Harichandra Chintamon

Sir,—In compliance with your request of April 2nd to inform you of the total amount of money sent by order of the Council, from New York, by our Society to the Ârya Samaj, I beg leave to inform you of the following:

Since August 1878 Mr. Harichandra Chintamon, then President of the Ârya Samaj of Bombay, has acknowledged the receipt of Rs. 609-3-4 in a bill and receipts which I hold at your disposal.

Moreover, as you will find in the copies (herewith enclosed) from his original accounts, when called by me to either deliver the said sum to the Samaj or return it to myself, who, as Secretary of the Theosophical Society and Treasurer, since my departure from America, of the funds of the Society, was the responsible party in all such accounts. Mr. Harichandra Chintamon deducted from the said sum of Rs. 609-3-4, 53 rupees and 12 annas for the following expenditures to Ârya Samaj:

As to the list of things, that were given by the New York Theosophists to Mr. Harichandra Chintamon as President of the Samaj, they desired to join, I can only satisfy you as to those things that I handed to him personally. There were photographic portraits of fellows both of America and England who had sent their likeness to their brothers of the Ârya Samaj and had all written on the back of the cards to that effect, professing their faith and signing their names. If I mistake not, there were five or six of these, namely D. H. J. Billing, Mrs. Billing, C. C. Massey, President of the London Branch, Rev. Dr. Ayton, Palmer Thomas, W. Q. Judge and a few others which were sent from America. Also, a large gold and turquoise cover with five musical pieces, to place therein the photographic cards of all the fellows of the Ârya Samaj was brought by one from America and presented to Mr. Harichandra Chintamon for the Samaj. But, as I had the imprudence never dreaming that his name would be struck off so soon, as president and then member of our Samaj—to have engraved upon the plate of the Album not the name of the Ârya Samaj but that of its president as follows:

“Harichandra Chintamon
from
H. P. B.”

Legally he has the right to keep it, notwithstanding that when delivering it to him on the first day of our arrival, in the presence of Colonel Olcott and others I distinctly stated that the Album was for the Samaj to place in it the likenesses of its Western Members, some of whom had already forwarded with me their portraits and greetings to their Eastern Brothers.

I have no doubt though, that if called upon to deliver the Album to those for whom it was originally intended, Mr. Harichandra Chintamon will give it up, unless he desires to furnish an additional proof to the world how right was the Samaj to expel him from the midst of its members. I cannot yet believe, that for the sake of getting final possession of an object hardly worth 75 dollars, anyone calling himself a gentleman would ever condescend to do such a thing legally. I repeat it again—he has a right to it; but, if he avails himself of this right, then it will remain with us American Theosophists to regret the more, that we should ever have placed our confidence and given our brotherly affection to one so little worthy of it.

Believe in the meanwhile,

Yours respectfully,

H. P. Blavatsky.

[Note: in Mahatma Letter No. 92, K.H. mentions the events related to the preceding article, thus: “. . . ex-theosophists such as Hurrychund Chintamon of Bombay now of Manchester and elsewhere; the man who robbed the Founders and Dayanand of Rs. 4,000, deceived and imposed upon them from the first (so far back as New York), and then exposed and expelled from the Society ran away to England and is ever since seeking and thirsting for his revenge.” For further background, see: Hurrychund Chintamon.]