Griffiths, Bede

• Griffiths, Bede, 1906-1993

• Bede Griffiths
• Swami Dayananda
• Dhayananda
• Griffiths, Alan Richard
• Alan Griffiths

Bede Griffiths, born Alan Richard Griffiths, was born in England in 1906. He converted to Catholicism in the early 1930's and soon after joined a Benedictine monastery, Prinknash Abbey, and took the name Bede. Having later served as a Prior of Farnborough and then Pluscardin, during which time he gained an interest in Indian thought. He first asked to go to India to set up a monastic foundation, but was denied. Later, he was sent to India by the same abbot, but he was to be under the local bishop. From 1955-1958, he joined Fr. Francis Mahieu Acharya at Kurisumala Ashram (Mountain of the Cross), where they developed a Syriac rite monastic liturgy. Griffiths took the Sanskrit name Dhayananda, meaning "bliss of prayer". In 1963, he conducted a trip to the United States in which he engaged in an East-West dialog. (Source: Coff, Pascaline, O.S.B. "Man, Monk, Mystic." website of the Bede Griffiths Trust, accessed 2004/02/17. ‹http://www.bedegriffiths.com/bio.htm›)