Do we really accept Śrīla Prabhupāda as our ācārya? A manifesto for Prabhupāda-centered scholarship.
Prabhupāda’s teachings are not the introductory stage before advanced Gauḍīya philosophy. They are the key by which Gauḍīya philosophy must be understood.
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One of the most serious challenges in our movement, and, in my view, one of the main factors stagnating our progress, is that many of us accept Śrīla Prabhupāda ceremonially and institutionally, but not hermeneutically.
We offer obeisances to him when we go to the temple, accept him as the Founder-Ācārya, quote his books and letters, etc., but we don’t accept his conclusions as the main framework by which we should understand the scriptures and the works of previous ācāryas. In other words, we accept Prabhupāda as just one of many opinions we may take into account while interpreting the scriptures and the words of the previous ācāryas. Sometimes we may agree with what he says, and sometimes not.
There are many reasons for that. One of the most common is that many of us, consciously or unconsciously, classify Prabhupāda as a popularizer rather than as the governing ācārya through whom his followers receive the conclusions of the paramparā. In this case, we assume that he gave the basic conclusions for beginners, but that as we move to more advanced stages of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we are supposed to “grow up” and search for more advanced philosophy elsewhere. We then go to different sadhus and babajis or even study by ourselves and accept any of these as a superior authority.
One may argue that although Prabhupāda displayed such a great empowerment, he is not physically present, and therefore one should find a sadhu who is personally present to receive instructions from him. Of course, the whole principle of paramparā is receiving personal guidance from living Vaiṣṇavas who can observe, instruct, and correct us. However, there is an important nuance here: the guru or mentor should help us understand and follow Śrīla Prabhupāda, instead of replacing his conclusions with those of another school. One should receive instructions from one of his disciples and grand-disciples, or from someone who faithfully represents him, and not from anyone and everyone.
There are many Vaiṣnavas and different schools, and we should surely respect everyone, but it doesn’t mean we should mix everything. When we become connected to a certain school, we should remain faithful to the conclusions of that particular school and not jump here and there. This is what makes us valuable as representatives of the paramparā.
One point that may be noticed in this direction is that although many sadhus offer superficial respect to Prabhupāda, very few actually take time to study his books. We repeatedly find that senior Vaiṣṇavas, including names consulted by prominent ISKCON devotees, have never systematically studied Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books. They may have skimmed one or two volumes, but nothing beyond that. Generally, they presume they understand everything based on knowing general Vaiṣnava philosophy from their own schools. The root cause of it is usually the same: they see Prabhupāda as a popularizer of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, who wrote books for beginners. Since they see themselves as already beyond this level, they don’t see value in them, and therefore don’t take the time to study. Since they don’t know, they cannot help anyone to better understand Prabhupāda’s teachings; they just replace them with the general teachings of the schools they are connected to. In other words, they don’t work as expanders, but as replacements.
If we go in the direction of drawing our own conclusions, then we often go in the direction of independent interpretation. We then start studying many books and start believing whatever we conclude from them. This path is attractive, because it appears to be more prestigious. One who says that Prabhupāda already gave the conclusion and he is just trying to explain it puts himself in a subordinate position, while another who claims to have studied Jīva Gosvāmī and found the real meaning of the text puts himself in the position of a higher authority, which is more comfortable for the ego. In this case, one is not merely serving Prabhupāda’s conclusions of the text; he places himself in the position of judging whether Prabhupāda was correct or not.
We can also observe that ego often plays a prominent role. Often we observe that certain personalities do not contradict Prabhupāda accidentally; they deliberately make it a point, so they can show how they know better. Such disagreements thus become a badge of sophistication, evidence that the so-called scholar has progressed beyond the supposedly elementary level of his books. Some even built careers around that.
The fault of this approach is that it contradicts the basic principle of paramparā: evaṁ paramparā-prāptam, imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ. Transcendental knowledge cannot be produced independently through grammatical analysis or academic research. It must descend through paramparā. Grammar is a good servant, but a bad guru. Grammar, as well as logic and academic research, should be used as tools to deepen our understanding, and not be mistaken as the process itself.
The material mind has no independent capacity for understanding the transcendental. The only way is to receive the correct conclusions from the paramparā, and then study the scriptures according to these conclusions. This develops sambandha, proper understanding, which leads to abhidheya, proper practice, which in turn leads to prayojana, the final goal. Without accepting this process, one just speculates using the material mind and goes nowhere.
Prabhupāda expands this topic in his introduction to the Bhagavad-gītā, which is, by the way, a text that condenses many of the essential conclusions. There he mentions:
“Vedic knowledge is not a question of research. Our research work is imperfect because we are researching things with imperfect senses. We have to accept perfect knowledge which comes down, as is stated in Bhagavad-gītā, by the paramparā disciplic succession. We have to receive knowledge from the proper source in disciplic succession beginning with the supreme spiritual master, the Lord Himself, and handed down to a succession of spiritual masters. Arjuna, the student who took lessons from Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, accepts everything that He says without contradicting Him. One is not allowed to accept one portion of Bhagavad-gītā and not another. No. We must accept Bhagavad-gītā without interpretation, without deletion and without our own whimsical participation in the matter. The Gītā should he taken as the most perfect presentation of Vedic knowledge. Vedic knowledge is received from transcendental sources, and the first words were spoken by the Lord Himself.”
Here, “without interpretation” means rejecting whimsical interpretations imposed by the conditioned mind and receiving the text through the conclusions of the disciplic succession, accepting the teachings as a single unit rather than selectively dismissing parts that don’t suit our worldview. The idea is to fix ourselves through this knowledge, and not fix the knowledge itself through our imperfect intelligence. The very concept of paramparā is based on the idea that spiritual knowledge is perfect; there is nothing to be fixed, only to be properly understood.
