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{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2018}}
{{Use Indian English|date=November 2018}}
{{Infobox person
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| name = Li Gotami Govinda
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| image = Li Gotami Govinda.jpg
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| birth_name = Ratti Petit
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1906|04|22}}
| birth_place = [[Bombay]], [[Bombay Presidency]], [[British India]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1988|08|18|1906|04|22}}
| death_place = [[Pune]], [[Maharashtra]], India
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| spouse = {{marriage |[[Anagarika Govinda]]<br />|1947|1985|end=died}}
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'''Li Gotami Govinda''' (born '''Ratti Petit''', 22 April 1906 – 18 August 1988) was an Indian painter, photographer, writer and composer. She was also skilled in ballet and stagecraft. She gained fame with her conversion to [[Mahayana Buddhism]] and travels in Tibet.

==Biography==
Ratti Petit was born on 22 April 1906 in [[Mumbai|Bombay]] to an affluent [[Parsi]] family. Her family owned the Bomanjee Dinshaw Petit Parsee General Hospital in [[Cumbala Hill]], Bombay. Gotami had at least one sister, Coomie Vakharia, and one brother, Maneckji Petit. She received her education in England at a school located in [[Harrow on the Hill]] and later at the [[Slade School of Fine Art]] in 1924. Ratti Petit traveled extensively across Europe, before returning to India in the 1930s. In India, she worked with artist [[Manishi Dey]] who introduced her to the [[Bengal School of Art]], which significantly influenced her. Petit married art collector and critic [[Karl Jamshed Khandalavala]] in the 1930s. However, the marriage was brief.<ref name="Mumbai Mirror1">{{cite web|last1=Gehi|first1=Reema|title=Painting a portrait|url=http://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/others/sunday-read/Painting-a-portrait/articleshow/52058627.cms|website=Mumbai Mirror|accessdate=18 December 2016|archive-date=12 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210312011956/https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/others/sunday-read/Painting-a-portrait/articleshow/52058627.cms|url-status=live}}</ref> Petit also co-founded the Camera Pictorialists of Bombay in the 1930s.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Harris|first1=Clare|title=Photography and Tibet|date=15 November 2016|publisher=Reaktion Books|isbn=9781780236995|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=buOcDQAAQBAJ|accessdate=18 December 2016|language=en}}</ref>

