Letterheads

             

This page aims to show examples of all letterheads known to have been used by Osho. Some were official, some makeshift, all have a story or two. Included in this page are also the papers Osho used for name-papers. Most of these were also used for letters, so there is a decent cross-over, with no compelling need to separate the two.

Some notes on the different types of letterheads follow the gallery below. Eventually, pages for each letterhead will feature full descriptions and links to all the letters and name-papers that use them.

gallery

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  ProfSaksena-1, 1957

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  Mahakoshal-1, 1960-61

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  Mahakoshal-2, 1961-?

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  Mahakoshal-3,

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  TaaranTaran-1, 1960

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  TaaranTaran-2, 1961

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  TaaranTaran-3, 1961

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  NapierTown-1, 1961

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  NapierTown-2,

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  NapierTown-3,

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  FlipSides-1, 1965

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  FlipSides-2, 1965

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  VijayGadarwara-1, 1965

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  Satsang-1, 1965

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  NapierTown-4,

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  NapierTown-5,

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  Rorschach-1, 1962-8

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  KamalaNehru-1, 1968-70

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  Novelty-1, 1969

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  Novelty-2, 1969

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  Novelty-3, 1969

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  Churchgate-1, 1970

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  Churchgate-DN-1, 1970

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  Churchgate-2, 1970

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  Woodland-1, 1970-1

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  Woodland-DN-1, 1970-1

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  Woodland-2, 1971-4

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  Woodland-3, 1971-4

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  BSRPuneOne-1, 1974-81

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  RFPuneOne-1, 1974-81

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  PuneTwo-1, ever used?

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  PuneThree-1, 1990-2000?

Notes

Osho's homes

Source for info on Osho's homes in Jabalpur is mainly Neeten's Osho Source Book, which in turn cites mainly Gyan Bhed ...
Osho stayed in many places in Jabalpur. No letters are known from the period before he went to Sagar to get his MA. In Sagar he stayed with two of his professors, Dr. S.S. Roy and Dr. S.K. Saksena, and also at times in the students’ hostel. After getting his position in 1958 as a lecturer at Jabalpur University, he stayed in Bhaldarpura, from 1959 to 1960, then for some months in the house of Gupteshwar (unknown) on Devtaal Rd in the Garha area.

From late 1960** to 1968 he lived in Napier Town in the house of Shree Devoki Nandan, who provided enough space for Osho to keep his growing library, give talks and introduce his listeners to meditation. Then he shifted to a house in Kamla Nehru Nagar on Garha Road.

At the end of June 1970, he made his big move to Mumbai, landing first in an apartment in CCI Chambers in the Churchgate area arranged by a close supporter, Himmat Bhai. This could not last long however, since other residents could not tolerate the crowds that were soon coming, so a large ground-level flat was found in Woodland, on Peddar Rd. It too was soon too small but manageable until the move to Pune came in March 1974. Then of course, Pune One, the Ranch and the rest, as they say, is history.

ProfSaksena

Professor S.K. Saksena, as mentioned above, was one of two professors at Sagar University with whom Osho established remarkable relationships. Few letters are known from this time, with only one of them using an identifiable letterhead, that of Prof Saksena: ProfSaksena-1

Mahakoshal

In the late 50s and early 60s, Osho held forth in the Philosophy department at Mahakoshal Arts University. Our earliest Mahakoshal letterhead, used in a letter in Oct 1960, also gives his home address as Yogesh Bhavan, Napier Town. He inserts by hand a "115" before the "Yogesh Bhavan"; more correctly it should go before "Napier Town", but there is no space there. In fact, this letterhead doesn't work and, after some attempts at inserting 115 in subsequent letters, he gives up and eventually gets new letterhead. This is just the beginning.

The Mahakoshal letterheads in one way can be considered a subset of the Napier Town letterheads, in the sense that he was living in Yogesh Bhavan, 115 Napier Town the whole time he taught at Mahakoshal, except for his earliest days in that position. The Mahakoshal letterheads all include his home address in Napier Town, while the Napier Town letterheads do not mention Mahakoshal.

