Early American Woman Sanskrit Pioneer

[Guest guest]

Hello Everyone,

 

Recently a friend of mine found quite a useful Sanskrit resource book in

a used bookstore. It was old, but very good. It looked very old

fashioned, the cover could have been vogue in the 30's- it looked that old.

 

The authors name, an obscure and unlikely "Judith Tyberg".

 

So at home, I'm reading this book, and finding it one of the richest

practical resource books to studying Hindu, Sanskrit, Vedic, Puranic

culture in general. I was blown away.

 

So I go on the web and look her up, and find this article, and her

picture. I'm passing it on to show that a woman made a significant

series of "first" in the bringing of Sanskrit culture to the West.

 

A woman, and a white woman.

 

Here's to one of our early heroes.

 

-Das Goravani

 

------

 

 

Jyotipriya, the Lover of Light

 

about: Judith M. Tyberg

 

(a short biographical sketch adapted from the article in Mother India by

Mandakini)

 

Jyotipriya was born Judith Tyberg on May 17, 1902, in California, to

Danish parents who were Theosophists. Throughout the nine months of her

gestation, her mother, a serious student of Oriental philosophy,

chanted a Vedic hymn to the newly embodied soul. At an early age, Judy

could recite section of the Gita by heart.

 

Educated at the Theosophical Society's Point Loma Raja Yoga School and

The Theosophical University, Judith learnt from a young age about karma,

reincarnation and meditation. She received her M.A. in Religion and

Philosophy from the Theosophical University, with a specialization in

Oriental Thought. Here she also obtained another graduate degree in

Sacred Scriptures and Ancient Civilizations and her doctorate in

Sanskrit Studies.

 

>From very early on, Judith knew that her destiny was to teach and help

others. While still a teenager, she began to formally teach in the Raja

Yoga School. Later she taught in the High School and the Theosophical

University. She was Assistant Principal of the Raja Yoga School from

1932 - 1935 and held the post of Dean of Studies at the Theosophical

University from 1935 - 1945. To all her teaching, she brought a breadth

of erudition and an intellectual brilliance that matched the intensity

of her soul's call to serve.

 

Together with Gottfried de Purucker, Judith and a select group of

Theosophical scholars committed to print the meanings of all the

Sanskrit, Greek, Hebrew, Tibetan, Zoroastrian and technical terms used

in Theosophy. Then she began an intensive study of the Bible and the

Kabbalah in the original. But it was Sanskrit that became her passion

and her life's work.

 

In 1940, Judith was appointed Head of the Sanskrit and Oriental Division

of the Theosophical University. She became a member of the American

Oriental Society and in 1941, her first Sanskrit textbook, Sanskrit Keys

to the Wisdom Religion, was published, climaxing eleven years of

concentrated study.

 

"Sanskrit Keys" presented the meanings of over 500 Sanskrit terms used

in religious and occult literature, and was a practical pronounciation

guide. Set in Devanagari, it was the first occasion for the script to be

typed by linotype. By adapting a modern Indian Sanskrit keyboard, Judith

and Geoffrey Barborka of Point Loma designed a special Sanskrit

linotype, composed of dozens of matrices. It is worth noting that

Judith's "Sanskrit Keys" and "First Lessons in Sanskrit Grammar and

Reading" were the only books on Sanskrit to be found in the Central

Research Library in 1940's Los Angeles.

 

In 1947, at the age of 45, Judith left for India to work towards an M.A.

in Indian Religion and Philosophy at the Benares Hindu University. But

Judith had a deeper purpose - she had come on a spiritual quest. As she

explained at her first meeting with her departmental Chair, she had come

seeking the lost secret of the Veda. Indeed, she said, if all of India's

unfathomable spiritual culture acknowledged the authority of the Veda,

there must be illimitably more to it than what she had been given to

understand in America. The prevailing view of the time, promoted by Max

Meuller and other "Orientalists", was that the hymns of the Veda were at

best glorified Nature poetry, or more commonly, "an interesting remnant

of barbarism". She was told that she had come to the wrong place, that

the secret was still lost.

