Person · philosopher & educator

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Also known as J. Krishnamurti, JK, K

Date

1895–1986

Function

Learning & scholarship

Patron dynasty

British Raj · Indian Union

Confidence

Established / referenced

Connections (9)

• BirthplaceMadanapalle

  Jiddu Krishnamurti was born at Madanapalle on 11 May 1895 in a Telugu Brahmin family — his father Jiddu Narayaniah was a British Raj revenue officer and a Theosophist. The young Krishnamurti was identified at Adyar beach in 1909 by Theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater, who recognised an unusual spiritual aura around him; Annie Besant subsequently became his legal guardian. Madanapalle thus marks the beginning of the life that would take Krishnamurti from a small Rayalaseema town through the Theosophical Society's international promotion as the awaited World Teacher to his 1929 renunciation of that role and 57 years of independent public talks on consciousness, education and human transformation.

• Life routeAdyar, Chennai

  Jiddu Krishnamurti was brought from Madanapalle to Adyar in 1909 as a 14-year-old after Charles Webster Leadbeater identified him on the Adyar beach as having unusual spiritual qualities. Annie Besant became his legal guardian in 1912 after a court case against his father. The Theosophical Society headquarters at Adyar became central to his early life and education, and the setting for the Theosophical Society's 1911-1929 promotion of Krishnamurti as the vehicle of the awaited World Teacher through the Order of the Star in the East. Adyar connects Madanapalle with the international Theosophical movement and with the subsequent global philosophical career of Krishnamurti.

• FoundedRishi Valley School, Madanapalle

  Jiddu Krishnamurti founded Rishi Valley School near his birthplace Madanapalle in 1926, as the first institutional expression of his educational philosophy — education without conditioning, encouraging observation, inquiry and self-understanding. The school was initially founded by Krishnamurti within the Order of the Star in the East (the Theosophical Society's organisation promoting him as World Teacher), but after his 1929 dissolution of the Order the school was continued under the independent Rishi Valley Educational Trust (later Krishnamurti Foundation India, established 1928 and reorganised 1953). The school remains the oldest Krishnamurti school and the model for the subsequent Oak Grove (Ojai), Brockwood Park (England) and Rajghat Besant (Varanasi) schools he founded.

• Life routeOjai, California

  Jiddu Krishnamurti first visited Ojai, California in July 1922 at the invitation of the Theosophist A.P. Warrington. On 17 August 1922 under the pepper tree at Ojai, Krishnamurti had the formative mystical experience that he described in letters to Lady Emily Lutyens as 'the Process' — a continuing physical and spiritual transformation that would recur throughout his life. He later made Ojai his principal international base, visiting almost annually from 1924 to 1985 and establishing the Krishnamurti Foundation of America (1969) at the 100-acre Oak Grove campus. He gave his final talks there in 1985 and died at Ojai on 17 February 1986. His ashes were partly scattered at Ojai, Rishi Valley and Brockwood Park.

• FoundedBrockwood Park, England

  Jiddu Krishnamurti established his principal European educational and talking centre at Brockwood Park in Hampshire, England, when the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust (UK, established 1968) acquired the 36-hectare country estate in 1969. He founded Brockwood Park School in 1969 as an international co-educational boarding school for students aged 14-19, following the same educational philosophy of inquiry and non-conditioning as Rishi Valley (1926). Krishnamurti gave annual talks on the Brockwood Park lawns from 1969 to 1985; the Brockwood Park talks and the Ojai Oak Grove talks together constitute the two principal archives of his late philosophical statements. The 2001 Krishnamurti Centre at Brockwood for adult retreats continues his work.

• Disciple ofCharles Webster Leadbeater

  Charles Webster Leadbeater encountered the 14-year-old Jiddu Krishnamurti at the Adyar beach in April 1909 and identified him as possessing unusual spiritual qualities (specifically, the absence of selfishness in his aura in Leadbeater's clairvoyant reading). This encounter dramatically altered Krishnamurti's life, bringing him from his Madanapalle Telugu Brahmin family into the Theosophical Society's international network. Leadbeater and Annie Besant subsequently oversaw his education and preparation for the role of World Teacher that they believed he would fulfil. Krishnamurti was tutored by Leadbeater in Theosophical theology and by Besant in English, Latin and Western culture through the 1910s. Krishnamurti's 1929 dissolution of the Order of the Star rejected the Leadbeater-Besant framework that had identified him as World Teacher.

• Disciple ofAnnie Besant

  Annie Besant became Jiddu Krishnamurti's legal guardian in 1912 after a court case against Krishnamurti's father Jiddu Narayaniah (who had initially consented but then objected to his son's Theosophical education). She played a major role in his upbringing and education — bringing him to England in 1911, enrolling him at Oxford (where he failed to matriculate), and travelling with him across Europe and India through the 1910s-1920s. She publicly promoted Krishnamurti from 1911 as the awaited World Teacher through the Order of the Star in the East. Their relationship connects Krishnamurti's personal development with Besant's Theosophical movement and its headquarters at Adyar. Besant was present at Krishnamurti's 1929 dissolution of the Order and continued to support him publicly until her death in 1933.

• Member ofTheosophical Society

  Jiddu Krishnamurti's early life (1909-1929) was deeply embedded in the Theosophical Society under Besant's and Leadbeater's guidance. He was promoted internationally as the expected vehicle of the awaited World Teacher (Maitreya) and became the focus of the Order of the Star in the East (established 1911) which attracted 60,000 members at its peak. On 3 August 1929 at the Ommen Theosophical camp in the Netherlands he dissolved the Order of the Star before 3,000 members, declaring 'Truth is a pathless land' and rejecting organised spiritual authority. He subsequently withdrew from active Theosophical Society membership (though Besant and Leadbeater remained supportive) and began his independent philosophical work that continued for 57 years until his death in 1986.

• Court associationAldous Huxley

  Jiddu Krishnamurti developed a close intellectual friendship with Aldous Huxley from 1938 onwards after they met in Los Angeles — the two lived close to each other in the Hollywood Hills and later in Malibu. Their decades-long conversations explored consciousness, perception, meditation, human transformation and the limitations of conventional thought. Huxley wrote the preface to Krishnamurti's The First and Last Freedom (1954), introducing Krishnamurti to a wider Western intellectual audience. Huxley's 1962 novel Island drew heavily on Krishnamurti's educational and spiritual ideas (Pala, the fictional Island society, uses Krishnamurti-style school pedagogy). Their friendship helped introduce Krishnamurti's ideas to the mid-20th century Western intellectual circles that would develop the 1960s counterculture.

Sources

Standard biography; Krishnamurti Foundation archives.

• Wikipedia — Jiddu Krishnamurti