Raganath Rao

Bahadur Raganath Rao was the premier of a Maratha state. His names are alternately spelled "Raghunath" and "Row," and "Bahadur" is an title meaning "brave" or "most honorable."

Raghunatha Rao was born to a prominent Deshastha Brahmin family on February 7, 1831. Even though his people were Marathi, from the west-central Indian state of Maharashtra, he was born in Kumbakonam, in the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu, and lived in various parts of India. He was well-educated, with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and worked as a translator and a Deputy Collector before he was called to higher offices by the Rajah of Indore. He died on May 3, 1912.

Involvement with Theosophical Society

The beginning of Rao's interest in the Theosophical Society is not known, but in November 1886 he served as the chairman at a lecture by Colonel Olcott before the Triplicane Juvenile Association at the house of Rajah Ishwaru Dass, Triplicane, Madras. The topic was "The Duties of Aryan Youth to Themselves and to Their Country," and was well received. Then Raganath Rao spoke.

He eulogized in the warmest terms the founders of the Theosophical Society and the work of the Society itself. No one, he said, could fail to be struck with the results actually achieved within the short space of six or seven years: it was a perfect miracle. He, the Chairman, firmly believed that the hand of God was constantly guiding human affairs, and he saw that Divine guidance displayed in this Society's work. Christian friends of India had for many years been laboring to awaken the religious spirit in our country-men, and had spent millions of pounds sterling in this end, in the way they thought the best. yet what had they accomplished? We need only glace at what India was six years ago to see that scarcely anything had been effected. But here are two foreigners who come here without any of those advantages, and arouse the soul of the whole people of India: doing more in six years than any other reformers had done in sixty or six hundred.

Charles Johnston described him in this way after a social visit with T. Subba Row and others in 1888:

Ragunath Rao, short and supple, was a man of power, and with power’s finest efflorescence, a warm and cordial sense of humor; his eyes were bright blue, a thing rare among natives of India, but now and then found among the best Brahmans of the Mahratta country or Kashmir. </ref>

His high esteem within the Theosophical Society is reflected in The Theosophist of December, 1886:

DEWAN BAHADUR R. RAGHUNATHA ROW

The Executive Council of the Theosophical Society is about losing the services of one of its most important members, by the removal of Dewan Bahadur R. Raghunatha Row to Indore, of which great Fendatory Raj he has been appointed Prime Minister by If. H. the Holkar Maharajah. The selection of our eminent colleague for this high office is a most judicious one for the Prince, because of the Dewan Bahadur’s patriotic sympathies, religious earnestness, and well recognized probity of character and able statesmanship. The Indian press have unanimously expressed their pleasure, and there is b u t ono opinion as to his fitness for the Dewanship of Indore, which office, in fact, he held from 1875 to the close of 1879. How deep an interest he takes in our Society was seen in the report – copied into last month’s Theosophist, from the Indian Mirror – of his address at Col. Olcott’s recent lecture at Triplicane. By his request he will be continued as a non-resident member of the Executive Council and another resident gentleman be added.

He was still an active TS member in his later years. In 1905, he was a founder and first president of the Chitaldrug Branch of the T. S. in Mysore State.