In 1888, she read Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine,
an event that changed her life. She later said that
she found in the revelations of Theosophy answers
to questions that she had not found in socialism,
free thought, or Christianity. She resigned from the
National Secular Society, renounced socialism, and
became an ardent spokesperson for Theosophy.
After Blavatsky’s death in 1891, Besant became
the powerful head of the Esoteric section of the
Theosophical Society. After a tour of the United
States, where she addressed the World Parlia-
ment of Religions in Chicago, she moved to India,
which became her home and headquarters until
her death. She succeeded H. S. Olcott as president
of the Theosophical Society in 1907 and retained
the office until her death in 1933; she presided
over a time of rapid expansion of the society, after
a period of stagnation.
In 1909 Besant organized the Order of the Star
in the East, in order to prepare for Theosophy’s
predicted appearance of a world teacher, who
would help all of humanity evolve to higher con-
sciousness. When a young South Indian BRAHMIN
boy was found near the Theosophy compound
at Adyar, outside Madras (Chennai), she became
convinced that he, J. KRISHNAMURTI, would be the
instrument for the coming world teacher. After
receiving considerable grooming for the role of
Lord Maitreya, Krishnamurti abdicated the title
and suspended the Order of the Star in the East.
He continued to call Besant “mother,” but he
refused to accept the role of “world teacher” that
she felt he embodied.
Although she had abandoned her socialist
affiliations, Besant carried her social reform values
wherever she went. In India, the Theosophical
Society founded many schools in India, including
some of the first in the country for women. Politi-
cally, she fought for Indian independence from
British rule, and she was elected president of the
Indian National Congress in 1917.
To Blavatsky’s emphasis on Buddhism, Besant
added an emphasis on Hinduism to the Theo-
sophical corpus. She wrote with C. W. Leadbeater,
a Theosophist who was also an Anglican priest
and later bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church,
about the gifts of Hinduism and the East to eso-
teric wisdom in the West. Besant died on Septem-
ber 21, 1933, at the Theosophy compound.Further reading: O. Bennett, Annie Besant (London:
Hamish Hamilton, In Her Own Time Series, 1988); A.
W. Besant, The Ancient Wisdom (London: Theosophi-
cal Publishing House, 1910); ———, Autobiography
(Adyar, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1939);
———, The Bhagavad Gita or the Lord’s Song. Translated
by Annie Besant (Madras: Theosophical Publishing
House, 1953); ———, Esoteric Christianity (New York:
J. Lane, 1902); ———, Theosophical Lectures (Chicago:
Theosophical Society, 1907); A. H. Nethercot, The
First Five Lives of Annie Besant (London: RupertHart-
Davis, 1960); Catherine L. Wessinger, Annie Besant and
Progressive Messianism (1847–1933) (Lewiston, N.Y.:
Edwin Mellen Press, 1988).Bhadrabahu (c. 300 B.C.E.) early Jain leader
Bhadrabahu is revered by both DIGAMBARA and
SHVETAMBARA Jains (see JAINISM). Both sects regard
him as the last of the persons who knew all the
early sacred texts of the Jain tradition.
Bhadrabahu was born in Pundravardhan in
what is now Bangladesh, during the reign of
Chandragupta Maurya, the great Indian king.
According to the Digambara tradition he led a
large group of his adherents from North India
to Karnataka and thus introduced Jain tradition
to South India. That tradition further recounts
that on his return to Pataliputra (Patna) in the
north, he found that there had been an official
recension of the Jain scriptures; he and his
monk followers refused to accept this “new” Jain
canon. He also found that the northern monks
had taken up unacceptable practices, especially
the wearing of clothing, which is forbidden to
Digambara (sky-clad) monks. Bhadrabahu and
his adherents declared themselves to be the only
true Jains.K 72 Bhadrabahu