The wiki doesn't have any letters from the period prior to the first Mahakoshal letterheads, except for postcards and inland letter form letters written to Deriya Ji in earlier 1960, so are likely his earliest personal letterheads.

They come in three forms, in a rough progression used in letters from late 1960 to 1962. After that, he featured only his personal address in letterheads. They are Mahakoshal-1, Mahakoshal-2 and Mahakoshal-3.

Taaran Taran

(Sant) Taaran Taran was a 15th-16th c Jain mystic whose influence was profound in the part of India Osho grew up in. In fact, his parents were members of the sect which arose from Taaran Taran's teachings. Osho has spoken on him in a number of talks among his published works and probably a fair bit more is lost to posterity. More about him here.

Osho was both a speaker at and organizer of Taaran Taran's birthday celebrations. Thus his name appears on these Taaran Taran organizing committee letterheads, though he used them only rarely for letters, since they were not his personal letterheads. The last one even gives the organizing committee's office address as 115, Napier Town, his personal address. Still, they seem to have been used mainly out of need in the moment, the last known use in 1961. Details at TaaranTaran-1, TaaranTaran-2 and TaaranTaran-3.

Napier Town

Yogesh Bhavan, 115, Napier Town in Jabalpur, is the place where Osho lived continuously longer than anywhere else. Osho's time in 17 Koregaon Park in Pune amounts to more in total years, and is certainly higher profile, but for continuous residency, Yogesh Bhavan is the one. That time period is when he began gathering the people that would be with him for the rest of their lives. He was experimenting with how to reach out to people and reach them, and his letters were a part of that, so there are a lot of different letterheads from that era.

There are no less than five "straight" Napier Town letterheads, plus the three Mahakoshal ones above, which give Napier Town as his home address, plus the three Taaran Taran ones also above, plus the rather odder Rorschach and Satsang ones, coming next below. Details:NapierTown-1, NapierTown-2, NapierTown-3, NapierTown-4 and NapierTown-5.

Rorschach

There is only one letterhead in this class, and it is certainly the strangest of Osho's letterheads, an inscrutable blob whose overall shape is whatever the viewer sees it as. Thus, the name Rorschach has been chosen to evoke the impression created by this funny blob. Within the blob are what appear to be Devanagari characters, but whether they are intended to convey some verbal message or are just Rorschach-like gibberish remains to be determined. We are awaiting an informed opinion on this. There is otherwise no textual information on this letterhead. It was used very infrequently, over a wide time period ranging from 1962 to 1968. Rorschach-1

FlipSides

As the name suggests, these letterheads come in pairs. The concept is of a two-sided letterhead, with different information on each side. Either side (or both) could be and was used for writing letters. They are clearly seen to be reverse sides of each other by the flip side bleeding through in images of the letters. So far we have only one example of this type, but both sides were used in numerous letters to Sohan and Manik. FlipSides-1 and FlipSides-2

"Borrowed" business letterheads

Numerous examples of this kind of letterhead have come to light. Apparently Osho found himself in various situations needing to write a letter but not having his personal or related letterhead available, so, "Hey, can I use this? Thanks!"

VijayGadarwara

Very likely there is just one Vijay letterhead, and so far there is only one letter known to have used it, written to Sohan in 1965. It is a personal business letterhead, "Vijay Home Building Supplies", in Gadarwara. Possibly the friend who supplied it was later to become Sw Anand Vijay. VijayGadarwara-1

Satsang

Again, there is only one letterhead in this class, and only one letter known to have used it, a letter to Maitreya in 1965. The main interest in this letterhead revolves around the implications of its text information. The central part, "Satsang, Dedicated-Monthly for the Spiritual Resurrection of Man", suggests a previously unheard-of magazine Osho was behind, and with the backing of a prominent Indian freedom fighter: Seth Govinddas was not only the editor, but part of the family who owned the mansion, Raja Gokuldas Mahal, where the magazine was nominally based. Satsang-1‎