James Henry Cousins

James Henry Cousins was an Irish-Indian writer, playwright, actor, critic, editor, teacher and poet. He used several pseudonyms, including Mac Oisín and the Hindu name Jayaram. He was born in Belfast, Ireland, the descendant of Huguenot refugees. He was largely self-educated at night schools and worked as a clerk and a private secretary. He moved to Dublin in 1897 and became part of a literary circle that included W.B. Yeats, George William Russell and James Joyce. He produced several books of poetry and acted in the first production of Cathleen Ní Houlihan with Maud Gonne. He also wrote and staged several plays for the Irish National Theatre Society. He married Margaret Gillespie in 1903 and became involved in the suffrage movement. He co-edited the Irish Citizen with Francis Sheehy Skeffington. He was influenced by the teachings of Madame Blavatsky and became a theosophist. He travelled to India in 1915 with the voyage fees paid for by Annie Besant, the president of the Theosophical Society. He spent most of the rest of his life in India, apart from a year as a professor of English literature in Tokyo and another lecturing in New York. He formally converted to Hinduism in 1937. He became friends with many prominent Indian personalities, such as Rabindranath Tagore, Rukmini Devi Arundale, Abdur Rahman Chughtai and Mahatma Gandhi. He gave lectures on the idea and expression of beauty and influenced the Kannada poet and writer Kuvempu. He died in Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1956.