 

Disappointed, she turned to leave; but a young Philosophy lecturer by

the name of Arabinda Basu had overheard her conversation, and brought to

her a copy of Sri Aurobindo's "Bases of Yoga" and a typescript of his

not-yet-published "Secret of the Veda". Judith stayed awake reading all

night for in her hands, she discovered, were the answers she had been

seeking for so long.

 

In October 1947, Judith arrived at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at

Pondicherry. She reached on the evening of Lakshmipuja - just as the

Mother was about to give Pranams. At the touch of the Mother's hands on

her head, "electric forces" went right through her being. At her first

private meeting with the Mother, Judith expressed her longing to give

her life to all that was Beauty and Truth. "You chose long ago to

serve", was Mother's reply. She then told Judith that she and Sri

Aurobindo had been waiting for Judith to arrive. Judith asked the Mother

for a spiritual name. Next morning, the Mother handed her a chit written

in Sri Aurobindo's hand - "Jyotipriya, the Lover of Light", it read.

 

Jyotipriya accepted Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as her gurus. She

finished her studies at BHU and spent many hours with many of India's

illustrious spiritual personalities - Anandamoyee ma, Swami Sivananda of

Rishikesh, Yogi Krishna Prem, Ramana Maharshi and others. But the Sri

Aurobindo Ashram became her "spiritual home". Here, she found the answer

to her "deepest heart's longings since childhood", and in the Ashram

residents and close friends like Nolini Kanta Gupta, A.B. Purani, Indra

Sen, Sisir Mitra and Prithvi Singh, she found the "cream of Hindu

culture".

 

Jyotipriya left the Ashram in 1950, to return to America and become Sri

Aurobindo and the Mother's premier pioneer in the United States. On May

1, she founded the East-West Cultural Center in a small room in the home

of a friend in Los Angeles. In 1955, the Center moved to a home of its

own, with a 125-person capacity auditorium. Revered friends and eminent

personages from India such as Swami Chidananda, Swami Ramdas, Mother

Krishnabai, Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Puri, V.K. Gokak, Madhusudhan

Reddy, Dilip Roy and Indira Devi, brought their light to shine. Swamis

Muktananda, Satchidananda, and Visnudevananda were all early East-West

Cultural Center guests.

 

"Judith Tyberg is at home in the library sharing the wisdom and yoga of

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother" - was the heading for her Thursday night

satsangs on the East-West Cultural Center Bulletin of Events. Those

evenings she would sit in the library before Sri Aurobindo and the

Mother's photographs and read with golden glow about the Master's Yoga

which encompassed all life, and his vision of a glorious future for

humanity, ot the Mother's expert instructions for voyaging to Tomorrow.

 

She spoke out of the realization of her soul, for as one sadhika

observed, Jyoti "did not interpret or ever become vague, or indulge in

cliches, but seemed able to identify so completely with Sri Aurobindo

and the Mother that one continually felt their presence."

 

Anyone who stayed long enough in the company of Jyotipriya developed a

deep and sincere love for Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and grew in that

silent comradeship understood by devotees in this collective yoga for

world-transformation.

 

Jyotipriya left her body on October 3, 1980. For countless seekers,

through the history of the East-West Cultural Center, she was truly "a

golden bridge".

 

-------------------

 

I also found a quote by her on Prabhupada's books:

 

 

"Swami Bhaktivedanta has offered to devotees of God a blessed service

with his English translations and commentaries. The universal

application of these truths is shown to be a promised blessing in these

times of challenge when light is illumining darkness. Truly this is a

holy, inspired writing for all aspiring souls seeking the why, whence

and whither of life!"

 

Dr. Judith M. Tyberg

Founder and Director

East-West Cultural Center, Los Angeles, California

Attachment: (image/gif) JudTyb.gif [not stored]

[Guest guest]

>

> Recently a friend of mine found quite a useful Sanskrit resource

book in

> a used bookstore. It was old, but very good. It looked very old

> fashioned, the cover could have been vogue in the 30's- it looked

that old.

>

> The authors name, an obscure and unlikely "Judith Tyberg".

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear DAS

 

 

Thanks for this article - Dr Tyberg's 'Keys' was my first book on

Sanskrit......

 

 

For all interested - there are Mrs Tyberg's books available from

Amazon:

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/Author=Tyberg%2C%20Judith/107-474819

0-5512518

 

 

 

 

 

best regards

Hans