The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

MERTON'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH:
Brahmachari, Mahanambrata, 1904-1999

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Descriptive Summary

Record Group: Section A - Correspondence

Dates of materials: 1965

Volume: 2 item(s); 2 pg(s)

Scope and Content

Biography

The following memorial for Mahanambrata Brahmachari was written after his death in 1999 by Francis X. Clooney, SJ:

Bankim Dasgupta was born in 1904 in Bengal (in a part of India that is now in Bangladesh). In 1925 he was initiated in the Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition, founded by Sri Caitanya in the fifteenth century, specifically into a sect (the Mahanam Sampradaya) that focused on the power of God’s name, ‘Hari, Krishna’, and at this point took his familiar name Mahanambrata Brahmachari (which might be translated, ‘the monk whose dedication is entirely to the "great name"’). (Source: Clooney, Francis X., S.J. "In Memoriam: Mahanambrata Brahmachari (25 December 1904–18 October 1999)". The Merton Annual, No. 13 (October 2000): 123-126. website.)

Usage Guidelines and Restrictions

Related Information and Links

See also one published letter from Merton to Brahmachari in The Road to Joy, pp. 122-123. See also Merton's description of his friendship with Brahmachari in The Seven Storey Mountain, p 122-123.

Other Finding Aids

If the person in correspondence with Merton has full text records in the Merton Center Digital Collections, there will be a numeric link to them below.
   

Series List

This Record Sub-Group is not divided into Series and is arranged chronologically.

Container List

SeriesDateTypeTo/FromFirst LinesPubFull TextNotes
 1965/05/28 HLSto MertonMy heart-felt thanks for your remembrance. You so kindly remember me as I do you so dearly though  asking if Merton would invite him for an international religious gathering and pay for his travels back to the United States
 1965/08/08 TL[c]from MertonIt was a delight to get your letter dated May 28th, and I am sorry to see that so long a time hasYes looking into ways to facilitate Brahmachari's travel / problem of Merton's new "vanaprastha" retirement in his hermitage and the limit on visitors / meeting of East-West philosophers in Hawaii / Seymour Freedgood
        

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