Quibbling.

[Guest guest]

Dear Krishna,

 

"I should have thought it was obvious."

 

Of course there will be such "accusations" on the

Internet and elsewhere. There is a statement of

historical fact--The Gaudiya Math has not parampara

connection, at least not in the way it was understood

by the sampradaya before Siddhanta Saraswati.

 

It is the followers of Siddhanta Saraswati who condemn

all those who went before as "apasampradayas."

 

Gaudiya Vaishnavism evolved over 350 years after the

disappearance of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. As with every

human phenomenon, it was born, grew and developed in

response to the social situation in which it found

itself. Without an understanding of context, our

understanding is only partial. We make judgments based

on our understanding or misunderstanding of context.

This why Benedict Arnold can be the synonym of

treachery for the Americans and a loyal hero to the

British. The victors write history, and so most people

are left with only a one-sided understanding of

history, in other words, myth.

 

Victors are generally able to promote their

understanding of history, which places their successes

in the light of inevitability and divine will. It is

the duty of the historian to see through such an

ideological understanding of history.

 

Through most of the world, those in the line of

Siddhanta Saraswati view their successes in preaching

as the sign of their being the true inheritors of the

mantle of Chaitanya and Sri Rupa Goswami. This is

neither suprising nor, one might say, unjustified.

However, the Gaudiya Math movement was born out of a

polemic against the institutions of Gaudiya

Vaishnavism as they existed at the beginning of the

20th century, with the result that most people within

the Gaudiya Math and its offshoots have a perception

of the history of Chaitanya Vaishnavism seen through

the light of this polemic.

 

It is my feeling, however, that a broader

understanding of Vaishnava history in its social

context of will lead to a more nuanced and

appreciative view of the traditional Gaudiya Vaishnava

world, a view that will benefit all.

 

Gaudiya Vaishnavism, as well as the myriad other

bhakti movements in India took birth and first

flourished in the Islamic period. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

appeared when Islamic rulers held the reins of power

in East India and the Islamic religion was making

great inroads throughout the region, primarily through

effective proselytization by Sufi preachers. One who

ignores this context will misunderstand much about

Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Furthermore, one must also

comprehend that Saraswati Thakur appeared not

necessarily when Vaishnavism had become degraded, but

when the context had fundamentally changed.

 

Though much could be and has been said about

Hindu-Muslim relations, religious historian Joseph

O’Connell gives the following assessment of the role

Chaitanya Vaishnavism played in softening the edges of

a situtation that otherwise may well have been filled

with tension, “One of the most fundamental

sociological implications of the Chaitanya Vaishnava

movement and ongoing community was its contribution to

the socio-cultural integration of Hindu-Muslim

Bengal.”

 

O’Connell argues that the religio-psychological

aspects of Krishna devotion affected tbe basic social

orientation of Chaitanya Vaishnavas and facilitated

participation in the mixed and potential conflicted

relations of Hindu and Muslim in Bengal.

 

Of course, this is a much more complex matter that may

be discussed at length. My point is simply that the

development of the Gaudiya Vaishnavism would be better

seen in this context, where it was not just plodding

along, but had achieved a great deal of success as a

religious movement, spreading to all the corners of

the Bengali-speaking world and even beyond it in

Manipur and some other tribal areas, and developing

sound institutions that worked.

 

With the arrival of the British, the social and

cultural situation in Bengal changed radically. The

modus vivendi of coexistence Hindus had developed over

the centuries with Islam became irrelevant and a new

one with Christianity had to be sought out. The

situation was further complicated by the fact that

Islam had remained fairly static over the 223 years

between the departure of Mahaprabhu and the arrival of

the British, whereas the British were a dynamic race

for whom their Christianity was only one dimension.

The real roots of British power lay in other areas of

cultural superiority--namely, European rationalism.

 

This was not just rationalism in matters of religion,

but extended to various other spheres. For instance,

British military rationalism made it possible for a

handful of British regulars and British-trained sepoys

to defeat Indian armies ten times their size. This is

the Abbé Dubois' assessment: "The Moguls and

Mahrattas, two rival powers who for a long while

disputed the supremacy of India, placed on some

occasions as many as 100,000 horses in the field. The

Mahratta princes combined could have commanded as many

as 300,000 horses. But they never knew how to utilize

this unwieldy multitude to its full advantage, because

they did not understand how to maneouvre it in a

scientific manner. The lessons which the European

invaders gave them time after time, for more than 300

years, seem hardly to have taught them to appreciate

their mistakes. Even at the end of this long period,

and when it was too late to mend matters, there was a

vast inferiority in their tactics compared with those

of their dreaded opponents. They never could be

brought to understand the value of strict discipline,

good tactical handling, orderly arrangements in

marching and camping, and, in short, all the skilled

dispositions by which it is possible to manoeuvre

large bodies of troops without confusion. They thought

their work was done when they had collected a

miscellaneous horde of men, who marched to battle in a

disorderly mass and fell upon the enemy without any

method or concerted plan." ("Hindu Manners, Customs

and Ceremonies," 674)

