Joanna Macy
Joanna Rogers Macy, is an environmental activist, scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. She is the author of eight books, Macy graduated from Wellesley College in 1950 and received her Ph. D in Religious Studies in 1978 from Syracuse University, Syracuse. She studied there with Huston Smith, the author of The Worlds Religions. She has created a framework for personal and social change. Her work addresses psychological and spiritual issues, Buddhist thought, and she was married to the late Francis Underhill Macy, the activist and Russian scholar who founded the Center for Safe Energy. Macy first encountered Buddhism in 1965 while working with Tibetan refugees in northern India, particularly the Ven. 8th Khamtrul Rinpoche, Sister Karma Khechog Palmo, dugu Choegyal Rinpoche, and Tokden Antrim of the Tashi Jong community. Her spiritual practice is drawn from the Theravada tradition of Nyanaponika Thero and Rev. Sivali of Sri Lanka, Munindraji of West Bengal, and Dhiravamsa of Thailand.
Gregory Bateson, through his Steps to an Ecology of Mind and in a seminar, shaped her thought, as did the writings of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Arthur Koestler. She was influenced in the studies of biological systems by Tyrone Cashman, donella Meadows provided insights on the planetary consequences of runaway systems, and Elisabet Sahtouris provided further information about self-organizing systems in evolutionary perspective. Macy travels giving lectures and trainings internationally, widowed by the death of her husband, Francis Underhill Macy, in January 2009, she lives in Berkeley, near her children and grandchildren. The Work that Reconnects — Video series of a workshop with Joanna Macy, a Wild Love for the World, an interview with Joanna Macy, by Krista Tippet on the American Radio Show On Being. This page provides links to the program that first aired in 2010. Macy recites many Rilke poems during the show, but some of these poems are edited out so you can listen to them recited individually, allegiance to Life, Staying steady through the mess were in, An interview with Joanna Macy from Tricycle, The Buddhist Review
Humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human culture. In the Middle Ages, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the humanities are more frequently contrasted with natural, and sometimes social, sciences as well as professional training. The humanities include ancient and modern languages, philosophy, art, scholars in the humanities are humanity scholars or humanists. The term humanist describes the position of humanism, which some antihumanist scholars in the humanities refuse. The Renaissance scholars and artists were called humanists, some secondary schools offer humanities classes usually consisting of English literature, global studies and art. Human disciplines like history and cultural anthropology study subject matters that the method does not apply to—and instead mainly use the comparative method. Anthropology is the science of humans, a science of the totality of human existence. The discipline deals with the integration of different aspects of the sciences, humanities.
In the twentieth century, academic disciplines have often been divided into three broad domains. The natural sciences seek to derive general laws through reproducible and verifiable experiments, the humanities generally study local traditions, through their history, literature and arts, with an emphasis on understanding particular individuals, events, or eras. Anthropology does not easily fit into one of these categories, within the United States, anthropology is divided into four sub-fields, physical or biological anthropology, anthropological linguistics, and cultural anthropology. It is an area that is offered at most undergraduate institutions, the word anthropos is from the Greek for human being or person. Eric Wolf described sociocultural anthropology as the most scientific of the humanities, the goal of anthropology is to provide a holistic account of humans and human nature. This means that, though anthropologists generally specialize in only one sub-field, they keep in mind the biological, historic.
The quest for holism leads most anthropologists to study a people in detail, using biogenetic, archaeological and it is possible to view all human cultures as part of one large, evolving global culture. Archaeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture, the archaeological record consists of artifacts, biofacts or ecofacts, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a science and a branch of the humanities. It has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time
Pondicherry
Pondicherry is the capital city and the largest city of the Indian union territory of Puducherry. The city of Pondicherry is situated in Puducherry district of the union territory and it is affectionately known as Pondy, and has been officially known by the alternative name Puducherry in Tamil since 2006. Pondicherry city consists of 42 wards, wards 1-10 are located in north of the city. Wards 11-19 are located in Boulevard Town and remaining wards are located in the southwest of the downtown, the history of the city of Pondicherry is recorded only after the arrival of Dutch, Portuguese and French colonialists. A marketplace named Poduke or Poduca is recorded as a Roman trading destination from the mid 1st century, the area was part of the Pallava Kingdom of Kanchipuram in the 4th century. The Cholas of Thanjavur held it from the 10th to 13th centuries, the Vijayanagar Empire took control of almost all of the South of India in the 14th century and maintained control until 1638 when they were supplanted by the Sultan of Bijapur.
