Prof. Dr. Rahul Peter Das, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg Germany: When the article appeared, however, I realised that matters were much more complicated than I had taken them to be. For my questions seemed to have touched a very sensitive spot within ISKCON, and thus the article was not so much an answer to my query as a refutation of its premises and deductions. I at once saw that this would make it appear as if I had challenged one party in what was clearly an ongoing dispute, and therefore made haste to issue a clarification, which the journal published, to the effect that a rather personal and off-the-cuff query had here become part of a controversy and thus assumed an importance it was not meant to have. How necessary this clarification was has subsequently been demonstrated by several articles and statements, some of which can still be found on the internet, in which my query has transmuted into a “challenge” to the doctrines held by the opponent. Curious to know more, I began researching into the matter, and soon came across the controversy, between the ISKCON Revival Movement (IRM) and the Governing Body Commission (GBC), on authority within ISKCON. This led into what seemed at times a veritable maze: of various claims, statements and accusations; of alleged skulduggery, forgery of documents, strong-arm tactics and other misdeeds including attempted and actual murder, poisoning and rape; of extensive publicity in the media in various quarters of the world; of court cases; and of rights to property and assets of great value — all apart from the more fundamental question of authority in spiritual matters. One might take this readiness to cooperate with an outsider like me, and to make the internal debate more public, as further evidence of the change within ISKCON towards more interaction with its surroundings, in accordance with the “paradigm shift” Federico Squarcini has described in his “In Search of Identity within the Hare Krishna Movement: Memory, Oblivion and Thought Style”, Social Compass 47,2 (2000): 253-271. Further information on multiple realities, as well as bibliographic references, can be found in Rahul Peter Das: “Stranger in a Strange Land”, in: Renata Czekalska, Halina Marlewicz (eds.), 2 International Conference on Indian Studies. Proceed- nd ings. Cracow Indological Studies 4-5. Kraków: Jagiellonian University, Institute of Oriental Philology 2003, pp. 153-177. But I soon found that it was not easy to come across clear statements on the core doctrinal issues involved in this ongoing dispute, which made it difficult for an outsider like me to comprehend it.
I also began to suspect that even within ISKCON some might have difficulties in this regard. I thus approached both the IRM and the GBC with the request to set forth what they see as the fundamental issues, and their respective positions on these, for a general readership possibly ignorant of all the relevant intricacies, but nevertheless desirous to understand the issue. Happily, both sides acquiesced; their respective statements, edited by me, have been scrutinised and, after several revisions, passed by the respective authorities, and are now available for public perusal.18 Before I now leave the reader to study these statements, I would like to remark on one important notion that might be helpful in understanding some of the arguments in what follows, but may seem rather unfamiliar if one does not approach these arguments from within South Asian religious traditions. This is the notion of persons with special faculties being able to transfer themselves at will from one sphere or reality to another, and of being able to act or exert influence regardless of where they actually are at any given moment. Famous preceptors of various traditions are prominent examples of persons held to have such powers. ISKCON too bears witness to the notion of existence in alternative spheres or realities; a common term used within ISKCON to describe these is “planet”. Moreover, ISKCON texts also relate of beings capa- 19 ble of moving from one such sphere or reality to another. It is, however, possible to go even further. I shall demonstrate this by drawing attention once again to the Ananda Marga booklet already cited. This states unequivocally that the guru can be present everywhere through his divine ( divya) or subtle ( suksma) body ( sarira), and thus care for the disciple (p. 10). The text further explicates on how the guru only occasionally shows himself on earth in an earthly body, but is always present in other forms, especially in an “astral body” (the English words are used).20 I have adduced this example because the Ananda Marga grouping too is an internationally active religious movement, well known not only in South Asia, but also in other parts of the world. Though the particulars of, and deductions from, the basic notion underlying this example are not necessarily the same as in the traditions of other religious movements, it nevertheless demonstrates quite well what consequences for doctrinal issues may result from the application of the notion of abiding in various spheres or realities. The extent to which the notion mentioned is relevant to the controversy between the IRM and the GBC, I leave to the reader to discern, particularly as regards the idea of being active in one sphere or reality while being present in another. For those dealing professionally with the analysis of notions originating in South Asia, the matter remains intriguing regardless of the extent of relevance, especially since suddenly the supposedly “exotic” turns out to be no longer so: like the Ananda Marga, ISKCON too is an international organisation whose issues impinge also on societies outside South Asia, even if this be only to a limited extent. The wall of exoticism often separating the non-South Asian researcher on South Asia from the object of study is thus suddenly found to have been breached, even if only a little. There is another notion alluded to in the following, which might strike some as difficult to comprehend. It is that of the transference from the devotee to the preceptor of what, for lack of a better terminology, is often called “sin” in English. This too is, however, nothing peculiar to ISKCON. In fact, the belief in such transference is so common that I can Introduction 7 Susan S. Wadley: “One Straw from a Broom Cannot Sweep: The Ideology and 21 Practice of the Joint Family in Rural North India”, in: Diane P. Mines, Sarah Lamb (eds.), Everyday Life in South Asia. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press 2002, pp. 11-22. Quote from p. 18. dispense with references to normative ritual, legal or similar texts, but quote, instead, from a description of beliefs in a contemporary North Indian rural setting:21 Just as the sins of a family are ultimately the responsibility of the head, so too the sins of the village are the responsibility of the dominant caste, in this case the Brahman landlords. Here again individuality is muted. Whereas an individual can sin and hence affect his own life course by altering his destiny (karma), he also alters that of his family, lineage, caste, and village, for an individual is not a unique entity but shares substance and moral codes with all of those with whom he or she is related, in ever larger circles. All those belonging to the nation of India also share in the same way. In this case too, it thus pays to look at the larger South Asian context out of which ISKCON developed. Finally, I wish to reiterate here that it is only professional interest which has led me to embark upon this enterprise of requesting the proponents of the two rivalling views on legitimacy within ISKCON to submit their respective authoritative statements for public scrutiny. No overt or covert sympathy for any one of the sides involved in the dispute is to be deduced from this endeavour.
Rahul Peter Das Institut für Indologie und Südasienwissenschaften Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg Germany
Full article: http://www.suedasien.uni-halle.de/SAWA/IRM-GBC.pdf
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