Theos-Talk Archives (April 2001 Message tt00010)

Steve Stubbs writes more about KH, Nisikanta
Chatopadhyana and more. See below.

Daniel
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Dear Brigitte and Daniel:

Re your respective e-mails:

If "Koot Hoomi" felt the need to use a pseudonym, then
there must have been some reason he wanted to conceal
his worldly identity. We don't have to look far to
figure out what that reason might have been. People
were naming their dogs and cats "Koot Hoomi." Had his
worldly identity been known, he would have been
ridiculed on at least four continents.

But if his life had been as reclusive as he made it
out to be, that would not have been a problem. Tibet
had no post office before Younghusband's expedition in
1904. There was zero likelihood of him receiving any
hate mail. Nobody was going to show up at the
entrance to some Tibetan hermit's cave and give him a
hard time.

I think he did go into retreat from time to time, and
I think he did live the contemplative life. But
Blavatsky emphasized that he was not a monk. His
complaints about being so terribly busy indicate that
he was a man of affairs, and we get from his letters
that he was a teacher of some kind. We tend to assume
that he was an occult teacher exclusively, but there
is no reason in any of the TS materials to reach this
conclusion.

As Daniel point out, he had some relatives in Amritsar
and occasionally visited there. Punjab is a Sikh
stronghold. But this does not, as Daniel implies,
prove that KH was himself a Sikh. It is suggestive,
but it is not conclusive.

I live in the buckle of the Bible Belt, and yet I am
not a southern Baptist. I lived some years ago in New
York City, and yet I am not a Jew. There are people
in France who are not communists, and there are people
in Italy who are not Catholics.

I have also spoken with some American tousists who
have visited Punjab and the Sikh Temple there, and
they are also not Sikhs.

I think that, given that the object of the exercise
was to keep the worldly identities of the mahatmas
concealed, there are going to be some difficulties
with the evidence, regardless of how we identify them.
We will not, therefore, be able to prove the case
beyond any reasonable doubt, but must instead search
for the preponderance of evidence. We must expect
that some inconsistencies will have been deliberately
introduced into the evidence to throw us off scent. 
This will be true no matter who they turn out to be.

For that reason, I think we should be cautious about
assuming that the date of a mahatma letter saying KH
went to Amritsar allows us to put him there at that
exact time. I do not doubt that he went there, but
his visit very likely was months before the letter was
written. I would have done it that way had I been
hom.

As for the Massey piece. Look in The Theosophist for
November, 1929, pp. 214-216, article entitled "Echoes
from the past." I do not have a copy, but I am sure
Daniel Caldwell either has one or can get access to
one. Perhaps he can help. The essence of the article
is this: the mahatma letters were not published until
1921 or thereabouts, but somehow C.C. Massey got wind
that one of them mentioned KH having studied with
Fechner in 1875. If KH wanted to conceal his
identity, this was a dangerous admission to make
because Fechner was a real man who was still alive at
the time. Moreover, Indians went to British, and not
German, universities. An Indian student in a German
university would have been quite conspicuous.

Massey wrote to Fechner and was told in response that,
yes, he did have an Indian student then, but that his
name was not "Koot Hoomi." It was Nisi Kanta
Chattopadhyana. There were some other details about
NKC's tenure there that I forget.

That strikes me as strong evidence. I think the KH
turban has been pretty well stripped off, but it has
not, for all that, been sullied. NKC was a man of
considerable distinction and learning. The
Theosophical Society can be pround of having had such
a man as one of their concealed founders.

I identified Djual Kul, but I am going to have some
fun with Daniel and keep the identity of "Morya" to
myself, at least for the moment. I want to see what
he comes up with, if indeed he is interested in the
case. Here are the clues:

(1) He was an Indian nobleman, so proud of his
Kshatriya caste that he chose the name of an ancient
dynasty of Indian emperors for his pseudonym,

(2) He went to the London Exhibition in 1851 with
numerous other Indian princes,

(4) He was of such rank that he was able to claim the
overproud Brahmin Subba Rao as a disciple, at least
for a time. That ended in 1887.

(4) Like "KH" he was a man of affairs as well as a man
of the spiritual world, and felt the need to conceal
his identity. He is said not to have told even his
servants about his occult interestsm but he gave the
whole world a clue as to his interests in a clever
saying which became quite famous.

HPB only knew a few Indian nobles. In his OLD DIARY
LEAVES Olcott mentions doing a magnetic touch
treatment on one of them. This fellow obviously was
not the great Master Morya. Others on the list can
also be eliminated for various obvious reasons. Once
you do this, the identity of Master M. becomes so
obvious it is a wonder nobody ever pointed it out.

Who, then, might this being be?

Sat Nam,

Steve

--- Blavatsky Archives <info@blavatskyarchives.com>
wrote:
> 
> Steve Stubbs writes:
> 
> "C.C. Massey acquired evidence that 'Koot Hoomi' was
> really Nisi Kanta Chattopadhyana.
> Theosophists have raised some interesting
> objections to that identification,
> but I think Massey was right. His arguments have
> considerable weight, and
> it makes sense that early Theosophists would have
> tried to muddy the water
> since the real identity of KH was supposed to be a
> 'secret.' The fact that
> there are difficulties does not therefore persuade
> me that the identification
> is incorrect. Nisi Kanta Chattpadhyana was a real
> man who contributed to
> Theosophical publications under his real name as
> well as under the pseudonym
> 'Koot Hoomi.'" 
> http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a7502210/sstubbs.html
> 
> Steve, my first question to you about this
> identification is:
> 
> Do you believe that "Koot Hoomi" was at Amritsar on
> or about October 29,
> 1880? 
> 
> From Mahatma Letter No. 4 (2nd ed.), I quote Koot
> Hoomi's words:
> 
> "I had come for a few days, but now find that I
> myself cannot endure for
> any length of time the stifling magnetism even of my
> own countrymen. I have
> seen some of our proud old Sikhs drunk and
> staggering over the marble pavement
> of their sacred Temple. I have heard an
> English-speaking Vakil declaim against
> Yog Vidya and Theosophy, as a delusion and a lie,
> declaring that English
> Science had emancipated them from such "degrading
> superstitions," and saying
> that it was an insult to India to maintain that the
> dirty Yogees and Sunnyasis
> knew anything about the mysteries of nature; or that
> any living man can
> or ever could perform any phenomena! I turn my face
> homeward to-morrow."
> 
> 
> Daniel 

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