The French East India Company established this town as their headquarters in 1674, five trading posts were established along the south Indian coast between 1668 and 1674. The town was separated by a canal into the French Quarter, during the Anglo-French wars, Puducherry changed hands frequently. On January 16,1761, the British captured Puducherry from the French, the British took control of the area again in 1793 at the Siege of Pondicherry amid the Wars of the French Revolution, and returned it to France in 1814. When the British gained control of the whole of India in the late 1850s, Mahe, Yanam and Chandernagar remained a part of French India until 1954 when it was incorporated into the Indian Union along with the rest of French India. On 18 October 1954 in an election involving 178 people in Pondicherry Municipal and Commune Panchayat,170 people were in favour of independence. The de facto transfer of the French India territories form French governance to the Indian union took place on 1 November 1954, the formal de jure transfer of territory agreement between France and India was signed on 16 August 1962.
The topography of Pondicherry is the same as that of coastal Tamil Nadu, pondicherrys average elevation is at sea level, and a number of sea inlets, referred to as backwaters can be found. Pondicherry experiences extreme coastal erosion as a result of a constructed in 1989. Where there was once a broad, sandy beach, now the city is protected against the sea by a 2-km-long seawall.5 m above sea level, the seawall consists of rows of granite boulders which are reinforced every year in an attempt to stop erosion. As a consequence of the seawall, Pondicherry experiences severe seabed erosion and turbulence at the coastal margin, whenever gaps appear as the stones fall into the continually eroding seabed, the government of Puducherry adds more boulders. Pondicherrys seawall has caused beach erosion to migrate further up the coast, to the villages in Puducherry. In 2012, the Ministry of Power inaugurated the Smart Grid project in Puducherry, farming around Pondicherry include crops such as rice, sugarcane and cotton
Judith Tyberg
Judith Tyberg was an American yogi and a renowned Sanskrit scholar and orientalist. Judith Marjorie Tyberg was born on May 16,1902, at Point Loma, the California Utopia, katherine Tingley, world president, founded Lomaland in 1898 and Tybergs Danish theosophist parents and Olaf Tyberg, were among the first joiners. In 1900, Tingley founded the Raja Yoga School, Tyberg recalled how, as young children, they were instructed in the works of the worlds great religious and spiritual traditions and were inspired to seek Truth, Wisdom. Early on, Tyberg displayed a serious and philosophical nature and a vocation for education, madame Tingley called her one of my true raja yogis. Tyberg grew up, studied and taught at Point Loma until its closing in 1942, Tyberg began her study of Sanskrit in 1930 with Gottfried de Purucker and received a Ph. D. in Sanskritic studies. She became a member of the American Oriental Society, while still a teenager, Tyberg began her teaching career at the Raja Yoga School. Tybergs contribution was the exposition of over 2,000 terms, Tyberg translated the Hymn to the Origin of the World from the Rig Veda and collated and prefaced Charles Johnstons 1946 translation of Shankaracharyas Crest-Jewel of Wisdom.
In 1940, Tyberg published Sanskrit Keys to the Wisdom Religion and this was a groundbreaking work by virtue of its content and its innovative printing technology, as it was the first time anywhere, including India, that the ancient form of Sanskrit was linotyped. While Sanskrit expresses the inner mysteries of the soul and spirit, the many after-death states, in 1941, Tyberg continued using her linotype innovation for the publication of the first edition of her First Lessons in Sanskrit Grammar. This was a revision of James R. Ballantynes 1851 grammar, throughout her life, she reworked this text several times, subsequently republishing it in 1950,1961, and 1977. In 1946, due to a schism within the California theosophical movement, Tyberg resigned from her dean, after a brief period of teaching at the University of Southern California, she went out on her own and opened a Sanskrit center and bookshop in Glendale, California. There, she taught Indian philosophy, religion and culture and she continued lecturing at universities and associations, thus developing both her reputation as well as a large network of contacts with other orientalists.
