My Great Grandfather - Pandit G Krishna Sastri.

My great grandfather Pandit G Krishna Sastri, born on 5th February 1863, into a distinguished & well known brahmin family in the then Malabar was the editor & publisher of "Arya Siddhanta Chandrika" in Malayalam, the "Hindu Heritage" & the "Madras Chronicle" in English.

He was also closely associated with Col HS Olcott, the founder of the Theosophical Society in Adyar, Chennai & later with Annie Besant. He came in contact with the great Appayacharya, the then Vedanta Bhashyakara, and the resuscitator of the synthetic system of "Sankhya Yoga" of the 108 Upanishads in 1892 & he was entrusted with the diffusion of the doctrines of "Anubhavadvaita".My great grandfather worked towards this for the most part of his life. In 1901 he published "Sri Rama Gita" a Sanskrit text with 1000 verses along with an English translation.

He is the author of a book called "Democratic Hinduism" and the entire "Anubhavadvaita" system. He founded the O.P.C.L in the then Madras in 1904 for publishing the literature pertaining to this system. He founded the Vedic Mission in 1909. He brought out more than 100 publications in the "Arya Siddhanta Chandrika" series, the Bharati series, and the Vedic Lore series. He devoted his whole time, energy, resources, and enthusiasm to carry forward the work of his Acharya. The book "Democratic Hinduism" is available in the Adyar Library, has now been made available as an open-source in many units in the US, was digitized & is now available on Amazon too! Even though my grandfather had completed his graduation, he went & studied Sanskrit further at the Benaras Hindu University at the behest of Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya who happened to be a friend/confidante of my great grandfather.! My mother's uncles were all graduates from BHU those days..I guess that is why Sanskrit runs in their family with most of them being Sanskrit graduates incl my maa. The lockdown enabled me to look through books preserved by my mother & I discovered so many treasures.

There are innumerable works by many many knowledgeable pandits who have been mostly unheard, unsung those days..their efforts at preserving our heritage has been immense.

I now feel people like us should try & help to preserve what is available in aplenty, study them, and perhaps pass them on to our next. How otherwise are we going to preserve our rich culture, heritage & dharma?