Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa

Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa (16 December 1875, British Ceylon – 18 June 1953, United States) was a Ceylonese author, occultist, freemason and theosophist. The fourth president of the Theosophical Society, Jinarajadasa was one of the world's foremost Theosophical authors, having published more than 50 books and more than 1600 articles in periodicals during his life. His interests and writings included religion, philosophy, literature, art, science and occult chemistry. He was also a rare linguist, who had the ability to work in many European languages.

Early life Jinarajadasa was born on 16 December 1875 in Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) to a family of Sinhalese parents. He was one of the first students of Ananda College, Colombo. In 1889, when Charles Webster Leadbeater, the first principal of Ananda College was asked by A.P. Sinnett to come back to England to tutor his son, Leadbeater agreed and also brought one of his pupils, Jinarajadasa, to England with him. Thanks to Leadbeater, Jinarajadasa went to St John's College, Cambridge where he studied oriental languages and four years later took his Degree in the Oriental Languages Tripos.

Career He then came back to Ceylon and became the vice principal of Ananda College in Colombo. Jinarajadasa returned to Europe, to study at the University of Pavia, Italy. He soon became proficient in Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Around 1904 he visited Chicago, where he met and influenced Weller van Hook, the well-known surgeon and author, who then became a theosophist. During his lifetime, Jinarajadasa traveled to many countries despite all the war difficulties of that era for his devoted service to Theosophy.

He also traveled to South America, where he lectured in Spanish and Portuguese and founded branches of the Theosophical Society (TS). He was the Vice-President of the Theosophical Society from 1921 to 1928. After the death of Dr George Arundale in 1945, Jinarajadasa became president of the Theosophical Society Adyar. In 1949 he founded the School of Wisdom in Adyar, which attracted students from many countries. He was also a Freemason, joining Le Droit Humain also known as Co-Masonry. Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa was the president of Theosophical Society until his death on 18 June 1953 in the United States.

Personal life On 11 November 1916 (in Kensington, West London), Jinarajadasa married British feminist, Dorothy May Graham ( May Dorothea Graham; 19 March 1881 - 13 January 1963), who founded the Women's Indian Association (WIA) in Adyar with Annie Besant and Margaret Cousins in 1917. She accompanied him in his travels around the world for some years. At one stage of his life, he resided in Brazil.

By 1953, he declined renomination as president of the Theosophical Society due to poor health and installed Nilakanta Sri Ram as his successor. He visited America where he died on 18 June 1953 at the national headquarters of the Theosophical Society, called "Olcott". His body was cremated; half of his ashes were sent to Adyar for deposit in the Garden of Remembrance there. The rest were kept at Olcott until the late 1990s, when they were deposited in an American Garden of Remembrance created to receive them.

Works (selection) Jinarajadasa wrote many works on Theosophy, Theology, philosophy, literature, art and science. He also participated in Annie Besant's and Charles Leadbeater's researches on Occult Chemistry.

In 1913, Jinarajadasa was awarded the Subba Row Medal for his contribution to Theosophical literature. Christ the Logos, 1920 Clairvoyant Investigations, 1947 The Conventions of the Indian Constitution, 1921 Did Madame Blavatsky Forge the Mahatma Letters?, 1934 Practical Theosophy, 1918