Prabhupāda then elaborates on the question of conditioned souls possessing four defects that prevent them from delivering perfect knowledge. Transcendental knowledge cannot be produced here, nor can it be found through the imperfect work of the material intelligence. It has to be imported from the spiritual world, and received through Kṛṣṇa’s bona fide representative.
The purport to Bg 4.34 is even more direct: “Nor by independent study of books of knowledge can one progress in spiritual life. One has to approach a bona fide spiritual master to receive the knowledge.”
Another difficulty is that one muni disagrees with another. Devotees who adopt independent interpretation will therefore reach incompatible conclusions, producing fragmentation and disunity. The greater their influence becomes, the wider that disunity spreads.
Another factor is academic conditioning. Modern academia is structured around producing an independent contribution. This, of course, can be applied in spiritual life; there are many scriptures to translate and many books to explain, but it becomes misguided when it goes in the direction of creating new interpretations, supposedly correcting Prabhupāda or previous ācāryas, or challenging their conclusions. We can see this applied in many discussions around the “fall of the jīva,” Vedic cosmology, etc. Again, many have built their careers writing books or articles contradicting Prabhupāda’s conclusions instead of trying to understand them more deeply.
Another reason is that Prabhupāda’s simplicity is misunderstood. He often gives the final conclusion directly, without describing every philosophical step leading to it. He often compresses huge and extremely complicated philosophical conclusions in short sentences that are repeated throughout his books, such as “The soul is the eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa.” For followers who are surrendered, this is an extremely effective method, allowing one to quickly grasp and apply all the important philosophical conclusions without necessarily having to undergo a detailed philosophical study. One devotee may understand it on a deeper level than another, but because both share the same underlying conclusions, both can work together and move in the same direction without impediment.
The proper direction for one interested in advanced study is to start with these conclusions and try to understand the philosophical process that leads to them. This can be done by studying the works of the previous ācāryas through the lens of these conclusions. By following their arguments, we can examine the process that leads to the conclusions Prabhupāda gave in his books and thus deepen our understanding of them. In reality, what Prabhupāda gives in his books is not simplified, but compressed knowledge. He compresses 5,000 years of philosophical conclusions, starting with Vyāsadeva himself, into conclusions that are almost like aphorisms. They are effective even at a superficial level, but if we start studying, we see that they are much deeper than originally thought. If we follow the thread, we can go as deep as we want, without losing the way.
However, this proper process is often replaced by something else.
If we go directly to the Ṣaṭ-sandarbhas and other works of Jīva Gosvāmī and other ācāryas, we can find elaborate discussions on intricate topics, rich in heavy terminology. We may then become seduced by the technical complexity and conclude that Prabhupāda supplied only the elementary summary, while, in reality, one is just walking in circles around philosophical problems Prabhupāda already solved decades ago. The tragic part is that often one gets lost in this process and ends up reaching the wrong conclusions. After decades of heavy study, one may then be less coherent in terms of sambandha than a new bhakta who faithfully accepts the conclusions Śrīla Prabhupāda gives in his books.
Here we come to another, more structural concern: In ISKCON, we have courses for studying Prabhupāda’s principal books, such as the Gītā and Bhāgavatam, but we have not yet fully developed a discipline for studying other works. As a result, we study Prabhupāda’s books and generally accept the conclusions he gives there, but when it comes to studying the Ṣaṭ-sandarbhas and other works of the Gosvāmīs, the Upaniṣads, etc., the studies are largely conducted independently of these conclusions.
As a result, the research often leads to diverging conclusions, which in turn reinforce the root cause of the issue: the view that Śrīla Prabhupāda gave only the ABCD, and advanced knowledge has to be found elsewhere.
To avoid that, we need to develop a systematic framework for:
a) Identifying Prabhupāda’s conclusions on a given subject.
b) Identifying the scriptural and philosophical foundations of such conclusions.
c) Examining the related Sanskrit terms and grammar and how Prabhupāda interprets them.
d) Studying the works of previous ācāryas to see how they deal with the same subjects, and how their explanations lead to the conclusions Prabhupāda gave.
e) Distinguishing explanations and elaboration from passages that appear to contradict Prabhupāda’s conclusions, and then conducting the separate study necessary to harmonize them.
f) Learning to express the topics through Prabhupāda’s language, instead of creating a separate technical jargon.
A generation of scholars trained in a framework like this could finally end the cycle of speculation, confusion, and battles of quotes we are currently bogged down in.
That’s one of the reasons I started working on translations and commentaries based on Prabhupāda’s conclusions, trying to offer my personal contribution in the direction of such a framework, and also to try to make evident some of the philosophical discussions that sustain the conclusions Prabhupāda gives in his books. These commentaries are based on explaining the passages according to the way they are interpreted by previous ācāryas, elaborating on their arguments, and then explaining how they lead to the same conclusions Prabhupāda gives in other passages.
I have already published the first volume of my study of Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa’s Govinda-bhāṣya and studies of three principal Upaniṣads. They are part of a much larger project to develop a hermeneutical framework for understanding the scriptures through the conclusions Śrīla Prabhupāda gives in his books. The aim is to recover the arguments that support those conclusions and to use them in determining the intended meaning of difficult Sanskrit passages, especially where the Sanskrit allows multiple possible readings. All these books are available in the My Books section.
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Brilliant Prabhuji, brilliant as the sun