Pierre Fallon

Last updated

Pierre Fallon (24 September 1912, Namur, Belgium - 20 September 1985, Calcutta, India) was a Belgian Jesuit priest, missionary in India, Professor of French literature at the University of Calcutta. In 1950 he founded the dialogue centre Shanti Bhavan (with Robert Antoine) in Calcutta; in 1960 the similar Shanti Sadan in North Calcutta; and later took charge of Shanti Nir.

Contents

Education

Fallon entered the Society of Jesus in 1930, and came to Calcutta, India in 1935. He obtained Indian citizenship in 1950. He held a licentiate in Indology from the University of Louvain, a licentiate in philosophy, a licentiate in theology, and was the first Jesuit to obtain an MA in Bengali philology from Calcutta University. [1]

Work

He founded Shanti Bhavan with Robert Antoine in 1950, and contributed much to make it a living centre of intercultural and interfaith dialogue.

Ten years later he founded a similar Shanti Sadan in a much poorer and crowded area of North Calcutta, and later, after the sudden death of Louis Winckelmans took charge of Shanti Nir (1978), in the southern suburbs of the city. He was an educationist of renown, but also took charge of charitable work for the famine-stricken and refugees.

For 25 years he was a much appreciated and highly respected professor of French literature at the University of Calcutta, where he also became a member of the senate and the academic council. He also taught at St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. He was much in demand as a public orator in Bengali, French and English. But his heart was in translations from the Bible and other texts for Christian worship in Bengali. His "Glossary of Bengali Religious Terms" (1945) had prepared him for the task of translating biblical and liturgical texts. [2] He was deeply involved also in interfaith dialogue. The last words he typed before his fatal heart attack summed up his entire life-work: "Dialogue with Persons of Other Faiths..." That was in September 1985: Pierre Fallon was in fact preparing a text for the forthcoming visit of John-Paul II in Calcutta (February 1986). [3]

Bibliography

Primary bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swami Vivekananda</span> Indian Hindu monk and philosopher (1863–1902)

Swami Vivekananda, born Narendranath Datta, was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world; and is credited with raising interfaith awareness, and bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion. Vivekananda became a popular figure after the 1893 Parliament of Religions in Chicago, where he began his famous speech with the words, "Sisters and brothers of America...," before introducing Hinduism to Americans. He was so impactful at the Parliament that an American newspaper described him as: “an orator by divine right and undoubtedly the greatest figure at the Parliament”. After great success at the Parliament, in the subsequent years, Vivekananda delivered hundreds of lectures across the United States, England and Europe, disseminating the core tenets of Hindu philosophy, and founded the Vedanta Society of New York and the Vedanta Society of San Francisco, both of which became the foundations for Vedanta Societies in the West.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada</span> Indian spiritual teacher (1896–1977)

Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami was an Indian Gaudiya Vaishnava guru who founded ISKCON, commonly known as the "Hare Krishna movement". Members of ISKCON view Bhaktivedanta Swami as a representative and messenger of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Bhakti literally means "attachment, participation, fondness for, homage, faith, love, devotion, worship, purity". It was originally used in Hinduism, referring to devotion and love for a personal god or a representational god by a devotee. In ancient texts such as the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, the term simply means participation, devotion and love for any endeavor, while in the Bhagavad Gita, it connotes one of the possible paths of spirituality and towards moksha, as in bhakti marga.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bhakti movement</span> Period of common peoples devotion to God in the medieval Indian subcontinent

The Bhakti movement was a significant religious movement in medieval Hinduism that sought to bring religious reforms to all strata of society by adopting the method of devotion to achieve salvation. Originating in Tamilakam during 6th century CE, it gained prominence through the poems and teachings of the Vaishnava Alvars and Shaiva Nayanars before spreading northwards. It swept over east and north India from the 15th century onwards, reaching its zenith between the 15th and 17th century CE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Puranas</span> Hindu scriptures

Purana is a vast genre of Indian literature about a wide range of topics, particularly about legends and other traditional lore. The Puranas are known for the intricate layers of symbolism depicted within their stories. Composed originally in Sanskrit and in other Indian languages, several of these texts are named after major Hindu gods such as Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, and Adi Shakti. The Puranic genre of literature is found in both Hinduism and Jainism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati</span> Gaudīya Vaisnava Hindu guru and instructor (1874–1937)

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, born Bimala Prasad Datt, was a Gaudīya Vaisnava Hindu guru, ācārya, and revivalist in early 20th century India. To his followers, he was known as Srila Prabhupāda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sahaja</span> Spontaneous enlightenment in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism

Sahaja means spontaneous enlightenment in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist spirituality. Sahaja practices first arose in Bengal during the 8th century among yogis called Sahajiya siddhas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jatra (theatre)</span> Folk-theatre form of Bengali theatre

