The Christian ashram of Śantivanam – the ‘grove of peace’ – is situated on the banks of the Kauvery river some miles from the great temple city of Tiruchirappalli, in Tamil Nadu. Founded by two remarkable Frenchmen, Jules Monchanin and Henri le Saux in the early 1950s, it is now very much associated with the memory of Bede Griffiths, an extraordinary English monk who came to India, he said, to discover ‘the other half of my soul’. Bede started his Indian sojourn at the monastery of Kurusumala, now a thriving community practising the Syriac style of Christian monasticism, high in the hills above Kottayam in Kerala. With the death of Monchanin and the increasing absence of le Saux (or Swami Abhishiktananda, as he came to be known), Bede moved to Śantivanam in 1968, remaining there for some twenty-five years until his death in 1993. Bede was everybody’s favourite guru – a teacher who had experienced the depths of the divine mystery and had an uncanny ability to communicate the truth of that inner conviction to others. The embodiment of the great tradition of the Benedictine host, he made everyone welcome, from Western searchers on the fringes of the hippy trail to local Indian Catholics who came, more out of suspicion than enthusiasm, to find out what this strange man with his eccentric ideas about dialogue with Hinduism was doing to their faith.

Bede also knew how to be a guest. When I stayed at Śantivanam years ago I accompanied him on a lengthy bus journey to the blessing of a new temple in a distant village. We arrived to an enthusiastic welcome. As the Brahmin priests processed around the temple and water that had been taken from various sacred rivers was poured over the śikhara, the spire which covered the central sanctuary, Bede sat in reverent attention. When eventually we retired to the house of one of the village elders for a meal and a welcome respite from the heat of the midday sun, Bede was given the place reserved for the chief guest. He was received as a sannyasi, honoured with all the rituals that would have been accorded to a Hindu holy man. No distinctions were made about faith. Respect was offered and received on both sides. With his long white hair, lively piercing eyes and gracious manners he seemed at times like a misplaced relic of the Raj. But he was also thoroughly at home in his adopted land. To listen to his Christian commentary on the BhagavadGita on a balmy summer evening as the sun set over the river was to be taken into the depths of a very Indian mysticism.