do you have to be a Mark Master Mason before joining Royal Ark Mariners under GLI

A candidate must be a Mark Master Mason to be proposed, seconded, and balloted into a Royal Ark Mariner Lodge, as Mark Masons' Hall notes, the degree being open to all Mark Master Masons. While this prerequisite applies across jurisdictions where the Royal Ark Mariner degree is governed alongside Mark Masonry, the specific constitutional provisions of the Grand Lodge of India or the Grand Mark Lodge of India are not detailed in the supplied library passages.

The Royal Ark Mariner degree in India is governed by the Grand Mark Lodge of India, which maintains its own Royal Ark Mariner Council and roll of lodges, as the Grand Lodge of India's website records. While the degree is administered under this separate Mark Grand Lodge rather than directly by the craft Grand Lodge of India itself, the Grand Mark Lodge operates within an administrative structure integrated alongside the Grand Lodge of India.

Royal Ark Mariner lodges do not meet as standalone, independent entities; they are anchored to a parent body within their governing jurisdiction. In the Royal Ark Mariner degree under Mark administration, a lodge is attached to a Mark Master Mason lodge and assumes its number on the roll 1, as Mark Masons' Hall notes.

Under Scottish workings operating in India, such as under the Grand Chapter of United Scottish Royal Arch Freemasonry in India and Ceylon, a Royal Ark Mariner lodge works attached to a Royal Arch Chapter rather than meeting independently, as an article on the District Grand Lodge of India under the Scottish Constitution website records.

While a Royal Ark Mariner lodge holds its own meetings and works its own ritual, its constitution requires it to remain moored to its designated parent body across both systems.

To be installed as Commander of a Royal Ark Mariner lodge, a brother must have served as Senior Warden or Junior Warden in a regular lodge of the degree for one complete year—from one installation meeting to the next—and must also have been installed as Master of a lodge of Mark Master Masons, unless a special dispensation is granted by the Grand Master, as Mark Masons' Hall notes.

This requirement reflects the structural link between the two bodies under English governance, where entry into Royal Ark Masonry already requires a candidate to be a Mark Master Mason 2. Reaching the chair of Commander thus requires prior service in the warden's chair of a Royal Ark Mariner lodge alongside having attained the chair of Master in Mark Masonry.