Christian Yoga, New Thought, and "The First Hindu American": The Life and Thought of Akhoy Kumar Mozumdar

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Akhoy Kumar Mozumdar (1881-1953), New Thought proponent and teacher of Christian Yoga, was among the earliest Indians to get American citizenship and the first Indian immigrant filmmaker in the United States. Yet his name is referenced merely in passing in the histories of both the New Thought movement and early twentieth-century yoga. Focusing on Mozumdar's life and thought, this article argues that Mozumdar's universalist teachings on the power of the human mind were embedded in discourses of racial and caste purity that were crucial to him gaining American citizenship and garnering acceptance as a spiritual teacher among White audiences. His life and work reveal that discourses of racial purity in the United States, evident in New Thought too, were implicated in discourses of caste and Aryan race theory transposed to American shores from overseas.