 

This European rationalism and efficiency extended to

government administration, technology and a hundred

other facets of life. Thus whereas Hindus could look

on Islam as "just another way" of religious life and

even their cultural inferiors, with the British, the

majority of the Hindu elite was forced to admit a much

more widespread cultural inferiority. This can be seen

to some extent even in the writing of Bhaktivinoda

Thakur, but also in Bankim and other of his

contemporaries.

 

To understand how this admiration of the British was

closely related to the detestation of Chaitanya

Vaishnavism mood in the world of the 19th Bengali

elites, one only needs to read the books of Bankim

Chandra, such as Ananda Math and Sri Krishna Charita.

But whereas Bhaktivinoda Thakur used the analogy of

the British as India’s “younger Aryan brothers” to

whom the responsibilities of management could be

handed while the Indians tended to the cultivation of

their spiritual life, the more popular language of

discourse was that of masculinity and femininity. This

is all-pervading of the language of the time wherever

British/Indian relations are discussed (and indeed is

rather common to imperial discourse everywhere), and

the British customarily depreciated Hindus as being

even more “effeminate” than the Muslims. Whatever we

may think of such discourse today, it weighed heavily

on the psyche of the Indian intellectuals of the day,

who struggled with this typology.

 

In this context, Bankim attempted to rationalize the

understanding of Krishna by following the historical

method used by Renan and other European scholars to

discover the “historical Jesus.” The “historical

Krishna,” according to Bankim, was covered by two

mythological layers. The outermost layer was the

Krishna of the Bhagavata who played with the gopis.

This, Bankim argued, was a later, entirely fictional

accretion to the original historical personality of

Krishna. He blamed the popularity of this purely

mythological figure on Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and

argued that it was responsible for the effeminization

of the Bengali people. Though Bankim avowed that the

Vaishnavism taught by Chaitanya may have been of

benefit to a few highly elevated souls, its misuses

brought one into a degraded type of debauchery.

 

Bankim's second mythological layer was the warrior

hero of the Mahabharata and incarnation of Vishnu. The

historical Krishna, the teacher of the Bhagavad-gita,

though cut down to human proportions was defended by

Bankim as not only historically real, but as perhaps

the greatest person in Indian history.

 

Through this kind of argumentation, Bankim and others

changed the discourse to the justification of a

revised version of Hinduism. This culminated in the

Ramakrishna Mission, which however you look at it was,

like the Brahmo Samaj, a movement with a Hindu core,

but which had adopted numerous Western forms and

principles. Vivekananda clearly stood against the

Hinduism of the day, as were many others like

Dayananda, etc., but all believed that the essence of

Hinduism was pure and holy, it had only become

decadent. I suggest that we all admit right away that

this decadence was in great part recognizable only

because of the mirror that the British--both

Orientalist and Christian--held up before them.

 

We must look at both Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Siddhanta

Saraswati in their time and place. No one likes to

hear that Saraswati Thakur took a page out of

Vivekananda's book, but this is in fact what he was

doing. He saw the Vaishnava society of his time to be

hopelessly decadent on many levels. Its householder

acharya core was (according to him) engaged in

religious life purely as a business and acted like any

other self-interested elite. This was part and parcel

of the contemporary critique of the caste

system--which though age-old consituted a fundamental

(and still does) Western critique of Hindu society. I

recommend reading what I have called Saraswati

Thakur's Manifesto--"Brahmana o Vaishnava"--for one of

the earliest expressions of his views on this issue.

 

Like the British secularists, Christians, and

Vivekananda, and Bhaktivinoda before him, Saraswati

criticized the renunciates for being disengaged from

any social role and thus acting as a drain on the

society and economy, begging to make a living but

contributing little or nothing in return. Indeed, many

of them were living practically as householders and

yet still maintaining the trappings of renunciation

and expecting the rewards that accompanied that

status.

 

Finally, Saraswati Thakur saw the rise of Sahajiyaism

as a particularly distasteful consequence of the

overemphasis of Gaudiya Vaishnavism on Radha and

Krishna's dalliances. Though Chaitanya Vaishnavism had

an impressive theological core, the end result was

elaborately explained as being Radha and Krishna's

love affairs. The long-lived and resilient Sahajiya

tradition, which was born in Buddhist times, had

adapted very effectively to this doctrine. Thus, in

the minds of many British and Christians, Vaishnavism

was associated with sexual immorality. They took no

account of the yogic aspects of the Sahajiya

tradition, but only its self-evident immorality.