Petit traveled to [[Rabindranath Tagore]]'s [[ashram]] in [[Santiniketan|Shantiniketan]] in 1934 to study under artist [[Nandalal Bose]], and to learn [[Manipuri dance]]. According to Li Gotami's niece, Sylla Malvi, "Her parents were not happy about her going away. In fact, my grandfather even sent her brother (Maneckji Petit) to check on her." Petit spent 12 years at Shantiniketan. She also earned diplomas from the Arts and Music Schools. She met painter [[Abanindranath Tagore]], who taught at the arts school, eight years later. Tagore was impressed by Petit's paintings and became her mentor. According to Malvi, "She absolutely worshipped Abanindranath Tagore. It was he who told her that she would excel in religious and children's paintings".<ref name="Mumbai Mirror1"/>
[[File:Lama Govinda and Li Gotami after their wedding in 1947.jpg|thumb|Govinda and Li Gotami after their wedding in 1947.]]
While at Shantiniketan, Petit also studied under [[Anagarika Govinda]], the Bolivian-German Professor of [[Visva-Bharati University|Vishwa Bharati University]].<ref name="Mumbai Mirror1"/> Petit married Govinda in 1947, in four separate ceremonies. Civil ceremonies were held in Bombay and [[Darjeeling]], and "[[lama]] marriage" ceremonies were performed in the [[Chumbi Valley]] by Ajo Rinpoche and by Govinda himself.<ref name = "Richard Power">{{cite book|last1=Power|first1=Richard|title=The Lost Teachings of Lama Govinda: Living Wisdom from a Modern Tibetan Master|date=20 September 2013|publisher=Quest Books|isbn=9780835630641|pages=xxx|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4lRbBgAAQBAJ|accessdate=18 December 2016|language=en|archive-date=29 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170829124120/https://books.google.com/books?id=4lRbBgAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> Petit converted to [[Mahayana|Mahayana Buddhism]], and adopted the name Li Gotami, against the wishes of her devout [[Zoroastrianism|Zoroastrian]] parents.<ref name="Mumbai Mirror1"/> Govinda, who had acquired British citizenship in 1938, became a citizen of India in 1947.<ref>Hecker, 1990, p.86-87.</ref> The couple lived in a house rented from the writer [[Walter Evans-Wentz]] at [[Kasar Devi]], near [[Almora]] in northern India.<ref name="Donald S. Lopez, p.61">Donald S. Lopez, p.61.</ref> Kasar Devi, in hippie circles known as "[[Crank's Ridge]]", was a bohemian colony home to artists, writers and spiritual seekers such as [[Earl Brewster]], [[Alfred Sorensen]] and [[John Blofeld (writer)|John Blofeld]]. Many spiritual seekers, including the Beat Poets [[Allen Ginsberg]] and [[Gary Snyder]], the LSD Gurus [[Timothy Leary]] and [[Ralph Metzner]], the psychiatrist [[R. D. Laing]], and Tibetologist [[Robert Thurman]] came to visit Govinda at his ashram. The number of visitors became so great that the couple eventually put signs to keep unwanted visitors away.<ref name="Donald S. Lopez, p.61"/>
[[File:Li Gotami in Tibet in 1948.jpg|thumb|Li Gotami in Tibet with Ajo Repa Rinpoche in 1948.]]
From Kasar Devi, Li Gotami and Govinda embarked on several expeditions to central and western [[Tibet]] in 1947-49. The expeditions were financed by the ''[[The Illustrated Weekly of India|Illustrated Weekly of India]]''.<ref>[[Birgit Zotz]]: ''Zur europäischen Wahrnehmung von Besessenheitsphänomenen und Orakelpriestertum in Tibet.'' Wien 2010, S. 75.</ref> During these expeditions, they made a large number of paintings, drawings and photographs. These travels are described in Govinda's book ''The Way of the White Clouds''. Li Gotami and Govinda set out on an expedition to [[Tsaparang]] in western Tibet in July 1948, arriving in the ancient city in September. They endured harsh conditions in the deserted city taking shelter in a crude stone hut with rough interiors and sooty walls. They ate two meals a day consisting of porridge and [[Chapati|chappatis]], cooked slowly over [[Domestic yak|yak]] dung and brushwood fires. The temperature was so low that tea would freeze inside a cup if it was not consumed quickly. The couple stayed in the city until at least December 1948, painstakingly photographing, sketching and tracing surviving [[fresco]]es.<ref name = "Richard Power"/>

Pictures of the Tsaparang frescoes taken by Li Gotami, still intact, appear in Govinda's ''The Way of the White Clouds'' ''Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism'' and ''Tibet in Pictures'' (co-authored with Li Gotami).<ref name="Donald S. Lopez, p.61"/><ref>Für eine ausführliche Beschreibung der Expedition siehe Lama Anagarika Govinda: ''Der Weg der weißen Wolken.'' Zürich 1969</ref> Li Gotami's photos of Tibet in the late 1940s are one of the last significant pictorial documentations of local life before the [[Chinese occupation of Tibet]] and the subsequent destruction during the [[Cultural Revolution]].<ref>Li Gotami Govinda: ''Tibet in Pictures.'' Berkeley 1979; Vol. 1, {{ISBN|0913546577}}; Vol. 2, {{ISBN|0913546585}}</ref> During their 1947–1948 expeditions to Tibet, Govinda and Li Gotami met Ajo Repa Rinpoche, who, according to Govinda, initiated them into the Kagyüpa school of [[Tibetan Buddhism]].<ref>Govinda, 1966, p.156. Donald S. Lopez, p.60. Birgit Zotz, [http://www.komyoji.at/content/lamagovinda.htm 'Tibetische Mystik, - nach Lama Anagarika Govinda Lama Anagarika Govinda'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190408085900/http://www.komyoji.at/content/lamagovinda.htm |date=8 April 2019 }} (retrieved 6.8.2011)</ref>