Jatra is a popular folk-theatre form of Bengali theatre, spread throughout most of Bengali speaking areas of the Indian subcontinent, including Bangladesh and Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura As of 2005, there were some 55 troupes based in Calcutta's old Jatra district, Chitpur Road, and all together, jatra is a $21m-a-year industry, performed on nearly 4,000 stages in West Bengal alone, where in 2001, over 300 companies employed over 20,000 people, more than the local film industry and urban theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radha Krishna</span> Divine couple in Hinduism

Radha-Krishna are collectively known within Hinduism as the combined forms of feminine as well as the masculine realities of God. Krishna and Radha are the primeval forms of God and his pleasure potency, respectively, in several Vaishnavite schools of thought.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vaishnavism</span> Major Hindu tradition that reveres Vishnu as the Supreme Being

Vaishnavism is one of the major Hindu denominations along with Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. It is also called Vishnuism since it considers Vishnu as the sole supreme being leading all other Hindu deities, i.e. Mahavishnu. Its followers are called Vaishnavites or Vaishnavas, and it includes sub-sects like Krishnaism and Ramaism, which consider Krishna and Rama as the supreme beings respectively. According to a 2010 estimate by Johnson and Grim, Vaishnavism is the largest Hindu sect, constituting about 641 million or 67.6% of Hindus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Johanns</span>

Pierre Johanns was a Luxemburger Jesuit priest, missionary in India and Indologist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romesh Chunder Dutt</span> Historian, economist, writer, translator, civil servant, politician

Romesh Chunder Dutt was an Indian civil servant, economic historian, translator of Ramayana and Mahabharata. Dutt is considered a national leader of the pre-Gandhian era, and was a contemporary of Dadabhai Naoroji and Justice Ranade.He was one of the prominent proponent of Indian economic nationalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krishnaism</span> Group of Hindu traditions that reveres Krishna as the Supreme Being

Krishnaism is a large group of independent Hindu traditions—sampradayas related to Vaishnavism—that center on the devotion to Krishna as Svayam Bhagavan, Ishvara, Para Brahman, the source of all reality, who is not an avatar of Vishnu. This is its difference from such Vaishnavite groupings as Sri Vaishnavism, Sadh Vaishnavism, Ramaism, Radhaism, Sitaism etc. There is also a personal Krishnaism, that is devotion to Krishna outside of any tradition and community, as in the case of the saint-poet Meera Bai. Leading scholars do not define Krishnaism as a suborder or offshoot of Vaishnavism, considering it a parallel and no less ancient current of Hinduism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard De Smet</span>

Richard De Smet was a Belgian Jesuit priest, and missionary in India. As Indologist he became a renowned Sankara specialist.

The Calcutta School of Indology consists of a group of Jesuit missionary scholars based mostly in Calcutta and including William Wallace, SJ (1863–1922), Pierre Johanns (1882–1955), Georges Dandoy, Joseph Putz, Joseph Bayart, Robert Antoine, Camille Bulcke, Michael Ledrus, Pierre Fallon and Jan Feys. They were joined in their efforts by Animananda, a disciple of Upadhyaya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Antoine</span>

Robert Antoine was a Belgian Jesuit priest, missionary in India. Professor of Comparative Literature at the Jadavpur University, he was a Sanskritist and musician. He was co-founder, with Pierre Fallon, of Shanti Bhavan, a dialogue centre at Calcutta.

Hubert Olympus Mascarenhas, born in Porvorim, Goa, in 1905, died at Mumbai, on 9 February 1973, was a Catholic priest belonging to the Archdiocese of Bombay, indologist of repute, and nationalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kali Charan Banerjee</span> Indian politician

Kali Charan Banerjee (1847–1907), spelt also as Kalicharan Banerji or K.C. Banerjea or K.C. Banurji, was a Bengali convert to Christianity through the Free Church of Scotland, the founder of Calcutta Christo Samaj, a Calcutta lawyer, and a founding member of the Indian National Congress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferdinando Sardella</span> 21st-century Swedish religious scholar

Ferdinando Sardella, born 1960, is a Swedish scholar of the history of religions, Hinduism, and religious studies, the former director and coordinator of the Forum for South Asia Studies at Uppsala University.

Swami in Hinduism is an honorific title given to a male or female ascetic who has chosen the path of renunciation (sanyāsa), or has been initiated into a religious monastic order of Vaishnavas. It is used either before or after the subject's name.

References

  1. "Avant-propos," R. De Smet and J. Neuner, eds., La quete de l'eternel: Approches chretiennes de l'Hindouisme, tr. Roger Demortier, Museum Lessianum, section missiologique n. 48 (Desclee de Brouwer, 1967) 10.
  2. "Avant-propos" 10.
  3. R. De Smet, "Foreword", Religious Hinduism, 4th rev. edition, ed. R. De Smet and J. Neuner (Mumbai: St Pauls, 1997) 17-18.