Grand Lodge of India

Masonic history in India began with the introduction of English, Scottish, and Irish lodges during the eighteenth century 1. A deputation was granted to open a lodge in Bengal in 1728 2, leading to the establishment of Lodge East India Arms in 1730 2 and subsequent lodges in Madras and Bombay 1. Provincial and district grand lodges managed these bodies for over two centuries under their respective British parent authorities 1.

In December 1960, 145 out of 277 individual lodges operating in India voted to join a new sovereign body, as the Grand Lodge of India records. The Grand Lodge of India was officially constituted on November 24, 1961, at the Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi, as the Grand Lodge of India states. It was consecrated as a sovereign Grand Lodge holding full Masonic jurisdiction over the territories of the Republic of India, as the Regional Grand Lodge of Southern India records. Its parent bodies are the Grand Lodges of England, Ireland, and Scotland, as an article on the Regional Grand Lodge of Southern India's website notes.

The jurisdiction is governed through four regions—West, East, South, and North—whose precedence is regulated by the dates of original appointments of their Regional Grand Masters, as an article on the Grand Lodge of India's website explains. The fundamental laws of the Grand Lodge of India incorporate the Old Charges, which are published in its Book of Constitutions, as an article on the Grand Lodge of India's website notes.

Works cited

From the library. Each claim above is numbered to the work and page it came from.

Albert C. Mackey Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences pp. 959, 975 Mackey outlines the eighteenth-century introduction of Craft Masonry into India by English, Irish, and Scottish founders.; Mackey details the administration of Indian lodges under English and Scottish Provincial Grand Lodges prior to the district system.

Walter Kelly Firminger The Early History of Freemasonry in Bengal and the Punjab 1906 · pp. 83-84 Firminger provides the early dates and lodge list entries for the earliest English warranted lodges in Bengal.

Web pages read

Retrieved while the answer was written. Follow these to see what they say.

grandlodgeofindia.in the official formation date, meeting place, lodge poll numbers, regional structure, and publication of the Old Charges

rglsi.org.in the sovereign jurisdictional extent over India and identification of the three parent Grand Lodges

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