De Zirkoff on Subba Row

Boris de Zirkoff · Theosophy and Theosophists Series · 10 pages

Ten pages, de Zirkoff's tribute to Tallapragada Subba Row Garu — described as a learned occultist and Advaitee of the esoteric faith — from the compiler's notes in the Collected Writings volume V, pages 267 to 272. His essay on the twelve signs of the zodiac is held elsewhere on this site, in the First Proposition series, so this file supplies the man behind it.

He was a Vedantin of the Niyoga caste of the Smārta or Advaita Brāhmanas, born at Cocanāda on 6 July 1856, in the Godāvarī district on the Coromandel Coast, his vernacular tongue Telugu. The family was well placed — his grandfather was the Sheristadar of the district and his maternal uncle Diwan, prime minister, to the Rajah of Pithapuram — but his father died when he was six months old and the uncle brought him up. The detail de Zirkoff is careful to record is that at the Cocanada Hindu School he showed no unusual talents; the brilliance came later, at the Madras Presidency College, where he won his BA in 1876 at the top of his class. Sir T. Madhava Row, then Diwan of Baroda, offered him the registrarship of the High Court in that state, where he stayed about a year before returning to Madras and passing his BL examination. He chose the law, served his apprenticeship under Messrs Grant and Laing, and was enrolled a Vakil or pleader of the High Court late in 1880. His practice became very lucrative and, de Zirkoff notes, would probably have continued to bring him a good income had he not given most of his attention to philosophy instead — which is the turn on which the whole life hangs.

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