orn on December 15th, 1865,John Woodroffe was educated at Woburn Park School and University College, Oxford, where he graduated in jurisprudence and the Bachelor of Civil Law examinations. In 1890, He moved to India and enrolled as an advocate in Calcutta High Court. He was soon made a Fellow of the Calcutta University and appointed Law Professor there.He was appointed Standing Counsel to the Government of India in 1902 and two years later was raised to the High Court Bench.After serving for eighteen years in the bench, he became Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court in 1915.After retiring to England he became Reader in Indian Law at the University of Oxford, and finally moved to France in his retirement, where he died in 1936. Alongside his judicial duties he studied Sanskrit and Hindu philosophy and was especially interested in the esoteric Hindu Tantric Shakti system. He translated some twenty original Sanskrit texts, and under his pseudonym Arthur Avalon.He published and lectured prolifically and authoritatively on Indian philosophy and a wide range of Yoga and Tantra topics. His most popular and influential book, a major contribution to the appreciation of Indian philosophy and spirituality, is The Serpent Power The Secrets of Tantric and Shaktic Yoga ,which is the source of many modern Western appropriations of Kundalini practice.
Reprint 1952.