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| Abraham Kovoor | |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth: | April 10, 1898 |
| Date of Death: | Sepember 18, 1978 |
| Place of Birth: | Tiruvalla, Kerala |
Abraham Thomas Kovoor (April 10, 1898 - September 18, 1978) was the most prominent rationalist and atheist from the Indian sub-continent.
Dr Abraham. T. Kovoor was a free thinker and rationalist from Kerala, South India. He was born at Tiruvalla in Kerala, on 10th April, 1898 in a Christian family. His father was Rev. Kovoor Eipe Thomma Katthanar, the Vicar General of the Mar Thomma Syrian Church of Malabar. He completed his basic education at the Syrian Christian Seminary in Kerala and and received his higher education at the Bengabasi College, Calcutta, where he specialised in Botany and Zoology. He was awarded a doctorate for his research by the Minnesota Institute of Philosophy of U.S. for his thesis on psychic and para-psychic phenomena. He was the only scientist in Asia who took part in an expedition to the Indian Ocean along with other scientists at the invitation by the " Ernst Haeckel Ecology Center" of U.S.A. After completing his education he migrated to Sri Lanka where he spent the rest of his life. He was the president of the Rationalist Association of Sri Lanka.
After retiring from his service as a Professor of Botony at Thurston College, Colombo, he travelled across the breadth and length of India and Sri Lanka, challanging and exposing the so-called miracles performed by godmen of various hues. He also targetted, to put it in his own words, 'preachers and priests of dubious religions and cults, mystics, saints, arahants, sidhas who claim that they have acquired enlightenment through meditation or penance; gurus, babas, anandas, rishis, swamijis and yogis who claim that they have obtained miraculous powers through yogic practices or as from boons from gods; oracles, exorcists, charmers, soothsayers, fortune-tellers and all types of occultists who claim that they have developed their special powers through spiritual exercises, astrology, palmistry, numerology, telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis (Psychokinesis), precognition, necromancy, spirit possession etc".
One of the main targets during his miracle exposure campaign was Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi in Karnataka state, India. ] is perhaps the most prominent godman in India today as it was during Kovoor's time. This self-proclaimed godman used produce holy-ash with selight of hand and then claiming that he produced it miraculously from no-where. There is a tendency among gullible Indian masses to throng to the ashrams of holymen who performs such miracles.To expose these godman,Dr. Abraham Kovoor produced holy ash from nowhere and distributed it amongst the audience.Dr. Kovoor would explain to the audience later that it was just a sleight of hand and anybody with some rudimentary knowledge of magic could perform it.
Once he wrote to Sai Baba to have an audience to discuss on his miraculous powers. When there was no response from his side in spite of numerous reminders, Dr. Kovoor decided to meet him in person and communicated this to him. When Dr. Kovoor reached Sathya Sai Baba's head-quarters at White Field, near Bangalore, Sathya Sai Baba escaped to his ashram at Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh.
After his numerous encouters with godmen, astrologers and other people who claimed to have psychic powers, he came to the conclusion that there was objective truth behind such claims.He wrote: "Nobody has and nobody ever had supernatural powers. They exist only in the pages of scriptures and sensation-mongering newspapers".
His books "Begone Godmen" and "Gods, Demons and Spirits" about his encounters with people with so-called psychic powers are even today the best-sellers in India.
Dr.Abraham Kovoor passed away on September 18, 1978 in Colombo, Sri Lanka at the age 80. After his death, his eyes were donated to two blind persons in Tamil Nadu, India and his body to a medical college in Colombo.