MEES, Gualtherus Hendrik (Sadhu Ekarasa). Rotterdam 6.8.1903 — Orsett, Essex 5.6.1955. Dutch Scholar of Religion. Son of Abraham Cornelis Mees (1864–1950) and Louisa Hen van Rijnberk (1873–1949). M.A. 1928 Cambridge, in Law. Then student of Vogel. LL.D. Leiden. He became a follower of Ramana Maharshi, went to India before the…
MAUSS, Marcel. Épinal (Vosges) 10.5.1872 — Paris 10.2.1950. French Sociologist and Anthropologist. Born in an Alsatian Jewish family, son of merchant Gerson Mauss and Rosine Durkheim. Studied philosophy at Bordeaux under his famous uncle É. Durkheim. After agregation (1895) studied Sanskrit (S. Lévi) and comparative religion in Paris. He had…
MASSON-OURSEL, Paul Louis. Paris 5.9.1882 — Paris 17.3.1956. French Indologist. Studied Indology (Foucher and Lévi), philosophy (Bergson) and sociology (Durkheim and Mauss), also some Chinese (Chavannes). Agrégé 1906, Ph.D. 1923. Participated in WW I as sergeant. From 1919 chargé de conférences, from 1927 Directeur d’études at É.P.H.É., sciences religieuses, in…
MASSON, Joseph. Montegnés 21.9.1908 — Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Brussels 1998. Father, S.J. Belgian Indologist, Catholic Priest and Theologian (Scholar of Religions and Missions). Studies at Collège Saint-Servais in Liège and at Jesuit College of Louvain (Leuven). Ordained 1938. Studies at Louvain University. Dr. en philosophie et histoire orientales 1942 Louvain. Professor at…
MASPÉRO, Henri Paul Gaston. Paris 15.12.1883 — Buchenwald 17.3.1945. French Sinologist. Son of the Egyptologist Gaston Maspéro (1846–1916, of Italian ancestry) and Louise Balluet d’Estournelles de Constant de Rebecque. After school in Paris he began himself with a study on Hellenistic Egypt, but soon turned into Sinology under —> Chavannes…
MASON, Francis. York 2.4.1799 — Rangoon 3.3.1874. Rev. British Missionary in Burma, a Scholar of Pāli and Karen, lay Botanist. Son of Thomas Mason, a shoemaker and Baptist preacher, born in York “where his grandfather had founded a Baptist Society.” Worked himself as shoemaker with his father, but “in 1818…
MARSHMAN, Joshua. Westburg Leigh, Wiltshire 20.4.1768 — Serampur 5.12.1837. British Missionary and Pioneer of Indology in India. Son of John Marshman, a weaver, and Mary Couzener, educated at the village school of Westbury Leigh. Apprenticed to a bookseller he read extensively. In 1794-99 Master of a Baptist school in Bristol,…
MARCO DELLA TOMBA (lay Pietro Girolamo Agresti). Tomba (now Castel Colonna) near Senigallia in Urbino 1726 — Bhagalpur (Patna) 13.3. (or 7.6.) 1803. Father. Italian Capuchin Missionary, in India 1757-73 & 1786-1803. Son of Crisostomo Agresti and Vittoria Luzietti, Capuchin novice 1745. In 1755 he joined the Tibetan mission of…
MANEN, Mari Albert Johan van. Nijmegen 16.4.1877 — Calcutta 17.4.1943. Dutch Librarian and Theosophist in India. Son of Reinier Otto van Manen, an engineer in state service, and Maria Albertina Johanna van Tricht, grew up in Zutphen and Haarlem. After a chequered youth, more interested in art and politics than…
MANDELSLO, Johann Albrecht von (Johan Albert von M.). Schönberg, Mecklenburg 15.5.1616 — Paris 16.5.1644. German Traveller in India. Son of Hermann Clamor von Mandelslo (1573–1648), an administrator, and Anna Pflug. Started 1636 his travels together with his friend Adam Olearius (1599–1671) in Holstenian embassy to Persia, on his own he…