 

Furthermore, this was Victorian England, whose mastery

of the world was attributed to its discipline and

that, in turn, to its sexual self-control. These

things were not lost on the Hindu reformers.

 

All of Saraswati Thakur's reforms can be seen in the

light of these three fundamental criticisms of

traditional Vaishnava society. His preaching was often

harsh, but it struck a chord with many who felt that

his voice was one that led to a rationalization and

modernization of Chaitanya Vaishnavism. Saraswati

broke entirely with the disciplic succession system of

the caste Goswamis, calling it a Pancharatrika system.

By emphasizing the new "Bhagavati" system, he

effectively undercut their monopoly. By criticizing

the siddha-pranali system, he undercut the Sahajiyas

and brought the emphasis of Krishna consciousness to

the intellectual and away from the affective and

easily misunderstood aspects of Radha Krishna lila. By

taking a novel form of sannyas, he established a new

Vaishnava social order and institutional system, thus

sidestepping the disreputable Vaishnava renunciates of

the day.

 

There were many reasons that Saraswati Thakur felt

incapable of reforming Gaudiya Vaishnavism from

within the system, so he broke away. But break away he

did, let us make no mistake. I repeat this again for

all those in the Gaudiya Math and Iskcon who still try

to establish some kind of diksha relationship between

the various members of their Parampara system.

Saraswati Thakur created a new, Bhagavati parampara,

whose basis is not Pancharatrika initiation.

 

I personally cannot criticize any of these reforming

moves on the part of Saraswati Thakur. They were

appropriate according to time and place and I honor

them. Indeed, we must accept the historical

effectiveness of his rationalizations of Gaudiya

Vaishnavism and acknowledge that without them, it

would have been unlikely that the chanting of the Holy

Name could have spread around the world so rapidly.

 

We are, however, left with a number of what I think

are important questions:

 

Did the Vaishnava system that existed prior to

Siddhanta Saraswati have NO redeeming features? This

is very important, as it seems to be the firm belief

of the Gaudiya Math and Iskcon today that "ex ecclesia

nullum salus"--anyone outside their tradition has no

chance of salvation. Admittedly, those outside the

Gaudiya Math tend to think the same way about the GM.

This is where my question about quibbling takes on

particular significance. I have already shown how I

personally am ready to argue that the reforms of

Saraswati Thakur should be honored by those outside

his movement. Now I shall turn to why I think that

Iskcon and the Gaudiya Math should similarly honor the

Vaishnavas outside their walls.

 

In fact, there are other, objective criteria by which

one can measure a person's spiritual acumen, and the

reliance on external signs like initiation or

parampara for legitimacy can only be superficially

helpful. In this case, however, initiation means more

than just the possibility of perfection, it means the

adoption of external rites and rituals, external modes

of dress and other kinds of cultural distinction. The

traditional Gaudiya Vaishnavas have a 500-year-old

culture that has, to a great extent been jettisoned by

the Gaudiya Math and Iskcon. For example, the songs

and aratis of Bhaktivinoda Thakur are sung to the

almost total exclusion of the great Mahajans of

Vaishnava padavali like Govinda Das, Jnana Das, and

Lochan Das, etc. Are we to say that one is better than

the other? Can even the Gaudiya Math suggest that

Bhaktivinoda supplants or supersedes these

predecessors common to the Gaudiya Vaishnava heritage?

 

 

In effect, with one or two exceptions, what the

Gaudiya Math has done is to nullify the historical

development of Gaudiya Vaishnavism as being entirely

without value and basically, all wrong. I believe that

this is an excessively black and white way of looking

at things, as well as being fundamentally wrong. It

even goes beyond wrong and affects the basic principle

of Vaishnava good manners. Historically, the Gaudiya

Vaishnava system in place in the context of the late

19th century Raj may have been wrong for the time and

place and necessitated reforms, but does that mean it

was wrong for the mid-18th century, for example? Or

that it is even wrong in the changing world of today

at the beginning of the 21st? Or that it is not the

correct path for certain individuals of certain

disposition somewhere at any time?

 

Whatever Vaishnavism exists in the Gaudiya Math has,

ultimately, come through the grace of those who

preserved it over the 350 years that preceded

Bhaktivinoda Thakur, not the least of whom was Bipin

Bihari Goswami, his guru. Is it surprising, then, that

some feel that the callous disregard of the rich

contributions that all these Vaishnavas made to the

preservation and development of Gaudiya Vaishnava

culture is "guror avajna"? Minaketan Ramdas rejected

Krishna Das's brother for honoring Chaitanya while

dishonoring Nityananda Prabhu. He called it "ardha

kukkuti nyaya." Similarly, to accept Gaudiya

Vaishnavism but to reject the contributions made over

the centuries by the so-called Sahajiyas, Babajis and

Jati Goswamis is looking at only half of the hen—and

perhaps not even the good half.

