DYNOWSKA, Wanda (Umādevī). St.Petersburg 30.6.1888 — Mysore 20.3.1971. Polish Theosophist in India. Born in Russia in a family of Polish nobility, daughter of Eustachy Dynowski and Helena Sokołowska. Grew up mainly in the family estate in present-day Latvia, educated at home. Studied in Cracow and Lausanne, during WW I in…
COUSINS, James Henry Sproull. Belfast 22.7.1873 — Madanapalle 20.2.1956. Irish author (poet and dramatist), critic and teacher. Born in a family of Huguenot origin, son of merchant James Cousins and Susan Davey. Worked as a clerk, in 1897 moved to Dublin, where he befriended with Joyce, Russell and Yeats, living…
COHEN, Sulman Samuel. Basra, Iraq 1895 — Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai 1980. A Baghdadi Jew in India. Eldest of the eleven children of a very poor Jewish family he came to Bombay as a young man, worked as shop assistant and trained as accountant. There he also joined Theosophical Society and…
BOISSEVAIN, Jan Wilhelm. Amsterdam 27.9.1874 — Velp, Rheden, Gelderland 24.3.1959. Dutch Indologist and Theosophist. Son of Gideon Maria Boissevain and Louise Caroline toe Laer. Ph.D. 1905 Leiden (under Speyer). Gymnasium teacher of Dutch and History in Amsterdam. Publications: Diss. Het indische tooneelstuk Prabodhacandrodaya. 1. Toelichting en beoordeeling. 400 p. Leiden…
BLAVATSKY, Helena Petrovna (née Hahn, Russian Jelena Petrovna Blavatskaja, née Gan). Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipro in Ukraine) 12.8.1831 — London 9.5.1891. Russian Noblewoman, the Founder of the Theosophical Society. Born in Ukraina as daughter of colonel Peter Hahn, of a noble family of Mecklenburg settled in Russia. Married at 17 a…
BESANT, Annie (née Wood). London 1.10.1847 — Adyar (Madras) 19.9.1933. British Theosophist. Daughter of William Burton Persse Wood (1816–1852) and Emily Morris, an English-Irish family. Lost early her father, educated privately in England, Germany and France. Married Rev. Frank Besant (d. 1917) in 1867, but was legally separated from him…
BENNETT, Charles Henry Allan (Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya Thera). London 8.12.1872 — London 9.3.1923. British Bauddha. Son of an engineer, lost early his father. He grew up in a strictly Roman Catholic home, but left church in his teens. Educated in Bath. Studied science (analytical chemistry), suffered of constant sickness. Became…
BAYNES, Herbert Morton Walker. Kensington, Middlesex / Bayswater, Westminster 2.2.1855 — Cumberland / Manly, both in NSW, Australia 1.9.1928. British Scholar of Indian Religions, a Theosophist. In peoplepill briefly called “British Civil Servant and Orientalist”, and werelate.org adds “Translator in the High Court in London. Was fluent in 22 languages”.…
BARBORKA, Geoffrey Avery. Chicago 6.9.1897 — 30.9.1982. U.S. Theosophist. Son of Vaclav Barborka, a Theosophist with Czechoslovakian origin, and Bozena Peshek, grew up in Theosophical headquarters in Point Loma, California. High School and College there, graduated 1920, then studies at the local Theosophical University (B.A. 1929, M.A. 1935) beside working…