The Philosophy of Spirit

Tallapragada Subba Row (July 6, 1856 - June 24, 1890) was a mystic and a Theosophist from a Hindu background.

In 1882, he invited Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott to Madras (now Chennai), where he convinced them to make Adyar the permanent headquarters for the Theosophical Society. Upon this meeting and thereafter, Subba Row became able to recite whatever passage was so requested of him from the Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, and many other sacred texts of India. He had, apparently, never studied these things prior to the fateful meeting, and it is stated that when meeting Blavatsky and Damodar K. Mavalankar, all knowledge from his previous lives came flooding back.

Among the many memorable works he left to humanity, they include his commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, Esoteric Writings, and his Collected Writings in two volumes.

The essay The Philosophy of Spirit, that we propose to our readers today, was written in December 1883 and included in the Subba Row’s Collection of Esoteric Writings, published for the Bombay Theosophical Publication Fund by Rajaram Tookaram in Bombay in 1910.