 

Babajis, Jati Goswamis, Sahajiyas have all become

confounded into one amorphous mass, but in fact there

is no monolithic Vaishnava world outside the Gaudiya

Math. There are hundreds of subsects following

numerous individual gurus, each of whose adhikara

differs from that of others.

 

It behooves all Vaishnavas to honor those who chant

the Holy Name, who have dedicated their lives to

remembering Radha and Krishna, to living in the Dham,

etc.

 

This article is posted in a slightly different form on

my website

http://www.granthamandira.org/~jagat/articles/showarticle.php?id=90

 

For my article on Siddhanta Saraswati's reforms, see

the two part article

http://www.granthamandira.org/~jagat/articles/showarticle.php?id=15

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

As moderator, I am often forced to approve articles which I may not

agree with. However, in this particular case, I found so much to

disagree with that I felt it necessary to summarize my objections

before stating them on a point-by-point basis. This will also be

helpful, since time constraints may prevent me from getting around to

answering every point in this very verbose article.

 

First of all, this is very much a mailing list dedicated to Gaudiiya

Vaishnavism as it is understood through the paramparaa of Srila A.C.

Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. We have, what I frankly consider to

be, a very liberal policy of allowing people to question or

challenge. This does not mean, however, that we consider any other

opinion to be equal in nature to those of the aachaaryas whose

instructions we follow. Whether the concerns relate to seeking

empirical justification, or of reconciling our doctrine with those of

other groups who call themselves Gaudiiya Vaishnavas, the critics

need to realize that the burden of proof is on them when they

challenge our aachaaryas' viewpoints. It is very distasteful for them

to state a contrary opinion as if it is an obvious fact, with

absolutely no discussion of the evidence upon which their opinions

are based. Note that I am not discouraging the discussion of other

opinions - only the propaganda that other opinions have validity when

only insufficient or no evidence is offered to support them. This

includes opinions born of moral relativism, the bastion of secular

scholars, who ascribe validity to any tradition or custom when it has

historical presence, regardless of whether or not it has shaastric

backing. As this is a Vaishnava forum, the instructions of our

aachaaryas and the injunctions of the Vedas (which includes the

Bhaagavatam) are the topmost authority for determining what is and is

not correct. Those are not at least prepared to accept this

theoretically would be better of somewhere else.

 

Secondly, I am rather disturbed at the types of conclusions that are

drawn from this paper, not simply by the nature of such conclusion,

but also due to the utter lack of regard for the actual facts. I am

referring, of course, to the unwarranted comparison of Srila

Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati with people like Swami Vivekananda. It

seems odd to me, that we are asked to see similarities between the

two, when the obvious differences in both style and motivation are

simply glossed over due to inconvenience. This is very poor

scholarship, and it is bad etiquette as well. One should always think

twice before comparing a respected Vaishnava to a meat-eating

atheist, regardless of the type of comparison that is being drawn.

This is simply a matter of good culture. At the very least, one

should be prepared to deal with facts, rather than ignoring them in

the name of scholarly criticism.

 

The third point I wish to make is in regards to a very disturbing

trend I am beginning to notice about the historical context of the

paramparaa discussion. Specifically, I note that when criticism is

directed at the Saarasvata Gaudiiya paramparaa, it seems to be only

when its representatives defend themselves that we start hearing the

clarion call by academic scholars for tolerance and mutual

acceptance. At least, that is how it has proceeded on this list. I

don't know how to be gentle about this, but this is just not a very

intellectually honest attitude. Trying to pin the blame for the

intersampradaaya conflict exclusively on the Gaudiiya Saarasvata

paramparaa is blatant denial of the historical context in which the

differences arose. Scholars would do well to examine all of the

context, rather than assuming the authenticity of one group and

subjecting only the other group to rigorous cross-examination.

