One of the first temples built in modern India by industrialists to celebrate their faith is the Birla Mandir, built in 1938 by G. D. Birla. Appropri- ate to the status of his family as one of the most wealthy in India the temple is dedicated to LAK-
SHMI, goddess of prosperity, and Lord VISHNU, her husband. It is called the Lakshmi Narayan Temple. The temple was opened by Mohandas Karamchand GANDHI with the specific proviso that there would be no caste restriction in regard to entry. At that time (and even to some extent today) Dalit (untouchables) were barred from entering temples.
A special characteristic of the temple is that it is explicitly (in a plaque at the front of the temple) open to people of any faith or social class; the inner carvings and statuary also pay tribute to the Buddhists, Jains (see JAINISM), and Sikhs (see SIKH-
ISM), as well as to the many Hindu gods.
The external surface of the temple is made to resemble Delhi’s prolific Mughal architecture (c.
1500–1800 C.E.); it is made of red sandstone deco- rated with marble. As is any temple it is decorated with many carvings showing scenes from Indian myths. The ICONS of the temple were made by specialists from BENARES (Varanasi). There were 101 experts employed in its construction, led by a learned specialist, Vishvanath Shasti. The temple was built in Orissan style, which features high, curved turrets that show a ribbed motif at the top of the temple tower.
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The highest tower of the temple is 160 feet.
It is eastward facing with a long stairway upward that leads to the platform in which the inner sanc- tum is situated. The inner sanctum contains God- dess Lakshmi and Lord Narayana. Other shrines display Lord SHIVA, GANESHA, and HANUMAN. In a northern section is a shrine to KRISHNA.
Behind the temple there is a spacious area that children love containing a stone version of the chariot that Krishna and Arjuna rode in the MAHAB-
HARATA. Several small rock temples are also found there. Included is a statue of G. D. Birla himself, facing the back of his great temple. The temple is visited by thousands of people every day.
Further reading: M. L. Gupta, Performance Appraisal:
The Birlas (Jaipur: University Book House, 2003);
Medha M. Kudasiya, The Life and Times of G. D. Birla (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna Hahn
(1831–1891) cofounder of the Theosophical Society
Better known by her initials, H.P.B., Helena Bla- vatsky was one of the most influential 19th-cen- tury writers in the fields of Theosophy and the occult. As cofounder of the Theosophical Society and frequent visitor to India, she also provoked wide popular interest in the religious traditions of India.
Born in Ekaterinoslav, Russia (now Dnepro- petrovsk, Ukraine), on July 30, 1831, Blavatsky grew up in an affluent Russian family in which the occult and supernatural were not unknown.
Birla Mandir, a temple devoted to Vishnu, is an example of a modern Hindu temple in Delhi, India. (Constance A. Jones)
K 86 Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna Hahn
As a teenager, she did automatic writing. Her mother died when Blavatsky was 12 years old and she went to live with her grandfather. At 16 she married General N. V. Blavatsky; however, claim- ing that marriage did not accommodate her “free spirit,” she left her husband and took residence in Constantinople.
The trip to Turkey was the start of almost two decades of extensive travel, taking her to Egypt, England, India, and (it was claimed) Tibet. She traveled around the world twice in the decade 1851–61, continuing her investigations in the occult, mediumship, and spiritualism. She founded a spiritualist society in 1871 in Cairo, but the organization failed almost immediately as a result of some members’ assumptions that H.P.B.
had produced occult phenomena fraudulently.
H.P.B. arrived in New York in 1873 and quickly became familiar with American spiritual- ism. She met the Eddy brothers, mediums who conducted materialization seances. While visit- ing Vermont to demonstrate her own abilities at materialization along with the Eddy brothers, she met Henry Steel Olcott. In 1875, she and Olcott were joined by the lawyer William Q. Judge to found the Theosophical Society in New York City.
She began to research and write her first book, Isis Unveiled, published in 1877.
To H.P.B., Theosophy superseded spiritual- ism. Whereas spiritualism claimed contact with spirits of the ordinary dead, she contacted the masters or mahatmas, teachers of occult wisdom who resided in elevated planes. She appeared to receive messages on paper from the mahatmas, which arrived, as if from the sky or from within a specially constructed cabinet, at the Theosophical headquarters. The source of the “letters from the mahatmas” continues to be debated—were they created by H.P.B. or delivered from the psychic realm?
H.P.B. and Olcott moved to India in 1878. The following year they began publishing The The- osophist magazine. A donation of land at Adyar near Madras (Chennai) in 1882 allowed them to
establish a center, which still conducts education programs and retreats for members of the Theo- sophical Society.
After securing the land for the Theosophical Society, H.P.B. returned to London, where in 1884 she demonstrated her powers before the Society for Psychical Research. The viewers were impressed.
However, her assistant in India, Emma Cutting Coulomb, destroyed this favorable impression by charging that H.P.B.’s abilities were fraudulent. In 1885, the society commissioned Richard Hodgson to investigate the charges. His report concluded that she was indeed an accomplished fraud.
While attempting to live down the scandal, H.P.B. took up residence in Germany after 1885 and returned to London in 1887. Her major work, The Secret Doctrine, was written there and pub- lished in 1889. It remains one of the most influen- tial occult works to appear in the West. Blavatsky died in England on May 8, 1891. Her most famous disciple, Annie BESANT, who became a convert to THEOSOPHY after reading H.P.B.’s work, succeeded her as head of the Theosophical Society.
Further reading: Blavatsky, H. P., Collected Writings, 2 vols. (Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Press, 1950–1991);
———, Isis Unveiled (New York: J. W. Bouton, 1877);
———, The Key to Theosophy (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1889); ———, The Secret Doc- trine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy (London: Theosophical Publishing Company, 1888);
Robert S. Ellwood, Alternative Altars: Unconventional and Eastern Spirituality in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979); Iverson L. Harris, Mme. Bla- vatsky Defended (San Diego, Calif.: Point Loma, 1971);
Marion Meade, Madame Blavatsky: The Woman behind the Myth (New York: Putnam, 1980); Howard Murphet, When Daylight Comes: A Biography of Helena Petro- vna Blavatsky (Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1975); Charles J. Ryan, H. P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Movement (Pasadena, Calif.: Theosophical University Press, 1975); Gertrude Marvin Williams, Priestess of the Occult: Madame Blavatsky (New York:
Alfred Knopf, 1946).
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