Jiddu Krishnamurti, the Indian philosopher and religious teacher, died on February 17 at his home in Ojai, California. He was 90.

Krishnamurti never sought publicity yet for fifty years thousands of people all over the world regarded him as one of the great religious teachers, and his many books, translated into numerous languages, had a wide circulation. Krishnamurti's Notebook (1976) in particular, is a remarkable mystical document.

Born on May 25, 1895, at Mandanapalle in South India, Krishnamurti was the eighth child of a Brahmin family of 10. His mother died when he was young and in 1909 his father, a retired civil servant and Theosophist of long standing, went with his four surviving sons to live at Adyar, the international headquarters of the Theosophical Society at Madras.

Mrs Annie Besant, President of the Society, and her colleague, CW Leadbeater, soon noticed Krishnamurti; Leadbeater immediately saw in him, the spiritual teacher of the future.

It...