“A Tale of 2 Numbering Systems”

The “New Bhaktivedanta Tape Ministry” Is Bogus
by Pratyatosa Dasa (ACBSP)
Last night, I asked my wife (Urmila Devi Dasi):

“… do you remember when the Bhaktivedanta Tape Ministry numbering system was changed, so that you could no longer tell which tapes that we had and which we didn’t? I remember you being very upset about it, and when you contacted them, instead of them apologizing for your inconvenience and giving you a cross-reference list, you were simply met with indifference and disrespectful sarcasm! Then you became even more upset, remember?”

I’m thinking that the year would have been 1977 or maybe a little later. 1977 was the year when that rascal Parama-rupa Dasa first started the “New Bhaktivedanta Tape Ministry”  (See http://bhaktivedantaarchives.blogspot.com/) which, IMHO, should be called the “Bogus Bhaktivedanta Tape Ministry.” Before I spent a few years complaining about it, he used to claim that he had started the one and only “Bhaktivedanta Tape Ministry!” He even had a color brochure printed up which proclaimed this lie! Sometime during the 1980s, I saw this bogus brochure at the Bhaktivedanta Cultural Center in Detroit on a free travel brochure rack. The rack was meant for the benefit of guests who had come to take a tour of the Auto Baron’s “Fisher Mansion” (ISKCON Detroit). Needless to say, it made me, who had started the Bhaktivedanta Tape Ministry in 1971 (I didn’t actually give it that name until 1973), a little upset!

By the way, my GBC representative, when I started ISKCON’s first audio cassette tape subscription service in New York City (at the ISKCON temple on Henry Street in Brooklyn) in 1971, was Rupanuga Prabhu, and I will be forever grateful for the whole-hearted support that he gave to this project. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for his very intelligent foresight in supporting this very important pioneering transcendental preaching project.

Before Parama-rupa took over the BTM from Krsnakanti Prabhu, no lecture by Srila Prabhupada had ever been edited. As far as I’m concerned, this is just common sense. “You don’t edit the transcendental sound vibration of the pure devotee of the Lord!” But in addition to this common sense realization, Srila Prabhupada had specifically told Krsnakanti, in 1972, “My classes must be distributed unedited or not at all.” (paraphrased) A few seconds after Krsnakanti was told this, in person by Srila Prabhupada, he ran down the stairs from Srila Prabhupada’s quarters to his Golden Avatar Productions recording studio, and relayed the order to me, word-for-word!

The numbering system that I had started in 1971 and which Krsnakanti had faithfully continued was ideal, and if Parama-rupa had refrained from concocting the completely insane system that they are still using today, then they wouldn’t be having the problem of how to number the tapes with the time and/or place unknown. Through several incarnations of the Archive’s MP3 CD-ROM set, they’ve had only one MP3 with the time and place unknown:

000000LE.UN

… obviously because their crazy numbering system only allows for one!

Parama-rupa never asked my advice, and from what Krsnakanti Prabhu has told me, I get the feeling that he was never consulted either. I remember Krsnakanti speaking about what was being done by the “New BTM,” such as more than doubling the prices, with disgust.

Here’s another example of their idiocy:

710720LE.LA

I recorded this lecture myself. I was sitting on the floor at the foot of the Vyasasan to Srila Prabhupada’s right side with my professional quality Tandberg reel-to-reel tape recorder recording his every word. I remember looking up and seeing Srila Prabhupada leaning over the side of his huge Vyasasan, looking straight down at the tape recorder — just staring at it for several seconds with a very serious look on his face. I could understand that he was very concerned about his lectures being recorded nicely for the benefit of future generations of devotees.

The trouble is, Srila Prabhupada and I were in New York, not Los Angeles! Parama-rupa got the date right, but he got the city wrong! There is no excuse for this because a few hours earlier I recorded a conversation that I had had with Srila Prabhupada in his quarters, and they got that one right:

710720RC.NY

They also got the next day’s initiation lecture (when my daughter’s future father-in-law, Srutakirti Prabhu was initiated) right!:

710721IN.NY

A simple computer program could have analyzed the list of MP3 file names and detected such an anomaly in a split second, but obviously, Parama-rupa never bothered to do this.

If only he had stuck to the numbering system that I had started in New York in 1971, the Archives would not be having such ridiculous problems today. For example, using my numbering system we get:

NY71-1

This is a combination of the place, the year, and a sequence number. The place came first because this was the most important piece of information to the devotee. The devotee is the most interested in what Srila Prabhupada said in the temple that he was initiated in or the temple that he spent the most time living in. The next is the year. This is also very important to the devotee because he was initiated in a particular year and he lived in a particular temple in a particular year or series of years. This 4 or 5 character sequence narrows down the time and place very effectively, because Srila Prabhupada normally only visited a particular temple once in a particular year. The “1” is simply a sequence number. Therefore, the number means that it was the first recording of Srila Prabhupada in New York in 1971.

Suppose that the last tape in the series was NY71-22, and then, later on, another tape showed up, such as the conversation that I had with Srila Prabhupada on the 20th, which was recorded on cassette. No problem! The number would simply be NY71-23! There was no rule saying that the sequence numbers absolutely had to correspond to a chronological order! Perfectly logical and foolproof! A model of simplicity and efficiency!

If the time and place of a series of recordings has been lost, Then the number could be UNK00-1, UNK-00-2, etc. If the ciy is known but the year is unknown, then why not use, for example, NY00-1, NY00-2, etc.? If the year was known, but the city was lost, then the numbers could be, for example, UNK67-1, UNK67-2, etc.

Krsnakanti took over the cassette tape subscription service from me in 1972, but then he got distracted by his weekly radio broadcast, the “Krishna Show,” so he allowed it to diminish. Therefore, I took it over again in 1973, started calling it the Bhaktivedanta Tape Ministry, computerized the subscription accounting, the printing of the cassette labels, and the printing of the shipping labels. Then I again turned it over to Krsnakanti who, this time, did a great job of keeping it going exactly the way in which I had set it up.

In early 1972, the GBC body passed a resolution authorizing Krsnakanti and I to do what we were doing. As far as I know, the GBC has never authorized the “New (Bogus) Bhaktivedanta Tape Ministry” or the entire Bhaktivedanta Archives, for that matter, to do anything. Where is there such a resolution? It doesn’t exist. Therefore, the “New BTM” is completely unauthorized and bogus, bogus, bogus!

A symptom of the unauthorized nature of this fiasco is the fact that the lectures were edited, which is the prime example of Parama-rupa’s disobeying Srila Prabhupada’s emphatic orders that his lectures be distributed unedited of not at all! Another symptom is the fact that Parama-rupa, being the uneducated bloke that he is, doesn’t even know how to say the Word, “Atlanta!” He calls it “Alanta,” thus embarrassing Srila Prabhpada with his ignorance for all the world to see! 

By the way, you can help! If you haven’t already done so, please sign the petition!

Your servant, Pratyatosa Dasa