Mooljee Thackersey
Mooljee Thackersey was an Indian man who was one of the earliest Hindu friends of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Col. Henry Steel Olcott.
Theosophical Society involvement
Colonel Olcott had met Mooljee in 1870. When Olcott and Blavatsky arrived in Bombay in 1879,
The ship's anchor was hardly dropped before we were boarded by three Hindu gentlemen in search of us... They were Mooljee Thackersey, Pandit Shyamji Krishnavarma, and Mr. Ballajee Sitaram – all holders of our Society's diplomas. No wonder I did not recognize Mooljee, clad as he was in the artistic dress of his Bhatia caste, the dhoti and top coat of white muslin and the red turban with its quaint helmet-like shape and horn pointing forward above the brow. When he and I crossed the Atlantic together in 1870, he wore European dress throughout, and did not in the least resemble his present self. [1]
Mooljee helped Madame Blavatsky locate a servant to help manage her household – the Gujarati boy Babula.[2] When the Bombay Theosophical Society was formed, Mooljee served as a Councillor.
An entire chapter of Olcott's diary, Old Diary Leaves, entitled "Many Wonders," details the travels of Mooljee with the two Founders and Babula. They journeyed by train from Bombay to the Karli Caves on April 4, 1879. Their adventures with an Adept and various phenomena formed the inspiration for some of HPB's stories in The Caves and Jungles of Hindustan.
He was mentioned in Letter 27 of Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, Second Series.
Olcott had this to say about Thackersey's death: "Just before our return, our staunch friend Moolji Thackersey had died, and the Society thus lost one of its most willing workers."[3]