E. T. Sturdy

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Edward Toronto Sturdy (1860–1957) was a a Sanskrit scholar, student of Hinduism and Buddhism, and a member of the Theosophical Society.

Theosophical involvement

Mr. Sturdy went to New Zealand at the age of 19 and a few years later, in 1885, he joined the Theosophical Society. He started the first lodge in the country, the Wellington Lodge, chartered in 1888, although it became inactive by the end of 1889 (it was later rechartered in 1894).

After traveling overseas and meeting Col. Olcott, H. P. BLAVATSKY, and W. Q. JUDGE, he returned to New Zealand and settled in Wellington. Gathering a group of students around himself, , which was . Among its members were Sir Harry Albert ATKINSON, Prime Minister of New Zealand; his wife Anne E. Atkinson; their son, E. Tudor Atkinson; M. van Staveren, a Jewish rabbi; H. M. Stowell (Hare Hongi), a Maori tohunga (priest); and Edward Tregear, a poet and Maori scholar, who wrote a book about the similarities of the Hindu and Maori languages. The Wellington Lodge ceased to exist when Sturdy returned to England, where he became a student in HPB’s “inner group”; however they regrouped in 1894 and continue to the present.

Between 1887 and 1888 Mme. Blavatsky dictated her Diagram of Meditation to Mr. Sturdy

Mr. Sturdy was a member of the Esoteric Section one of the "E.S.T. Council" appointed by H.P.B. He was also part of the European Advisory Council formed in July, 1890 to assist HPB in her new function as the Presidential authority of the Theosophical Society in Europe. The other members of the Council were Annie Besant, W. Kingsland, Herbert Burrows, A. P. Sinnett, H. A. W. Coryn, and G. R. S. Mead.(CW 12, 264)

When HPB formed the Inner Group in August 1890, Mr. Sturdy was a member of it.

On April, 1891, ill and few weeks before dying, HPB was concerned that Mr. Sturdy had also been taken ill with influenza. When it was suggested that Mr. Mead should bring him to be nursed at Headquarters, she was much pleased and insisted on his being sent for at once. How She Left Us by Laura M. Cooper

Mr. Sturdy was present at the meeting at 19 Avenue Road on May 27, 1891, when the E.S. was reorganized immediately after the death of H.P.B.

In August 1893 Mr. Sturdy published an article on Gurus and Chelas in Lucifer. The latter induced Annie Besant to publish another article published in October, 1893, taking a stand against the spirit behind Mr. Sturdy's.

Theosophy was not his only inspiration. In 1940 he wrote:

What I have, I owe largely to H. P. Blavatsky, to some extent to Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, and perhaps, most of all, to the Vedanta and Buddhist teachings.[1]

Sanskrit scholar

During the latter part of 1893, Mr. Sturdy met Swami Shivananda. In 1895 Swami Vivekananda had been planning a visit to London for some time. Miss Henrietta Müller, who had already met him in America, extended to him an invitation to come to London, and Mr. E. T. Sturdy had requested him to stay at his home there. Eventually, Swami Vivekananda and Mr. Sturdy began to work together on an English translation of the Bhakti aphorisms of Narada. After a two months' stay in England, before leaving, he arranged that Mr. Sturdy should conduct classes in London till the arrival of a new Swami from India.[2]

Norburton Hall

E. T. Sturdy at Norburton Hall

Online resources

Articles and pamphlets

by E. T. Sturdy and a reply by Annie Besant

Notes

  1. Robert S. Ellwood, Islands of the Dawn, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993), 98.
  2. See [1] Vivekananda A Biography, Ch. 9, "Experiences In The West"] by Swami Nikhilananda