Henry Noel Marryat Hardy

Henry Noel Marryat Hardy (born December 1, 1884 in London , † 1968 in Switzerland ) was an officer in the Royal Navy , private scholar and head of the Arya Maitreya Mandala in Switzerland.

Life and career

The cruiser Sirius sunk during the raid on Zeebrugge and Ostend

Hardy was born to James Arthur Hardy and Augusta Juliana Hardy in the London borough of Kensington . He moved to Australia with his family and grew up in Tasmania , where he entered the Hutchins School in 1895 . On January 15, 1900, he began his career in the Royal Navy. During the First World War he commanded the cruiser Sirius . In 1916 he was awarded the French Croix de guerre for saving 700 wounded French through a courageous action. With the cruiser Sirius he took part in the raid on Zeebrugge and Ostend , a commando operation of the Royal Navy against the ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend in the German-occupied part of Belgium in April 1918. The aim of the operation was to neutralize both ports by sinking block ships in the Sea canals of both ports to prevent German submarines from running out . Because he tried his life to save a soldier when the HMS Sirius , sacrificed as a block ship, sank , he was celebrated as a hero.

The Carnarvon Castle , Hardy's ship in World War II

Hardy asked the Admiralty with effect from February 11, 1923 to discharge from military service. He then devoted himself to the study of classical Asian languages and served as president of the British Maha Bodhi Society , a branch of 1891 by Anagarika Dharmapala in British India , founded Maha Bodhi Society , a renaissance of Buddhism sought on the Indian subcontinent. He resigned this office in 1928 because he assumed a senior position in the colonial administration of British Guiana . He settled in Switzerland in the 1930s, where he was engaged in Tibetan and Buddhist studies and, within the framework of the Societe Vaudoise d'Etudes Psychiques, also with borderline scientific research on topics of parapsychology .

After the outbreak of World War II , Hardy reported back to the Royal Navy, which gave him command of Carnarvon Castle . On December 5, 1940, Carnarvon Castle fought about 700 nautical miles east of Montevideo with the German auxiliary cruiser Thor , which was under the command of Otto Kähler . In the course of this battle, Carnarvon Castle received 27 hits from grenades . The Thor also shot down two torpedoes , both of which missed their target. There were four killed and 28 wounded on Hardy's crew .

After the end of the Second World War until his death in 1968, Hardy lived again in Switzerland. His first marriage was to Jessie Fraser Mackenzie. This marriage ended in divorce in 1923. In his second marriage, Hardy was married to Josephine de la Mole († July 3, 1973). This marriage also ended in divorce, and Josephine de la Mole married in 1943 Robert Southwell, Viscount Southwell of Castle Mattress (1898-1960).

Scientific and spiritual activities

Before the First World War, Henry NM Hardy was closely associated with the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and also held a leading position with the Classical Association of England and Wales . In the course of his numerous trips and professional stays on all continents, he was also active as a researcher, turning to various topics of archeology and ethnology . For example, he examined the dances of the local population on the Bismarck Archipelago and dealt with alleged ancient wagon tracks on Malta .

In Asia, Hardy encountered Buddhist philosophy , to which he devoted himself extensively in theory and practice. In England he was President of the Buddhist British Maha Bodhi Society and gave many lectures on Buddhism and Asian philosophies . Even after moving to Switzerland, where he lived in Lausanne in the 1930s , he continued these activities. Through his lectures on Buddhism and Daoism , a group of people with relevant interests developed around him. Since Hardy had learned the classical Tibetan language , he was able to interpret original texts by the authors of Buddhism in Tibet for his listeners . Hardy was acquainted with the Tibet traveler Alexandra David-Néel , whose books he translated from French into English. He has also written for many Buddhist magazines in Europe and Asia, including The Maha-Bodhi , the Calcutta -based magazine of the Maha Bodhi Society of India .

After the Arya Maitreya Mandala began its activity in Europe in 1952, Hardy was accepted into this order by Hans-Ulrich Rieker on February 27, 1953 , receiving the initiation name Padmavajra. From then on, Hardy campaigned intensively, both verbally and in writing, for the concerns of the order's founder, Lama Anagarika Govinda . On the basis of the interest group for Buddhist philosophy he had already formed through his lecturing and teaching activities, Hardy built up the order in Switzerland, led the Swiss branch with the support of Amelia Bardett until his death and took part in the overall European activities of the Arya Maitreya Mandala. He worked closely with the order members Jack Austin , Ernő Hetényi , Harry Pieper and Lionel Stützer .

Awards

• Distinguished Service Order
• Croix de guerre
• Mentioned in despatches

Works

• Tolerance . In: The Maha Bodhi 44 (1936)
• J'ai fait sur mer deux guerres mondiales par HNM Hardy. In: L'Illustre No 08 (Hebdomadaire suisse), from February 23, 1950
• Alexandra David-Néel and Lama Yongden: The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibtan Buddhist Sects . Translated by Captain HNM Hardy. San Francisco 1967
• Alexandra David-Néel: Buddhism - its doctrines and its methods . (trans. HNM Hardy). London 1977

literature

• Percival A. Hislam: How we twisted the dragon's tail . Hutchinson & Co. 1918
• Wesley Olson: Bitter victory: the death of HMAS Sydney . University of Western Australia Press 2000. ISBN 9781876268497

Single receipts

1. ↑ Hutchins School Magazine Vol. IV No. 2 June 1916, p. 9
2. ^ The London Gazette 21st May 1918.
3. ↑ The London Gazette, February 13, 1923, p. 1070
4. ^ The Maha Bodhi 37 (1929), p. 178
5. ↑ Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Carnarvon Castle (F 25)
6. ↑ The National Archives J 77/2032/3664
7. ^ Charles Mosley (ed.): Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage , 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware: Burke's Peerage Ltd. 2003, Volume 3, page 3690
8. ^ Proceedings of the Classical Association of England and Wales , Volume 12 (1915), p. 131
9. ↑ HNM Hardy: Note on the Native Dance in the Admiralty Islands . In: Man . Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 1916
10. ↑ HNM Hardy: The Maltese Cart-Ruts. In: Man . Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (Nov. 1918)
11. ^ Buddhism in England , 15/16 (1940), p. 2
12. ↑ The circle. Information sheet of the Arya Maitreya Mandala order ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 1954 and 1969; Jack Austin (ed.): The Western Buddhist (Cambridge 1969)