 

Finally, I wish it to be made clear, that from the standpoint of

doctrine as it has been taught by the aachaaryas, there has never

been criticism against those outside our paramparaa who were

faithfully following Lord Chaitanya. Rather, the criticism has

historically been against two types of people under the "Gaudiiya"

header. The first type are those who might be pious, but who

nevertheless do not have a correct understanding of Mahaaprabhu's

philosophy. In this case, there is nothing wrong with criticism - the

issue is one of determining which viewpoint is correct. Saying that

all views are correct is just sentimentalism, even when it finds its

way into academic journals. For Vaishnavas, there is a clear cut

system of authority for determing such things, and mindless

acceptance does no good to anyone's tradition. The second type

criticized by the Saarasvata Gaudiiyas are those who are just

blatantly sinful. These include people who deliberately mixed up

Vaishnavism with elements of Islam and Buddhism, people who ate meat,

people who tried to stage their own "raasa-liila." Anyone who wishes

to be taken seriously as a Vaishnava, what to speak of Gaudiiya

Vaishnavas, *should* be philosophically opposed to such groups. Those

who wish to use the second example of criticism as evidence that the

critics are somehow intolerant or closed-minded, should get a

refresher course on what Vaishnavism is. There should be no shame in

pointing out the sinful degradation that goes on in the name of

tradition; the shame rather is on those who refuse to do this.

 

More later.

 

- K

 

 

 

 

 

 

achintya, Jan Brzezinski <jankbrz> wrote:

> Dear Krishna,

>

> "I should have thought it was obvious."

>

> Of course there will be such "accusations" on the

> Internet and elsewhere. There is a statement of

> historical fact--The Gaudiya Math has not parampara

> connection, at least not in the way it was understood

> by the sampradaya before Siddhanta Saraswati.

>

> It is the followers of Siddhanta Saraswati who condemn

> all those who went before as "apasampradayas."

>

> Gaudiya Vaishnavism evolved over 350 years after the

> disappearance of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. As with every

> human phenomenon, it was born, grew and developed in

> response to the social situation in which it found

> itself. Without an understanding of context, our

> understanding is only partial. We make judgments based

> on our understanding or misunderstanding of context.

> This why Benedict Arnold can be the synonym of

> treachery for the Americans and a loyal hero to the

> British. The victors write history, and so most people

> are left with only a one-sided understanding of

> history, in other words, myth.

>

> Victors are generally able to promote their

> understanding of history, which places their successes

> in the light of inevitability and divine will. It is

> the duty of the historian to see through such an

> ideological understanding of history.

>

> Through most of the world, those in the line of

> Siddhanta Saraswati view their successes in preaching

> as the sign of their being the true inheritors of the

> mantle of Chaitanya and Sri Rupa Goswami. This is

> neither suprising nor, one might say, unjustified.

> However, the Gaudiya Math movement was born out of a

> polemic against the institutions of Gaudiya

> Vaishnavism as they existed at the beginning of the

> 20th century, with the result that most people within

> the Gaudiya Math and its offshoots have a perception

> of the history of Chaitanya Vaishnavism seen through

> the light of this polemic.

>

> It is my feeling, however, that a broader

> understanding of Vaishnava history in its social

> context of will lead to a more nuanced and

> appreciative view of the traditional Gaudiya Vaishnava

> world, a view that will benefit all.

>

> Gaudiya Vaishnavism, as well as the myriad other

> bhakti movements in India took birth and first

> flourished in the Islamic period. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

> appeared when Islamic rulers held the reins of power

> in East India and the Islamic religion was making

> great inroads throughout the region, primarily through

> effective proselytization by Sufi preachers. One who

> ignores this context will misunderstand much about

> Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Furthermore, one must also

> comprehend that Saraswati Thakur appeared not

> necessarily when Vaishnavism had become degraded, but

> when the context had fundamentally changed.

>

> Though much could be and has been said about

> Hindu-Muslim relations, religious historian Joseph

> O'Connell gives the following assessment of the role

> Chaitanya Vaishnavism played in softening the edges of

> a situtation that otherwise may well have been filled

> with tension, "One of the most fundamental

> sociological implications of the Chaitanya Vaishnava

> movement and ongoing community was its contribution to

> the socio-cultural integration of Hindu-Muslim

> Bengal."

>

> O'Connell argues that the religio-psychological

> aspects of Krishna devotion affected tbe basic social

> orientation of Chaitanya Vaishnavas and facilitated

> participation in the mixed and potential conflicted

> relations of Hindu and Muslim in Bengal.

>

> Of course, this is a much more complex matter that may

> be discussed at length. My point is simply that the

> development of the Gaudiya Vaishnavism would be better

> seen in this context, where it was not just plodding

> along, but had achieved a great deal of success as a

> religious movement, spreading to all the corners of

> the Bengali-speaking world and even beyond it in

> Manipur and some other tribal areas, and developing

> sound institutions that worked.

>

> With the arrival of the British, the social and

> cultural situation in Bengal changed radically. The

> modus vivendi of coexistence Hindus had developed over

> the centuries with Islam became irrelevant and a new

> one with Christianity had to be sought out. The

> situation was further complicated by the fact that

> Islam had remained fairly static over the 223 years

> between the departure of Mahaprabhu and the arrival of

> the British, whereas the British were a dynamic race

> for whom their Christianity was only one dimension.