From 1955, Li Gotami, together with Govinda, lived on a 40-acre estate in Almora, in the north-west of India, where they maintained an ashram and studied painting, Buddhist studies and meditation. The ashram was located in the wilderness and had no access to electricity or running water.<ref name="Mumbai Mirror1"/><ref name="Birgit Zotz 2010">Birgit Zotz: ''Zur europäischen Wahrnehmung von Besessenheitsphänomenen und Orakelpriestertum in Tibet.'' Wien 2010, S. 75–76</ref> From India, in the sixties and seventies, they undertook several lecture journeys, which took them around the world.<ref name="Birgit Zotz 2010"/> In 1960, Govinda went to Europe as a representative of Tibetan Buddhism at an international religious conference in Venice. Subsequently, he went to England, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands. In 1965, he went on a lecturing tour through Germany, France, and Switzerland, and in 1968-69, through the USA and Japan. Govinda went on world tours in 1972-73, and 1974-76. In 1977, he visited Germany.<ref>Birgit Zotz, 'Tibetische Mystik, - nach Lama Anagarika Govinda Lama Anagarika Govinda' [http://www.komyoji.at/content/lamagovinda.htm] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190408085900/http://www.komyoji.at/content/lamagovinda.htm |date=8 April 2019 }} (retrieved 6.8.2011)</ref>

==Death==
[[File:Li Gotami, Lama Govinda, Nyanaponika.jpg|thumb|Li Gotami, Govinda, and [[Nyanaponika Thera]] in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Probably taken in Germany or Switzerland.]]
In the early 1970s, Li Gotami and Govinda were invited by American Buddhist scholars to live in the United States. The couple initially lived in [[Sausalito, California]] and later settled in [[Mill Valley, California|Mill Valley]] in the [[San Francisco Bay Area]] for health reasons.<ref name="Mumbai Mirror1"/><ref name="Donald S. Lopez, p.61"/> Li Gotami had Parkinson's disease, and Govinda suffered several strokes from 1975 onwards.<ref name="Hecker, 1990, p.87-88">Hecker, 1990, p.87-88</ref> The couple were cared for by [[Alan Watts]] and Elsa Gidlow's Society for Comparative Philosophy, and [[Suzuki Roshi]]'s [[San Francisco Zen Center|San Francisco Zen Centre]].<ref name="Donald S. Lopez, p.61"/> During an evening discussion on 14 January 1985, Govinda suddenly felt a sharp pain in his neck that traveled downwards. He lay down on his right side and died laughing.<ref name="Hecker, 1990, p.87-88"/> Li Gotami lived with her husband in Mill Valley until his death.<ref name="Birgit Zotz 2010"/> A few months after her husband's death, Li Gotami returned to India to live with her family.<ref name = "Richard Power"/> She died in [[Pune]], Maharashtra on 18 August 1988.<ref name="Mumbai Mirror1"/>

Many of her artistic works and fresco tracings from Tibet are held in the collection of the [[Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya]] in Mumbai. On 2 February 2008, the museum opened an exhibition called "Tibet through the eyes of Li Gotami". The exhibition featured a selection of her photographs, sketches, and fresco tracings.<ref>{{cite web|title=Newsletter from Mumbai|url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Newsletter+from+Mumbai.-a0182035432|website=The Free Library|accessdate=18 December 2016|archive-date=12 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210312011956/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Newsletter+from+Mumbai.-a0182035432|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Works ==
* ''Tibet in Pictures.'' Berkeley 1979, Vol. 1 {{ISBN|0913546577}}, Vol. 2 {{ISBN|0913546585}}
* ''Tibetan Fantasies: Paintings, Poems, and Music.'' Emeryville, Cailf. 1976, {{ISBN|0913546488}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{DNB-Portal|123662885}}
* [http://www.lama-govinda.de Lama und Li Gotami Govinda Stiftung]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Govinda, Li Gotami}}
[[Category:1906 births]]
[[Category:1988 deaths]]
[[Category:Artists from Mumbai]]
[[Category:Parsi people from Mumbai]]
[[Category:Converts to Buddhism]]
[[Category:Converts to Buddhism from Zoroastrianism]]
[[Category:Indian Buddhists]]
[[Category:Women writers from Maharashtra]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian women composers]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian painters]]
[[Category:Writers from Mumbai]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian composers]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian photographers]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian women writers]]
[[Category:Indian travel writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Indian art writers]]
[[Category:Women artists from Maharashtra]]
[[Category:Photographers from Maharashtra]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian women musicians]]
[[Category:Painters from Maharashtra]]
[[Category:Buddhist artists]]
[[Category:20th-century women composers]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian women photographers]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian women painters]]

Li Gotami Govinda - Revision history

RogerLazzarini9 at 09:23, 8 February 2026