In her application letter and scholarship request she stated, I have decided to give my life to the spreading of the beautiful teachings, and I would have the West illumined by its perfect philosophy. The response was a scholarship at the Oriental Division of Benares Hindu University. Tyberg arrived at BHU in June 1947, at her first meeting, Tyberg chose the Vedic religious hymns for her Masters thesis topic. But, while the Vedas were accepted as the fount of Indias spiritual culture, Tybergs surprise and disappointment was great when she was thus informed that even the scholars at BHU knew of no one who could help her find this secret, if it even existed. She was advised to change her research topic, professor Arabinda Basu, a young lecturer, overheard this exchange. Tyberg stayed up all night reading, and the next morning, on his advice, she wrote to Sri Aurobindo, asking for permission to come to see him
Auroville
Auroville is an experimental township in Viluppuram district mostly in the state of Tamil Nadu, India with some parts in the Union Territory of Puducherry in South India. It was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa and designed by architect Roger Anger, the purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity. Auroville has its origins in the French language, aurore meaning dawn, additionally, it is named after Sri Aurobindo. Alfassa was spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, who believed that man is a transitional being, Alfassa believed that such a universal township will contribute decisively to the Indian renaissance. A site, approximately 20 square kilometres of barren wasteland, some 10 km north of Pondicherry and 5 km from the coast was chosen for the city, the inauguration ceremony attended by delegates of 124 nations, was held on Wednesday 28 February 1968. Handwritten in French by the Mother, its 4-point Charter set forth her vision of Integral living, Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole.
But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness, Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future, taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity, in the middle of the town is the Matrimandir, which was conceived by Alfassa as a symbol of the Divines answer to mans aspiration for perfection. Silence is maintained inside the Matrimandir to ensure the tranquility of the space, inside the Matrimandir, a spiraling ramp leads upwards to an air-conditioned chamber of polished white marble referred to as a place to find ones consciousness. Matrimandir is equipped with a power plant and is surrounded by manicured gardens. When there is no sun or after the sunset, the sunray on the globe is replaced by a beam from a powered light.
Radiating from this center are four zones of the City Area, prior to 1980, the Sri Aurobindo Society, legally owned all of the citys assets. In 1980, the Government of India passed the Auroville Emergency Provision Act 1980, the change was initiated when after Mirra Alfassas death in 1973, serious fissures in the day-to-day management developed between the Society and the citys residents. The residents appealed to Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India for an intervention, the Society challenged the Governments action in the Supreme Court of India. The final verdict upheld the validity of the government’s action and intervention. In 1988, after the verdict, a need was felt to make an arrangement for the long term management of Auroville. The citys representatives along with Sh, kireet Joshi, Educational Advisor to the Union government met for consultations with the Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi
California
California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence.
The western portion of Alta California was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, real estate services and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA.
Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups were diverse in their organization with bands, villages. Trade and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years English explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
Brian Swimme
Swimme was a faculty member in the department of mathematics at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, 1978–81. He was a member of the faculty at the Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality at Holy Names University in Oakland, Swimme brings the context of story to our understanding of the 14 billion year trajectory of cosmogenesis. Swimme is the producer of three DVD series, Canticle to the Cosmos, The Earth’s Imagination, and The Powers of the Universe. Swimme teamed with Mary Evelyn Tucker, David Kennard, Patsy Northcutt, and Catherine Butler to produce Journey of the Universe and they draw together scientific discoveries in astronomy and biology, with humanistic insights concerning the nature of the universe. It is designed to shape the intellectual and spiritual leadership of its students. Swimmes primary field of research is the nature of the dynamics of the universe. He has developed an interpretation of the human as an emergent being within the universe and earth.