> The real roots of British power lay in other areas of

> cultural superiority--namely, European rationalism.

>

> This was not just rationalism in matters of religion,

> but extended to various other spheres. For instance,

> British military rationalism made it possible for a

> handful of British regulars and British-trained sepoys

> to defeat Indian armies ten times their size. This is

> the Abbé Dubois' assessment: "The Moguls and

> Mahrattas, two rival powers who for a long while

> disputed the supremacy of India, placed on some

> occasions as many as 100,000 horses in the field. The

> Mahratta princes combined could have commanded as many

> as 300,000 horses. But they never knew how to utilize

> this unwieldy multitude to its full advantage, because

> they did not understand how to maneouvre it in a

> scientific manner. The lessons which the European

> invaders gave them time after time, for more than 300

> years, seem hardly to have taught them to appreciate

> their mistakes. Even at the end of this long period,

> and when it was too late to mend matters, there was a

> vast inferiority in their tactics compared with those

> of their dreaded opponents. They never could be

> brought to understand the value of strict discipline,

> good tactical handling, orderly arrangements in

> marching and camping, and, in short, all the skilled

> dispositions by which it is possible to manoeuvre

> large bodies of troops without confusion. They thought

> their work was done when they had collected a

> miscellaneous horde of men, who marched to battle in a

> disorderly mass and fell upon the enemy without any

> method or concerted plan." ("Hindu Manners, Customs

> and Ceremonies," 674)

>

> This European rationalism and efficiency extended to

> government administration, technology and a hundred

> other facets of life. Thus whereas Hindus could look

> on Islam as "just another way" of religious life and

> even their cultural inferiors, with the British, the

> majority of the Hindu elite was forced to admit a much

> more widespread cultural inferiority. This can be seen

> to some extent even in the writing of Bhaktivinoda

> Thakur, but also in Bankim and other of his

> contemporaries.

>

> To understand how this admiration of the British was

> closely related to the detestation of Chaitanya

> Vaishnavism mood in the world of the 19th Bengali

> elites, one only needs to read the books of Bankim

> Chandra, such as Ananda Math and Sri Krishna Charita.

> But whereas Bhaktivinoda Thakur used the analogy of

> the British as India's "younger Aryan brothers" to

> whom the responsibilities of management could be

> handed while the Indians tended to the cultivation of

> their spiritual life, the more popular language of

> discourse was that of masculinity and femininity. This

> is all-pervading of the language of the time wherever

> British/Indian relations are discussed (and indeed is

> rather common to imperial discourse everywhere), and

> the British customarily depreciated Hindus as being

> even more "effeminate" than the Muslims. Whatever we

> may think of such discourse today, it weighed heavily

> on the psyche of the Indian intellectuals of the day,

> who struggled with this typology.

>

> In this context, Bankim attempted to rationalize the

> understanding of Krishna by following the historical

> method used by Renan and other European scholars to

> discover the "historical Jesus." The "historical

> Krishna," according to Bankim, was covered by two

> mythological layers. The outermost layer was the

> Krishna of the Bhagavata who played with the gopis.

> This, Bankim argued, was a later, entirely fictional

> accretion to the original historical personality of

> Krishna. He blamed the popularity of this purely

> mythological figure on Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and

> argued that it was responsible for the effeminization

> of the Bengali people. Though Bankim avowed that the

> Vaishnavism taught by Chaitanya may have been of

> benefit to a few highly elevated souls, its misuses

> brought one into a degraded type of debauchery.

>

> Bankim's second mythological layer was the warrior

> hero of the Mahabharata and incarnation of Vishnu. The

> historical Krishna, the teacher of the Bhagavad-gita,

> though cut down to human proportions was defended by

> Bankim as not only historically real, but as perhaps

> the greatest person in Indian history.

>

> Through this kind of argumentation, Bankim and others

> changed the discourse to the justification of a

> revised version of Hinduism. This culminated in the

> Ramakrishna Mission, which however you look at it was,

> like the Brahmo Samaj, a movement with a Hindu core,

> but which had adopted numerous Western forms and

> principles. Vivekananda clearly stood against the

> Hinduism of the day, as were many others like

> Dayananda, etc., but all believed that the essence of

> Hinduism was pure and holy, it had only become

> decadent. I suggest that we all admit right away that

> this decadence was in great part recognizable only

> because of the mirror that the British--both

> Orientalist and Christian--held up before them.

