerned the unique sage of the eternal India,the unbroken succession of her sages,her ascetics,her seers,it was as if the very depths of my own soul had held mysterious communion with it.It was a call which pierced through everything,rent it in pieces and opened a mighty abyss".
Following Ramana's death the same year,in 1950, Le Saux (hereafter Abhishikthananda because he is universally known by that name among the three) spent two extended periods in one of Arunachala's many caves.He wrote he was truly reborn,understanding "what is beyond silence:sunyata".He said:"Ramana's advaita is my birth place.Against that all rationalization is shattered".
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| Abhishikthananda in Cave |
The separation from Monchanin was inevitable.About Abhishiktananda,on July 12,1957 Monchanin wrote to Mlle C.Bouiller:"He is following his own line and wants to live as a Christian hermit in the midst of Hindu spirituals.Serious divergences between us have thrown a shadow over us these past years.I believe that he is going too far in his concession to Hinduism and it seems to me increasingly doubtful that one can rediscover the essence of Christianity beyond the advaita.The advaita like Yoga and more than it,is an abyss.Whoever plunges to it,with a feeling of dizziness cannot know what he finds in fact".
Abhishiktananda had freed himself from the doctrinal binds and tension with which Monchanin lived.Monchanin believed Christian mysticism is trinitarian,or it is nothing.He noted:"Hindu thought so profoundly centered on the unicity of the One...could not be sublimated in trinitarian thought without a crucifying night of the soul.It has to submit to a noetic metamorphosis,a passion of the spirit".He has not written any book;but his notes and textual thoughts are available.He sought a synthesis,he feared confusion.He was unable to find his way out of that dilemma.Alain Danielou,French scholar who was committed to Hinduism,in his autobiography,The Way to the Labyrinth assessed Monchanin:"Instead of mellowing through Hinduism,Monchanin and his devotees remained frustrated,neurotic,ill at ease and as the whole,rather disagreeable people...He was well equipped to appreciate the vast store house of Indian spirituality.But through out his life he felt bound to the conventional Christian belief in the ultimate superiority of his own faith,a position to which he was theologically committed to the weight of the centuries".
During his near fatal illness in 1932 he had vowed if he survives,he will work for the salvation of India.India convinced him it doesn't need salvation!He could not even die in India.He was taken for treatment to Paris where he died in 1957.
Abhishiktananda became a permanent Indian citizen in 1960 and became a disciple of Sri Gnananda Giri of Tirukoyilur in 1967.He wrote The Secret of Arunachala in 1974.After that he spent much time in Himalayas.It was his conviction that the life of renunciation was the meeting point of Christianity and Hinduism.He built a hermitage on the banks of the Ganges in Uttar Kashi.His disciples include Marc Chaduc or Swami Ajatananda Saraswathi who committed suicide jumping into Ganga at Rishikesh.
In his final illness he experienced an "inner apocalypse".He went through his favorite Upanishad
I know him,the great Purusha
The colour of the Sun
Beyond all darkness.
He who has known him
Goes beyond death
There is no other way.
Svetasvatara Upanishad.111.8.
For him,the quest was fulfilled.He made it clear in his final book,The Further Shore(1975).His friend,Raymon Panikkar(see my blog,Raimon meets Advaita)summed up:"Abhishikthananda was one of the most authentic witnesses of our times of the encounter in depth between Christian and Eastern spiritualities".
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| Ramana Maharshi |
Bede Griffiths was born Alan Richard Griffiths in Surrey,England.He was the youngest of three children in a middle class family.His father was cheated by his partner in business making him penniless.Griffiths was admitted to Christ Hospital,a school for poor boys.He excelled and went to Magdalen College,Oxford to study Literature and Philosophy.In his last year he got C S Lewis as Professor and they,two Anglicans, became lifelong friends.He wrote an article on Lewis for James Como's collection,C S Lewis at Breakfast Table.Lewis told him:"with the Catholics I find no difficulty in deriving much edification from religious talk on the common ground:but you refuse to show any interest except in differences.Griffiths became a Catholic,Lewis remained an Anglican.After degree Griffiths and two of his friends tried community living for a year in vain.
He wanted to become a priest,but was advised by the clergy to work in slums.He was shattered by this suggestion because he felt his vocation was something else.A poor boy need not work in slums again!He was attracted to Cardinal Newman's teaching and he speaks about his conversion in his autobiography,The Golden String.He joined the Benedictine monastery in Prinknash Abbey,against the wishes of his mother who was anti Roman Catholic Church.He was given monastic name Bede.His mother died in a car accident in 1938.He became priest in 1940.He spent four years in two monasteries run by French friars,before moving to Scotland.It is in Farnborough monastery in Hampshire he met Fr Benedict Alappat,a priest born in Europe with roots in Kerala, who cherished a life in monastery.He sailed to India with Alappat in 1955.The Catholic Herald of April 29,1955 reports that they arrived on the invitation of Arch Bishop of Bangalore Thomas Pothakamuri(1889-1968)a malayali who was born in Ravipadu,Guntur in Andhra.He was Arch Bishop of Bangalore for 27 years and was Archbishop Emeritus.The report tells us that Fr Alappat was the only Indian Benedictine monk then.
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| Griffiths |
They set up monastery in Kengeri in Bangalore.Griffith left it in 1958 saying the location is too western.He joined the Belgian monk,Fr Francis Acharya (whom I have met twice) to establish Kristhiya Sanyasa Samaj ,Kurisumala Ashram,a Syriac rite monastery of the Catholic Church in Vagamon,Idukki,Kerala.He began wearing Saffron,took the name Swami Dayananda.He moved to Saccidananda Ashram,Tannirpalli in 1968,to allow Abhishikthananda his wish to bid farewell.He got reconnected with Benedictine order.He had a stroke on his 86th birth day and died a month later.Before death he had an experience in which he felt that he was again near death;he felt a sense of unity with Christ on the cross,but "nothing"happened,and then he felt an inspiration...to surrender to the Mother".Kali or Black Madonna as Saving destroyer and killer of illusion.
His decision to go native created tension in the Church.To add to it,he said gay sex was as normal and natural as love between people of the opposite sex."When I was young I might have been a homosexual",he added.But he was very friendly with the female students.
Since Griffiths had taken de Nobili as his Guru,he didn't follow Monchanin's dictum,"Hinduism must reject its atman-brahman equation,if it is to enter into Christ."Times had changed.He found it is possible to Hinduize Christianity.
Reference:
1.Theology in History/Henri de Lubac/Ignatius Press,1996
2.In Quest of the Absolute/ Monchanin and J G Weber/Cistercian Publications,1977
3.India and Europe:An Essay in Understanding/Wilhelm Habfass/State University of New York Press,1988
4.The Spiritual Journey of Henri Le Saux Abhishikthananda/ Odette Baumer-Despeigne/Cistercian Press,1983
5.Return to the Centre/Griffiths and Matthew Fox/Canterbury Press,1976
6.Journeys East:20th Century Western Encounters with Eastern Religious Traditions/Harry Oldmeadow/World Wisdom,2004
See my blogs,RAIMON MEETS ADVAITA,PRINCE RAMAVARMA BECOMES JACOB