His central concern is the role of the human within the community, the cultural implications of the Epic of Evolution. Toward this goal, he founded the Center for the Story of the Universe in 1989 and his published work includes The Universe is a Green Dragon, The Universe Story written with Thomas Berry, and The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos. Swimme’s books have been translated into eight different languages, Swimme was featured in the television series Soul of the Universe and The Sacred Balance produced by David Suzuki. He is the producer of a twelve-part DVD series Canticle to the Cosmos, other DVD programs featuring Swimme’s ideas include The Earth’s Imagination and The Powers of the Universe. Swimme founded the international Epic of Evolution Society in 1998 and this was a result of his participation in the conference Dialogue on Science and Religion organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science the year before. Thomas Berry introduced Swimme to the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, swimmes passion for understanding is deeply influenced by Teilhards ideas.
He believes the universe is a deep transfiguration process, truth and zest—all of these qualities regarded as divine become powerfully embodied in the universe. In this way, the universe is imagined as evolving with a telos of Beauty and she believes that he sweeps us into the grand picture of human beings as the current culmination of the still-evolving universe. Swimme tells the story of the evolution of the universe and attempts to pull us into a universe of meaning, where there is not only connectivity, but directionality as well. In Canticle to the Cosmos he says If you look at the disasters happening on our planet, a way out of our difficulty is a journey into the universe as sacred. Harvard astrophysicist Eric Chaisson writes that Swimme, a mathematician by training, seeks a larger and our story is not merely a collection of facts, science should be a student’s guide to a grand world view, including, if possible, meaning and value
Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo was an Indian nationalist, yogi and poet. Aurobindo studied for the Indian Civil Service at Kings College, Cambridge and he was arrested in the aftermath of a number of bomb outrages linked to his organisation, but was only convicted and imprisoned for writing articles against British rule in India. He was released when no evidence could be provided, following the murder of prosecution-witness during the trial, during his stay in the jail he had mystical and spiritual experiences, after which he moved to Pondicherry, leaving politics for spiritual work. During his stay in Pondicherry, Aurobindo developed a method of practice he called Integral Yoga. The central theme of his vision was the evolution of life into a life divine. He believed in a spiritual realisation that not only liberated man but transformed his nature, in 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, Mirra Alfassa, he founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He died on 5 December 1950 in Pondicherry and his works include philosophy, poetry and commentaries on the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita.
He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1943, Aurobindo Ghose was born into a Kayastha family in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, India on 15 August 1872. His mother was Swarnalata Devi, whose father was Shri Rajnarayan Bose and she had been sent to the more salubrious surroundings of Calcutta for Aurobindos birth. Aurobindo had two siblings and Manmohan, a younger sister, and a younger brother. Young Aurobindo was brought up speaking English but used Hindustani to communicate with servants, although his family were Bengali, his father believed British culture to be superior. Darjeeling was a centre of British life in India and the school was run by Irish nuns, through which the boys would have exposed to Christian religious teachings. Krishna Dhun Ghose wanted his sons to enter the Indian Civil Service, to achieve this it was necessary that they study in England and so it was there that the entire family moved in 1879. The three brothers were placed in the care of the Reverend W. H.
