Archives Expanded

The KFA Archive

The Krishnamurti Archive in Ojai, California, is one of three official repositories of original material pertaining to the teachings of Krishnamurti. This includes handwritten manuscripts, letters, photographs, original audio/video and related materials. Its mission is to preserve the teachings of Krishnamurti as they were written and spoken, without distortion or interpretation. Preservation includes the ongoing work of digitizing this collection of his life’s work. These materials are available by appointment to scholars and others conducting research.

The KFA works collaboratively with the Krishnamurti foundations in the U.K. and India to establish a digital archive of all of Krishnamurti’s talks, which are transcribed for a text record, and also preserved in their original form. Maintaining an Archive is one of the essential missions of the Foundation. Not only does it preserve all original materials in a climate-controlled vault, but it houses the digital server which is the primary repository of the uncompressed digital copies of the original materials for all four of the Krishnamurti foundations (the U.S.A., U.K., India, and Spain). The digital archive is duplicated for safety, and housed in the U.S., the U.K., and India.

Click here to contribute to the Archives’ projects.

Updates

Spring 2020

The Krishnamurti Archive is pleased to announce the reception of an important collection of original materials. This collection, donated by S. Lloyd Williams, consists of letters exchanged from 1910 to 1930 between luminaries in the Theosophical Society, mainly Annie Besant, C.W. Leadbeater, George Arundale and others in their circle with many references to Krishnamurti. The collection also includes a handful of original documents written by Krishnamurti.

Winter 2019

The KFA submitted a collection of Krishnamurti talks from San Diego and Santa Monica (1970) that were nominated to be included in the California Revealed.

California Revealed is a State Library initiative to help California’s public libraries, in partnership with other local heritage groups, digitize, preserve, and provide online access to archival materials—books, newspapers, photographs, audio-visual recordings, and more—that tell the incredible stories of the Golden State…

These talks are being digitized in 3K resolution, and the elements are being professionally cleaned and re-housed for optimal long-term preservation. We are excited to receive the completed files and look forward to sharing them with you.

Spring 2019

Over the past 18 months, the collection of Stenographers typescripts have been scanned into our digital collection for the first time. These typescripts are the only original record of the talks that were given in the early period before audio recording technologies were available.

During each talk, stenographers would record the talk live, which was then checked over for errors. After this was complete, the talk would be released as a verbatim report.

These notes themselves are beautiful objects. Far more nuanced and interesting than typical printed matter that we are used to. The pages and paper size was not regularized, so these notes vary quite a bit in size and feel. They are in good condition. Once the scanning project is complete, the notes will be re-housed in new acid free boxes and stored in the vault for continued preservation.

Winter 2018

The KFA Archive is the home of the 120-terabyte server of the Krishnamurti Digital Archive. Decades of work has gone into digitizing the extensive collection of Krishnamurti’s original audio, video, and paper records. Having these digital copies of the originals has allowed the Foundations to take advantage of the new and powerful means of dissemination through online media channels, and has allowed us to continue to reproduce the various materials for distribution in more efficient, cost-effective ways.

Less obvious to many are the challenging aspects of a digital collection in an archive. The truth is, even in 2019, sustainable solutions to digital preservation are not yet standardized or fully understood by the archival community. The nature of digital media requires a completely different approach to ensure information is preserved over time—unlike standard conservation practices where an object can be treated, stored, and essentially forgotten for some period of time, digital media requires frequent refreshing and recopying to new storage systems. For this reason, the maintenance of a digital collection requires daily effort.

To ensure that Krishnamurti’s work is preserved for many decades to come, the Archive continues to preserve the original physical media that contains the recordings of Krishnamurti’s talks. It is vital that information is stored on physical media, given the ephemerality of digits and the novelty of digital technologies. Even in the 21st century, paper has some of the highest marks in terms of long-term preservational capacity. Information on acid-free paper stored in proper conditions will last for hundreds of years.

The Collections

Paper

The paper materials range in importance from original handwritten letters and manuscripts by Krishnamurti to books or articles containing only brief references to him. KFA has a significant collection of original handwritten documents. Also included in the paper collection are books by or about Krishnamurti, newspaper clippings, early journals such as the Star Bulletins, original typescripts, recent magazines and articles, foreign publications, and braille volumes of his books. The bulk of the paper material consists of books and typescripts of his talks. The paper archive continues to grow due to the continued publication of Krishnamurti books in addition to other materials written about or referencing him.

