Kurisumala

The monastic traditions of India stretch back to the Vedic epoch and even to pre-Aryan India. Some scholars insist that early Christian monasticism sprouted from these Indian roots. Ever since those distant times, the Indian soul has always kept a mystical depth which predisposed it to meet Christian mysticism. Kurisumala tells of the foundation and growth of ‘The Mountain of the Cross’, a Christian ashram in Kerala province, in a place of striking beauty.

Francis Mahieu (1912-2002), a middle-aged Trappist monk, arrived in India in 1955, intent, like his companions Jules Monchanin, Henri Le Saux, and Bede Griffiths, on living a Christian monastic life in the land where the monastic tradition had first taken root. More than a biography, Kurisumala is an account of the evolution of a monastic life which is both authentically Christian and authentically Indian. Includes an eight-page photograph insert in color.

Marte Mahieu-De Praetere, a niece of Francis Acharya, visited her uncle in India regularly. She has consulted all the available documents on Kurisumala in Europe and in India and has interviewed everyone able to give her an account of the events she describes.