>

> We must look at both Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Siddhanta

> Saraswati in their time and place. No one likes to

> hear that Saraswati Thakur took a page out of

> Vivekananda's book, but this is in fact what he was

> doing. He saw the Vaishnava society of his time to be

> hopelessly decadent on many levels. Its householder

> acharya core was (according to him) engaged in

> religious life purely as a business and acted like any

> other self-interested elite. This was part and parcel

> of the contemporary critique of the caste

> system--which though age-old consituted a fundamental

> (and still does) Western critique of Hindu society. I

> recommend reading what I have called Saraswati

> Thakur's Manifesto--"Brahmana o Vaishnava"--for one of

> the earliest expressions of his views on this issue.

>

> Like the British secularists, Christians, and

> Vivekananda, and Bhaktivinoda before him, Saraswati

> criticized the renunciates for being disengaged from

> any social role and thus acting as a drain on the

> society and economy, begging to make a living but

> contributing little or nothing in return. Indeed, many

> of them were living practically as householders and

> yet still maintaining the trappings of renunciation

> and expecting the rewards that accompanied that

> status.

>

> Finally, Saraswati Thakur saw the rise of Sahajiyaism

> as a particularly distasteful consequence of the

> overemphasis of Gaudiya Vaishnavism on Radha and

> Krishna's dalliances. Though Chaitanya Vaishnavism had

> an impressive theological core, the end result was

> elaborately explained as being Radha and Krishna's

> love affairs. The long-lived and resilient Sahajiya

> tradition, which was born in Buddhist times, had

> adapted very effectively to this doctrine. Thus, in

> the minds of many British and Christians, Vaishnavism

> was associated with sexual immorality. They took no

> account of the yogic aspects of the Sahajiya

> tradition, but only its self-evident immorality.

>

> Furthermore, this was Victorian England, whose mastery

> of the world was attributed to its discipline and

> that, in turn, to its sexual self-control. These

> things were not lost on the Hindu reformers.

>

> All of Saraswati Thakur's reforms can be seen in the

> light of these three fundamental criticisms of

> traditional Vaishnava society. His preaching was often

> harsh, but it struck a chord with many who felt that

> his voice was one that led to a rationalization and

> modernization of Chaitanya Vaishnavism. Saraswati

> broke entirely with the disciplic succession system of

> the caste Goswamis, calling it a Pancharatrika system.

> By emphasizing the new "Bhagavati" system, he

> effectively undercut their monopoly. By criticizing

> the siddha-pranali system, he undercut the Sahajiyas

> and brought the emphasis of Krishna consciousness to

> the intellectual and away from the affective and

> easily misunderstood aspects of Radha Krishna lila. By

> taking a novel form of sannyas, he established a new

> Vaishnava social order and institutional system, thus

> sidestepping the disreputable Vaishnava renunciates of

> the day.

>

> There were many reasons that Saraswati Thakur felt

> incapable of reforming Gaudiya Vaishnavism from

> within the system, so he broke away. But break away he

> did, let us make no mistake. I repeat this again for

> all those in the Gaudiya Math and Iskcon who still try

> to establish some kind of diksha relationship between

> the various members of their Parampara system.

> Saraswati Thakur created a new, Bhagavati parampara,

> whose basis is not Pancharatrika initiation.

>

> I personally cannot criticize any of these reforming

> moves on the part of Saraswati Thakur. They were

> appropriate according to time and place and I honor

> them. Indeed, we must accept the historical

> effectiveness of his rationalizations of Gaudiya

> Vaishnavism and acknowledge that without them, it

> would have been unlikely that the chanting of the Holy

> Name could have spread around the world so rapidly.

>

> We are, however, left with a number of what I think

> are important questions:

>

> Did the Vaishnava system that existed prior to

> Siddhanta Saraswati have NO redeeming features? This

> is very important, as it seems to be the firm belief

> of the Gaudiya Math and Iskcon today that "ex ecclesia

> nullum salus"--anyone outside their tradition has no

> chance of salvation. Admittedly, those outside the

> Gaudiya Math tend to think the same way about the GM.

> This is where my question about quibbling takes on

> particular significance. I have already shown how I

> personally am ready to argue that the reforms of

> Saraswati Thakur should be honored by those outside

> his movement. Now I shall turn to why I think that

> Iskcon and the Gaudiya Math should similarly honor the

> Vaishnavas outside their walls.

