Theosophical Society Adyar

The designation 'Adyar' is sometimes added to the name to make it clear that this is the Theosophical Society headquartered there, after the American section and some other lodges separated from it in 1895, under William Quan Judge.

[1] In 1882, its headquarters moved with Blavatsky and president Henry Steel Olcott from New York to Adyar, an area of Chennai, India.

Olcott Memorial High School provides free education, uniforms, books, and two daily meals to impoverished rural children in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

The leadership of the Theosophical Society at Adyar was responsible for promoting young Jiddu Krishnamurti as the new "World Teacher" during the first few decades of the 20th century.

Charles Webster Leadbeater, one of the Society's leaders at the time, had "discovered" fourteen-year-old Krishnamurti in 1909, and considered him the likely "vehicle" for the expected reappearance of the Maitreya.

However, as a young man in 1929, Krishnamurti disavowed his expected "mission" and disassociated himself from the Theosophical Society and its doctrines and practices.

Over the next six decades he pursued an independent course, becoming widely known as an original, influential thinker and speaker on philosophical and religious subjects.

The garden has migratory birds, fruit bats, snakes, jackals, wild cats, mongooses, hares, and a variety of spiders.

The garden also has a 450-year-old banyan tree, which is known locally as Adyar aala maram, whose aerial roots cover some 60,000 sq m. The main trunk fell under its own weight in 1996.