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Benares League of Portland, Oregon records.
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Collection Overview
Title:
Benares League of Portland, Oregon recordsCreator/Contributor:
Benares League of Portland (Or.), creator, creator.Creator/Contributor:
Hari Rama, Yogi, 1885-, author.Creator/Contributor:
Everest, Loraine E., creator.Creator/Contributor:
Hartsook, Fred, 1876-1930, photographer.Abstract:
Contains mostly correspondence to and from the Portland, Oregon chapter of the Benares League of America and other chapters.
Also includes a small amount of material concerning the founder of the Benares League, Mohan Singh (later Yogi Hari Rama),
including an original black-and-white silver gelatin portrait of him (7 x 9 inches) by California photographer Fred Hartsook,
"Super Yoga" printed diagrams, and 3 different versions of a pamphlet entitled "The Human Life and Destiny."
Date:
1928 (issued)Subject:
n-us-ca -- n-us-or -- n-us---Yogis -- California -- Los Angeles
Yogis -- United States
Yoga -- Study and teaching -- United States
Yoga -- Study and teaching
Yogis
California -- Los Angeles
United States
Benares League of Portland (Or.) -- Archives
Benares League of America -- Archives
Yogi -- Hari Rama -- 1885-
Yogi -- Hari Rama -- 1885- -- Portraits
Note:
Purchase From Nat DesMarais Rare Books ; 2019.
Yogi Hari Rama (born Mohan Singh, March 13, 1885 in Himmatpura, Punjab, India) emigrated to the United States via Havana,
Cuba aboard the vessel Oratava on February 6, 1904. He settled first in Chicago, where he worked as a domestic servant. He
then enrolled in the Glen Curtiss flying school in San Diego, became the first licensed pilot from India, and performed with
the Curtiss-Wright Aviators aerial circus. He also flew Curtiss-Wright hydroplanes with the famed aviator, Lincoln Beachey,
and later worked as a butler and chauffeur in Los Angeles, California. After his U.S. citizenship was stripped from him in
1924, Singh turned to teaching yoga and an amalgam of Hindu and various other religious teachings, and went by the names Dr.
Hari Mohan and Yogi Hari Rama. At the end of a lecture tour in 1928, Hari Rama vanished without a trace in what was apparently
a planned "disappearance" and was never heard from again.
The Benares League of Portland, Oregon was one of 50 chapters of the Benares League of America, an organization of yoga studies
that was founded by Yogi Hari Rama. After his disappearance the Benares League of America was created to carry on Hari Rama's
teachings under the guidance of 13 appointed "Disciples," but without their leader conflicts arose and interest waned; yet
the organization was still holding quarterly meetings as late as 1938. At one point the Benares League was the largest yoga
organization in the United States.
Benares League of Portland, Oregon records, BANC MSS 2019/207, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
In English.
Type:
Archives.Photographs.
Portraits.
Photographs.
Physical Description:
print
0.2 (1
Language:
English