Ashish, Sri Madhava (1920–1997) Vaishnavite
guru
Sri Madhava Ashish was the successor to Sri
Krishna PREM as head of the Uttar Brindavan Ash-
ram at Mirtola village, near Almora in the foothills
of the Himalayas in Uttaranchal state.
Alexander Phipps was born on February 23,
1920, to Protestant parents, Lt. Col. Henry Ramsey
Phipps and Lorna Campbell Phipps. His father
was an artillery officer and his great-grandfather,
a Scottish laird. Alexander attended Sherborne
Public School and the College of Aeronautical
Engineering at Chelsea, London. He was described
as an avid reader but “not successful at school.” In
general, he was shy and reserved. Before complet-
ing a degree, he went to India to help in the World
War II war effort as an aircraft engineer by repair-
ing crashed planes at Dum Dum Airport, Kolkata.
While in India he met Sri Ramana MAHARSHI
in Tiruvannamalai. Fired by his meeting with the
South Indian saint, he decided not to return to
England after the war ended. He joined the Uttar
Brindavan Ashram (founded in 1929) at Mirtola
village in the Kumaon region of the Himalayas
as a BRAHMACHARYA under his guru, Sri Krishna
Prem. In 1947, Krishna Prem gave him the vows
of sannyas (renunciation) under the Gaudiya
Sampradaya (see GAUDIYA MAT H) and named him
Madhava Ashish. The Gaudiya Sampradaya of
VAISHNAVISM is associated with Sri Radha Raman
Temple at BRINDABAN, the birthplace of Lord
KRISHNA; it follows strict vegetarianism and devo-
tion to the deity Krishna.
After taking up discipleship, Ashish followed
a strict Vaishnavite regimen in food, dress, con-
duct, and sacramental worship. However, in 1957
he and his guru, Sri Krishna Prem, decided
to simplify the rigid framework of full Vaish-
navite orthodox discipline, so that it would speak
directly to the seekers who increasingly visited
Mirtola for spiritual guidance. They advocated a
system of self-inquiry, which encouraged disciples
to search for the mystery at the root of their own
being and to find their essential nature apart from
the psychophysical ego personality. The attempt
was to merge individual consciousness with the
uniting source of all life, a higher center of aware-
ness accessible to all.
Madhava Ashish oversaw a discipline that
included MEDITATION; service in the temple; assid-
uous self-inquiry through introspection, dream
analysis, self-remembering, and development of
a witnessing awareness in all activities in order to
harmonize the inner and outer life. In addition to
practices of the Vaishnavite tradition, his teaching
drew on the wisdom of others, including NISAR-
GADATTA Maharaj and the Greek-Armenian teacher
G. I. Gurdjieff.
In addition to guiding disciples at Uttar Brin-
davan Ashram, Madhava Ashish served as a mem-
ber of the Committee for Hill Development (of
the Himalaya region) for India’s premier planning
body. He was awarded the Padma Shree by the
government of India in 1993 for his contribu-
tion to scientific farming. He was also actively
involved with environmental work, including
sustainable farming, water harvesting, animal
husbandry, environmental education, and efforts
against deforestation.
After his death on April 13, 1997, leadership
of Uttar Brindavan Ashram was taken up by his
disciple Dev Ashish. The ashram does not have a
Web site; its address is P.O. Mirtola, Via Panwa-
naula, District Almora, Uttaranchal-263 623.Further reading: Madhava Ashish, Man, Son of Man
(London: Rider, 1970); ———, Man, Son of Man in the
Stanzas of Dzyan (Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publish-
ing House, 1970); ———, Relating to Reality (New
Delhi: Banyan Books, 1998); ———, Relating to Reality:
Relating the Metaphysical Roots of Value to Their Applica-
tions in Every Field of Human Activity (New Delhi: Ban-
yan Books, 1998); Seymour B. Ginsburg, In Search of the
Unitive Vision (Boca Raton, Fla.: New Paradigm, 2001);
Krishna Prem and Madhava Ashish, Man, the Measure
of All Things, in the Stanzas of Dzyan (London: Rider,
1969); Madhu Tandan, Faith and Fire: A Way Within
(New Delhi: HarperCollins, 1997).Ashish, Sri Madhava 49 J