Christian Ashram Movement

The Christian Ashram Movement (not to be confused with the United Christian Ashram movement) is a movement within Christianity in India that embraces Vedanta and the teachings of the East, attempting to combine the Christian faith with the Hindu ashram model and Christian monasticism with the Hindu sannyasa tradition.

The "father" of the Christian Ashram movement was Italian Jesuit Roberto de Nobili, a Christian missionary to India who decided to overcome the cultural obstacles to his mission by adopting the various forms of a Hindu sannyāsi. He was followed in this by Brahmabandhab Upadhyay, who was not a missionary but an Indian Brahmin who converted to Catholicism. His writing publicized several ideas in the movement, including the identification of the Saccidananda with the Christian Holy Trinity, an identification coined by Keshub Chandra Sen in 1882. He also founded an ashram Kasthalic Matha, although it didn't last long.

Following Upadhyay and Sen came French priest Jules Monchanin (who was later to adopt the name Parma Arupi Anananda), and French Benedictine monk Henri le Saux (who was later to adopt the name Abhishiktananda), the co-founders of Saccidananda Ashram (also called Shantivanam) an ashram founded in 1938 at Tannirpalli in Tiruchirapalli District and still surviving into the 21st century. Upadhyay was also an influence upon Bede Griffiths., who co-founded Kurisumala Ashram with Francis Mahieu and who took over leadership of Saccidananda Ashram after Monchanin's death and le Saux's decision to leave for his hermitage.

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