Drewett in Manchester, Drewett was a minister of the Congregational Church whom Krishna Dhun Ghose knew through his British friends at Rangapur. The boys were taught Latin by Drewett and his wife and this was a prerequisite for admission to good English schools and, after two years, in 1881, the elder two siblings were enrolled at Manchester Grammar School. Aurobindo was considered too young for enrolment and he continued his studies with the Drewetts, learning history, French and arithmetic. Although the Drewetts were told not to teach religion, the boys inevitably were exposed to Christian teachings and events, Drewett emigrated to Australia in 1884, causing the boys to be uprooted as they went to live with Drewetts mother in London. In September of that year and Manmohan joined St Pauls School there and he learned Greek and spent the last three years reading literature and English poetry
Richard Tarnas
Tarnas is professor of philosophy and psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is the founding director of its graduate program in Philosophy and Consciousness. Tarnas was born on February 21,1950 in Geneva and his father, named Richard Tarnas, worked as a government contract attorney, former president of the Michigan Federal Bar Association, and professor of law. His mother, Mary Louise, was a teacher and homemaker, the eldest of eight children, he grew up in Detroit, where he studied Greek and the Classics at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy. In 1968 Tarnas entered Harvard, graduating with an A. B. cum laude in 1972 and he received his Ph. D. from Saybrook Institute in 1976 with a thesis on psychedelic therapy. In 1974 Tarnas went to Esalen in California to study psychotherapy with Stanislav Grof and he served as Esalens director of programs and education. Jeffrey Kripal characterizes Tarnas as both the literal and figurative gate-keeper of Esalen, Tarnas is the founding director of the Philosophy and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he remains a core faculty member as of 2014.
In 2006, Tarnas published his book and Psyche. It claims that the events of Western cultural history correlate consistently and meaningfully with the observed angular positions of the planets. The book received reviews in Tikkun magazine, in an anthroposophical journal, and in the web magazine Reality Sandwich. Tarnas featured in the 2006 film Entheogen, Awakening the Divine Within, in 2007 a group of fifty scholars and researchers in the San Francisco Bay Area formed the Archetypal Research Collective for pursuing research in archetypal cosmology. Advisory-board members include Christopher Bache, Jorge Ferrer, Stanislav Grof, Robert A. McDermott, Ralph Metzner, contributors have included Keiron Le Grice, Richard Tarnas, Stanislav Grof, and Rod ONeal. In 2008 Tarnas was invited to address members of the Dutch Parliament about creating a sustainable society, in 2007 John Cleese and Tarnas gave some public lectures together at Esalen and in Santa Barbara. The lectures discussed regaining a connection to the sacred in the modern world, di Carlo, Towards a New World View, Conversations at the Leading Edge.
Jung and the Transformation of the Modern Self, recorded at Pacifica Graduate Institute on April 8–9,2006. Skeptical Inquirer Volume 30.4, July / August 2006 Review of Cosmos and Psyche, Intimations of a New World View. by Alice Klein Now Magazine April 17–24,2008 Vol 27 No 33
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Pinterest, Uber, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings.
The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849.
The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
Krishna Kumar Mitra
Krishna Kumar Mitra was an Indian freedom fighter and leader of the Brahmo Samaj. He is remembered for his contributions to the Swadeshi movement through his journal Sanjibani, Krishna Kumar was born in the village of Baghil in the Mymensingh district of Bengal in what is today Bangladesh in 1852. He was a Hindu Kayastha by birth and his father Guruprasad Mitra was a landholder who led an agitation against oppression by British indigo planters, Krishna Kumar was educated at Mymensinghs Hardinge Vernacular School and the Zilla School and obtained a bachelors degree from the Scottish Church College in 1876. Subsequently, he studied law at the University of Calcutta for a while, deeply influenced by his father who was a local Brahmo leader and his schoolteacher Girishchandra Ghosh, Krishna Kumar was inducted into the Brahmo faith in 1869 at the age of 17. He became a member of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj and his journal Sanjibani became the Samajs principal mouthpiece and he was elected president of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj in 1918.
Mitra launched his Bengali journal Sanjibani in 1883, the second floor of Mitras 6, College Square residence served as the office and press for the journal. His nephew Aurobindo Ghosh stayed here during 1909-1910 before escaping to Pondicherry, Mitra joined Surendranath Banerjees Indian Association in 1876 and became its joint secretary and Banerjee and Mitra traveled across northern India to popularise their political ideas. Mitra was associated with the Indian National Congress since its inception and was part of its faction in Bengal. In 1890 he joined the indigo cultivators agitation, opposed to the partition of Bengal and influenced by colleagues like Ananda Mohan Bose and Kalishankar Shukul, Mitra joined the anti-Partition Swadeshi movement. He used his journal Sanjibani to rouse public opinion against the partition and on 13 July 1905 he openly called for the boycott of goods through the journal. He attended the Bengal Provincial Conference at Barisal in 1906 where he condemned police atrocities against Swadeshi activists, the same year the Bengal government issued a circular banning the singing of Vande Mataram in any procession or public meeting.