Many of the transcripts of talks and discussions can be found and searched on J. Krishnamurti.org

Stenographers Typescripts

One significant portion of the KFA Paper collection is the original stenographers typescripts. Over 35,000 pages of text were recorded by stenographers during Krishnamurti’s talks. Many of these typescripts are the only original recording of early talks that occured before recording technologies were developed to capture audio. This collection has now been fully digitized.

Books

Krishnamurti Books, early Journals, and Bulletins make up a large and important portion of the paper collection. The archive has complete sets of early journals like the Herald of the Star and Star Bulletin. There are roughly 90 published English books in the official Krishnamurti catalog, with selections of books translated into over 60 languages. The archives collect copies of every edition of published Krishnamurti books, both in English and the subsequent translations.

Photographs

The KFA has over 1000 photos of Krishnamurti, dating from the turn of the century to 1986. Most of these are black-and-white and are in fairly good condition. Many photographers donated their negatives to the Foundation, in other cases, high-quality prints were supplied. There are many secondary images that are yet to be processed, which include photos of people and places associated with Krishnamurti, as well as photos of the historical centers and current foundations and schools.

Audio

The Krishnamurti Archive has an extensive collection of audio recordings as originals or archival copies. Physical media of these recordings range from early silver wire recordings to magnetic tape and now digital reproductions. In many cases, audios have been migrated as new storage media has become available. Digitization, though mostly complete, is an ongoing project of the international archives.

Many of these recordings are now available on the official J. Krishnamurti YouTube channel.

Film & Video

There are approximately 35 reels of film from the 1960s and 1970s which were made before video was available. An additional 100 reels of film also remain from the two movies on Krishnamurti produced by Evelyne Blau and Michael Mendizza. These contain many interviews about Krishnamurti by those who knew him well, as well as scenes of Krishnamurti walking and doing various other non-teaching activities.

Many of the video recordings of Krishnamurti’s talks and discussions are now available on the official J. Krishnamurti YouTube channel.

The Digital Collection

The KFA Archive is the home of the 120-terabyte server of the Krishnamurti Digital Archive. Decades of work has gone into digitizing the complete collection of Krishnamurti’s original audio, video, and paper records. Having these digital copies of the originals has allowed the Foundations to take advantage of the new and powerful means of dissemination through online media channels, and has allowed us to continue to reproduce the various materials for distribution in more efficient, cost-effective ways.

Archivists from each foundation archive work daily on a custom built database that is installed on the server. This database contains the cataloging records for the materials in the Krishnamurti archives collections worldwide. Cataloging and organizing the materials is an ongoing project across the foundations.

Security and redundancy are critical components of the maintenance of the server and archives database. Copies of the original files are maintained offline in Ojai as well as England and India.

Aquisitions

Since the establishment of the Krishnamurti Archives we have aquired a number of collections. The materials in these collections include; photographs, slides, negatives, letters, correspondences, magazine and newspaper articles, books, films and audios. The KFA archive is grateful to receive materials that pertain to or reference Krishnamurti and his teachings.

The KFA has received generous donations of materials from:

S. Balsundaram
A. Chandmal
S. Lloyd Williams
Joseph Ross
Mary Zimbalist
Evelyne Blau
Michael Mendizza

and others…

Online Resources

J. Krishnamurti Online

J. Krishnamurti Online is a unique initiative of the four Krishnamurti Foundations. The site offers a large text collection of many of Krishnamurti’s published works between 1933 and 1986, together with several hundred transcripts of audio & video recordings, the equivalent of 200 average-sized books. The site content is fully searchable.

J. Krishnamurti Official YouTube Channel

The Official J. Krishnamurti YouTube channel hosts an extensive collection of videos and audios of Krishnamurti’s talks and discussions. Many of the videos contain subtitles in more than 30 languages, translated by volunteers from all over the world. This channel is managed by the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, UK.

The Life of Krishnamurti

The Life of Krishnamurti is an online exhibition that follows the life of J. Krishnamurti contextualized with a historical timeline including concurrent major world events. This online exhibition is a digital edition of an exhibit that is displayed on-site at the Krishnamurti Center in Ojai, California.

About the KFA

The purpose of the Krishnamurti Foundation of America (KFA) is to preserve and disseminate the teachings of J. Krishnamurti and advance public understanding and realization of human potential by means of the study of these teachings. Our activities are focused on making the teachings available through traditional and modern media, outreach programs both in the USA and internationally, and through our adult Educational Center and School in Ojai.

Our challenge is to make Krishnamurti’s teachings available to all age groups, different cultures, economic groups and races, and to do this we continue to expand our dissemination efforts.