>

> In fact, there are other, objective criteria by which

> one can measure a person's spiritual acumen, and the

> reliance on external signs like initiation or

> parampara for legitimacy can only be superficially

> helpful. In this case, however, initiation means more

> than just the possibility of perfection, it means the

> adoption of external rites and rituals, external modes

> of dress and other kinds of cultural distinction. The

> traditional Gaudiya Vaishnavas have a 500-year-old

> culture that has, to a great extent been jettisoned by

> the Gaudiya Math and Iskcon. For example, the songs

> and aratis of Bhaktivinoda Thakur are sung to the

> almost total exclusion of the great Mahajans of

> Vaishnava padavali like Govinda Das, Jnana Das, and

> Lochan Das, etc. Are we to say that one is better than

> the other? Can even the Gaudiya Math suggest that

> Bhaktivinoda supplants or supersedes these

> predecessors common to the Gaudiya Vaishnava heritage?

>

>

> In effect, with one or two exceptions, what the

> Gaudiya Math has done is to nullify the historical

> development of Gaudiya Vaishnavism as being entirely

> without value and basically, all wrong. I believe that

> this is an excessively black and white way of looking

> at things, as well as being fundamentally wrong. It

> even goes beyond wrong and affects the basic principle

> of Vaishnava good manners. Historically, the Gaudiya

> Vaishnava system in place in the context of the late

> 19th century Raj may have been wrong for the time and

> place and necessitated reforms, but does that mean it

> was wrong for the mid-18th century, for example? Or

> that it is even wrong in the changing world of today

> at the beginning of the 21st? Or that it is not the

> correct path for certain individuals of certain

> disposition somewhere at any time?

>

> Whatever Vaishnavism exists in the Gaudiya Math has,

> ultimately, come through the grace of those who

> preserved it over the 350 years that preceded

> Bhaktivinoda Thakur, not the least of whom was Bipin

> Bihari Goswami, his guru. Is it surprising, then, that

> some feel that the callous disregard of the rich

> contributions that all these Vaishnavas made to the

> preservation and development of Gaudiya Vaishnava

> culture is "guror avajna"? Minaketan Ramdas rejected

> Krishna Das's brother for honoring Chaitanya while

> dishonoring Nityananda Prabhu. He called it "ardha

> kukkuti nyaya." Similarly, to accept Gaudiya

> Vaishnavism but to reject the contributions made over

> the centuries by the so-called Sahajiyas, Babajis and

> Jati Goswamis is looking at only half of the hen—and

> perhaps not even the good half.

>

> Babajis, Jati Goswamis, Sahajiyas have all become

> confounded into one amorphous mass, but in fact there

> is no monolithic Vaishnava world outside the Gaudiya

> Math. There are hundreds of subsects following

> numerous individual gurus, each of whose adhikara

> differs from that of others.

>

> It behooves all Vaishnavas to honor those who chant

> the Holy Name, who have dedicated their lives to

> remembering Radha and Krishna, to living in the Dham,

> etc.

>

> This article is posted in a slightly different form on

> my website

> http://www.granthamandira.org/~jagat/articles/showarticle.php?id=90

>

> For my article on Siddhanta Saraswati's reforms, see

> the two part article

> http://www.granthamandira.org/~jagat/articles/showarticle.php?id=15

>

>

>

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[Guest guest]

On Sat, 28 Dec 2002, krishna_susarla <krishna_susarla wrote:

> . . . it is bad etiquette as well. One should always think

> twice before comparing a respected Vaishnava to a meat-eating

> atheist, regardless of the type of comparison that is being drawn.

> This is simply a matter of good culture.

 

Thanks for recognizing that this is indeed just as much a question

of ethics--if not simply personal character--as it is of theology.

Frankly, I think it has very little to do with theology at all.

 

 

 

 

> Specifically, I note that when criticism is

> directed at the Saarasvata Gaudiiya paramparaa, it seems to be only

> when its representatives defend themselves that we start hearing the

> clarion call by academic scholars for tolerance and mutual

> acceptance. At least, that is how it has proceeded on this list.

 

It seems like Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura experienced

this in his time too:

 

"Those who are unwilling to show any duplicity, wish to be frank and

straightforward, or in other words to exercise unambigiously the function

of the soul, such really sincere persons are called sectarian and orthodox

by those who practice duplicity. We will cultivate the society only of

those who are straightforward. We will not keep company with any person

who is not so. We must by all means avoid bad company. We are advised to

keep at a distance of a hundred cubits from animals of the horned species.

We should observe the same caution in regard to all insincere persons."

 

 

 

 

> Rather, the criticism has

> historically been against two types of people under the "Gaudiiya"

> header. The first type are those who might be pious, but who

> nevertheless do not have a correct understanding of Mahaaprabhu's

> philosophy. . . . The second type

> criticized by the Saarasvata Gaudiiyas are those who are just

> blatantly sinful.

 

Back to character, the second does seem to be what scholars

as well as Srila Prabhupada affirm. Generally, Srila Prabhupada just

referred to these two categories by the simple phrase, "fools and

rascals."

 

MDd