Mitra became president of the Anti-Circular Society that was formed to oppose the ban, for his involvement in the Swadeshi movement, Mitra had to resign from his job as a professor of history and in 1908 was deported from Calcutta for two years by the British authorities. Mitra married Lilabati Devi, the daughter of Rajnarayan Basu in 1881. At their wedding, conducted in accordance with Brahmo rites, Narendranath Dutta sang two songs that were composed by Rabindranath Tagore for the occasion. Mitra was the uncle of Aurobindo Ghosh and father in law of Sachindra Prasad Bose who unfurled the Calcutta Flag at the Parsi Bagan Square in Calcutta in 1906. Krishna Kumar Mitra was a social reformer opposed to idolatry, caste system. He formed a Nari Raksa Samiti to work for the protection of womens rights and he was an advocate of temperance who strongly criticised the governments decision to establish public drinking houses. Besides his journalistic pieces in the Sanjibani, Mitra authored books including Mahammad-Charita, Buddhadev-Charita
Dilipkumar Roy
Dilipkumar Roy was a Bengali Indian musician, novelist and essayist. He was the son of Dwijendralal Ray, in 1965, the Sangeet Natak Akademi, Indias National Academy for Music and Drama, awarded him its highest honour for lifetime achievement, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship. Son of Dwijendralal Ray, the Bengali poet and composer, Roy, on his father’s side, the family descended from one of the apostles of the medieval Bengali saint Shri Chaitanya. His mother Surabala Devi was the daughter of distinguished homeopath physician Pratap Chandra Majumdar, since his childhood, Roy had a fascination for Sanskrit, English and mathematics. His passion for music stopped him from securing the highest marks in the Matriculation examination, he stood the twenty-first and, with a scholarship, here he came close to Subhas Chandra Bose. With a first class honours in mathematics, he went to Cambridge in 1919 for a tripos, shortly before this three-year trip to Europe, in his teens he had come under the personal spell of the musicologist Bhatkhande.
Ray had taken advantage of his background and learnt scores of popular. This forged his determination to music as a vocation. Therefore, in 1920, in addition to the first part of his tripos, he passed also, along with his lessons in piano, he grew fluent in French and Italian, before leaving for Germany and Italy to pursue his studies in music. At this juncture, Roy met personalities like Bertrand Russell, Hermann Hesse, from Vienna, invited by president Masaryk, Roy visited Prague, on his way to Budapest, Rome and Naples, to discover the heart of the tradition of European music. The ancient modes like Ionian, Mixolydian, Dorian and Phrygian, reminded him, respectively, of the Indian that or melakarta like Bilâval, Khamâj, Kâfi, Asâvari, in his diary, Romain Rolland speaks of Roy frequently. He records Roys first visit on 23 August 1920. His is no ordinary intelligence, a young man and well-built, in his complexion the orange-brown of a Créole features, except for the lips. Talking about his songs, Rolland mentions, Especially a religious song by Tansen, and about Dilips voice, He sings with nasal intonations and his voice reaches quite high, with a singular suppleness in the ceaseless blossoming of vocal improvisations and ornaments.
On 24 October 1927, Romain Rolland describes another visit from Roy, while in Europe, Roy realised the greatness and the deficiency of Indian classical music as practised by his contemporaries. He took lessons from musicians like Abdul Karim, Faiyaz Khan, Chandan Chaube, Gaurishankar Mishra, Surendranath Majumdar, in his works, sangitiki, gitashri etc. he recorded in detail his experiences, illustrated by notations. As an outspoken critic, he attained considerable fame, especially in his analysis of the sacrosanct Gurus. His first-hand experience, enhanced by his investigation and reflections. An expert of the tana and phrase-variations, Roy had argued and obtained Tagores permission to interpret the songs as he wished
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