Prabhavananda, Swami (1893–1976) . Hindu monk of the Ramakrishna Order. Gerald Heard introduced Isherwood to Swami Prabhavananda in July 1939. On their second meeting Prabhavananda began to instruct Isherwood in meditation, and in November he initiated Isherwood, giving him a mantram and a rosary. From February 1943 until August 1945 Isherwood lived monastically at the Hollywood Vedanta Center, but decided he could not become a monk as Swami wished. (Isherwood invariably pronounced it Shwami, as he had been taught phonetically by Prabhavananda.) He remained Prabhavananda’s disciple and close friend for life. Their relationship is described in My Guru and His Disciple, which is based on the many passages about Prabhavananda in Isherwood’s diaries.
Prabhavananda was born in a Bengali village northwest of Calcutta and was originally named Abanindra Nath Ghosh. As a teenager he read about Ramakrishna and about his disciples Vivekananda and Brahmananda, and he met Ramakrishna’s widow, Sarada Devi. At eighteen, he visited the Belur 342
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Math––the chief monastery of the Ramakrishna Order beside the Ganges outside Calcutta––where he met Brahmananda and was so affected that he briefly abandoned his studies in Calcutta to follow him. Because he was studying philosophy, Abanindra returned to Belur Math regularly for instruction in the teachings of Shankara, but he still placed greater importance on his political beliefs and became involved in militant opposition to British rule, mostly as a propagandist. After a second peculiarly compelling experience with Brahmananda, he suddenly decided to give up his political activities and become a monk. He took his final vows in 1921, when his name was changed to Prabhavananda.
In 1923 Prabhavananda was sent to the United States to assist the swami at the Vedanta Society in San Francisco; later he opened a new center in Portland, Oregon. He was joined in Portland by Sister Lalita and, in 1929, founded the Vedanta Society of Southern California in her house in Hollywood, 1946 Ivar Avenue. Several other women joined them. By the mid-1930s the society began to expand and money was donated to build a temple, which was dedicated in July 1938. Prabhavananda remained the head of the Hollywood Center until he died.
Isherwood and Prabhavananda worked on a number of books together, including a translation of the Bhagavad Gita (1944), and Prabhavananda contributed to two collections on Vedanta edited by Isherwood. Also, Prabhavananda persuaded Isherwood to write a biography of Ramakrishna, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1964).
pranam. A salutation of respect made by folding the palms, or by touching the saluted one’s feet and then touching one’s own forehead (i.e., taking the dust of the saluted one’s feet), or by prostrating.
prasad. Food or any other gift that has been consecrated by being offered to God or to a saintly person in a Hindu ceremony of worship; the food is usually eaten as part of the meal following the ritual, or the gift given to the devotees.
Pritchett, V. S. (1900–1997) . British literary critic, short story writer, and novelist; raised mostly in various suburbs of London. He worked abroad as a photographer and journalist before publishing his first novel in 1929. His short stories began to appear in London magazines such as The Cornhill and The New Statesman during the 1920s and were later collected in diverse volumes; he also contributed criticism to The New Statesman for several decades, and was its literary editor just after World War II, when Isherwood saw him in London.
Pritchett’s literary-critical books include The Living Novel (1946) and studies of Balzac, Turgenev, and George Meredith. He also published two volumes of autobiography.
puja. Hindu ceremony of worship; usually offerings––flowers, incense, food
––are made to the object of devotion, and other ritual, symbolic acts are also carried out depending upon the occasion.
quota visa. The U.S. Immigration Act of 1924, known as the Quota Act, dictated that the number of immigrants admitted annually from any one country could not exceed two per cent of the existing U.S. population deriving from that same national origin (as determined by the 1890 census), although a Glossary
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minimum quota of 100 immigrants was permitted to all countries. As the vast majority of Americans at that time traced their ancestry to Great Britain, British nationals could immigrate with ease.
Rainey, Ford (b. 1908) . American actor, born in Idaho. Rainey made his professional stage debut in 1932 and had acted on Broadway by 1939, but his roles were small. During the 1950s and early 1960s he appeared in a few Hollywood films, including Westerns, and went on to act for television shows such as Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Perry Mason. He divorced his first wife in 1950, then married again in 1954.
Ramakrishna (1836–1886) . The Hindu holy man whose life inspired the modern renaissance of Vedanta. He is widely regarded as an incarnation of God. Ramakrishna, originally named Gadadhar Chattopadhyaya, was born in a Bengali village sixty miles from Calcutta. He was a devout Hindu from boyhood, practiced spiritual disciplines such as meditation, and served as a priest. A mystic and teacher, in 1861 he was declared an avatar: a divine incarnation sent to reestablish the truths of religion and to show by his example how to ascend towards Brahman. Ramakrishna was initiated into Islam, and he had a vision of Christ. His followers gathered around him at Dakshineswar and later at Kashipur. His closest disciples, trained by him, later formed the nucleus of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, now the largest monastic order in India. Ramakrishna was worshipped as God in his lifetime; he was conscious of his mission, and he was able to transmit divine knowledge by a touch, look, or wish. Isherwood wrote a biography, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1964), an official project of the Ramakrishna Order.
Ram Nam. A sung service of ancient Hindu prayers which invoke the divinities Rama, his wife Sita, and the leader of Rama’s army, Hanuman. In Ramakrishna practice, Ram Nam is sung on Ekadashi, the eleventh day after the new or the full moon, a day generally observed by devout Hindus with worship, meditation, and fasting.
Rapper, Irving (1898–1999) . Hollywood film director, born in London.
Rapper directed for the stage before becoming an assistant director at Warner Brothers in the 1930s. His films include Now Voyager (1942), The Corn is Green (1945), Rhapsody in Blue (1945), Deception (1946), The Voice of the Turtle (1947), The Glass Menagerie (1950), The Brave One (1956), and Marjorie Morningstar (1958).
Rassine, Alexis (1919–1992). Ballet dancer; his real name was Alec Raysman.
He was born in Lithuania of Russian parents and, from about ten years old, was brought up in South Africa. He studied ballet there and in Paris, joined the Ballet Rambert in 1938, and danced with several other companies before joining the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1942, where he became a principal and a star.
Reed, John (1887–1920) . American journalist. Born in Portland, Oregon, and educated at Harvard. Reed was a radical leftist and began his career covering American textile and mining strikes and reporting on Pancho Villa’s role in the Mexican Revolution. He was a war correspondent in Europe during World War I and became involved with the Bolshevik leadership in 344
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Russia. In 1917 he reported on the Bolshevik coup and then returned home for a time to try to establish a communist party in the U.S. He died in Russia and was buried in the Kremlin. Much of his reporting was published or republished in book form: Insurgent Mexico (1914), The War in Eastern Europe (1916), Red Russia (1919), and the work on the Bolshevik take-over for which he is most widely known, Ten Days That Shook the World (1919). He is the subject of Warren Beatty’s film Reds (1981).