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This is a file in the correspondence of Thomas Merton under the heading: "Griffiths, Bede".
Bede Griffiths, born Alan Richard Griffiths, was born in England in 1906. He converted to Catholicism in the early 1930's and soon after joined a Benedictine monastery, Prinknash Abbey, and took the name Bede. Having later served as a Prior of Farnborough and then Pluscardin, during which time he gained an interest in Indian thought. He first asked to go to India to set up a monastic foundation, but was denied. Later, he was sent to India by the same abbot, but he was to be under the local bishop. From 1955-1958, he joined Fr. Francis Mahieu Acharya at Kurisumala Ashram (Mountain of the Cross), where they developed a Syriac rite monastic liturgy. Griffiths took the Sanskrit name Dhayananda, meaning "bliss of prayer". In 1963, he conducted a trip to the United States in which he engaged in an East-West dialog. (Source: Coff, Pascaline, O.S.B. "Man, Monk, Mystic." website of the Bede Griffiths Trust, accessed 2004/02/17. ‹http://www.bedegriffiths.com/bio.htm›)
Please click here for general restrictions concerning Merton's correspondence.
See also "Acharya, Francis Mahieu" file.
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.
This Record Sub-Group is not divided into Series and is arranged chronologically.
Click icons for links: ✓="Published | Library Record", ✉="Scanned" | 🗷="Scanned, Viewable Only at Merton Center"
| # | Date | From/To | First Lines | Pub ✓ | Notes |
| | y/m/d | Merton | | Scan ✉ | |
| 1. |
1966/11/26 (#01) |
HLS to Merton |
This country man of yours turned up a week ago, looking like a regular vagabond with long hair and |
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«detailed view» |
| 2. |
1966/11/26 (#02) |
HLS from Gilbert, Steven / to Merton |
I don't know how or even what to say, but in some way I must express the joy with which I climbed |
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[see verso of letter in "Griffiths, Bede" file for letter from Gilbert to Merton]
«detailed view» |
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