Adyar (campus)
On April 23, 1882, the Founders arrived by ship at Madras, where they met T. Subba Row, Judge G. Muthuswamy Chetty and his sons G. Soobiah Chetty and G. Narasimhulu Chetty, Ragunath Row, among others.
The Madras Times of April 24 or 25, 1882, describes their arrival as follows"
THEOSOPHISM AT MADRAS. — Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, the well-known founders of the Theosophical Society in Bombay, arrived at Madras on Sunday morning at nine o'clock. In anticipation of their arrival, the natives assembled, and made arrangements to give their visitors a formal reception at five o'clock in the evening. Accordingly, at the hour fixed, the native community mustered strong at the pier, among whom were the Hon'ble Rajah Gajapathi Row, the Dewan Bahadur Ragunatha Row, and several leading members and merchants of the community. Boats went out to meet the steamer, the one destined for the visitors tastefully decorated. After an interchange of compliments and much cheering, the visitors were ushered into a saloon carriage, afterwards to a carriage and four, and driven to the residence fitted up for them. . . . The Deputy Inspector of Schools read the following address: ”We, the undersigned, who entertain great respect for you, welcome you to the capital of Southern India. We need hardly express our appreciation of your valuable services for our country, and we trust that your advent here will be a means of placing within our reach the advantages afforded for investigating the mysteries of nature and psychical powers latent in man".[1]
On May 31 the Chetty brothers took them to see a piece of property they recommended as the new headquarters site for the Theosophical Society: the "Huddlestone's Gardens". The Huddlestone family had been granted some property south of the Adyar River in the late 1780s, on which they built a country or "garden" house. But now the twenty-seven-acre property, containing a large house, two cottages, and other facilities, was on sale.
When the Founders saw the Huddlestone's Gardens Mme. Blavatsky declared "Master wants this purchased". Col. Olcott wrote that "at first glance [we] knew that our future home was found".
On November 17, exactly seven years after the founding of the Theosophical Society the sale was completed and the title to the property passed to the Society.[2]
Online resources
Video
- Adyar: Home of the Theosophical Society by Steve Schweizer (Documentary)
Additional resources
- Official TS Adyar website
- Adyar TS Estate: Descriptions, Books, Maps, Videos, & Photos compiled by Daniel Cladwell
Notes
- ↑ A Sketch of the Theosophic Organization at http://hpb.narod.ru/SketchTheosophicOrganization.htm
- ↑ Adele Algeo, "Blavatsky at Adyar--From her Letters", The Theosophist 129:9 (June 2008),340.