THE ABSTRACT
This essay explores the validity and credibility of the chapter Dīkṣā Lineage of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura (pp. 91-100) of the book Did Śrīla Prabhupāda Want Women Dīkṣā Gurus ? (2013). The chapter in question argues, that (1) Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s caste-gosvāmī dīkṣā–lineage containing eight men and four women is directly supportive to the instituting of FDG ideology and its’ performances in contemporary ISKCON. And for this precise reason (2) caste-gosvāmīsm and siddha-praṇālī succession of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura should be accepted as authentic in ISKCON. FDG’s quota fixation (obsessive fixed idea on the FDG quota share in the numerical proportion of dīkṣā-gurus) is in this WDG chapter taken as if the principal measure of orthodoxy and the exclusive epistemic and hermeneutic method of understanding guru-tattva. This WDG chapter also argues and strongly emphasizes, that (3) the objection to the dīkṣā lineage of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura as supposed apa-sampradāya in general and objection to Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s dīkṣā-guru Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī in particular is absolutely non-existant in the complete opus of all existing references of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and his disciples including Śrīla Prabhupāda.
This essay proves the opposite to the claims of the WDG chapter in question and completely and entirely refutes all of the above three propositions (1),(2),(3) with the quoted and paraphrased arguments given by Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Śrīla Prabhupāda. As an author of this essay I found whole WDG very poorly researched, and completely missleading in the chapter in question. In this essay I analyze and explain how and why this WDG chapter is wrong on philosophy and practice of our true disciplic succession. I argue against considering and using WDG book as a political pamphlet of the FDG ideology, that is sadly attacking fundamental tenets and conclusions of our lineage. I particularly object to the pathological obsessive fixation on the FDG quota system as all in all, above each and every other hermeneutical consideration.
With sound logic, reason and arguments I humbly invite the FDG believers to face and honestly try to admit the numerous inaccuracies of their WDG pamphlet. Saying so I do not advocate the anti-FDG stance at all, I am just saying that I have proved WDG book deviating from our philosophy. I humbly argue for pristine philosophical outlook above pragmatic sectarian politics and party spirit. Hare Kṛṣṇa!
- An Introduction
Just after accepting the shelter of H.H. Jayapataka Svāmī in 1996, I first met my progressive and intelligent godbrother Kaunteya Prabhu. I was glad to join the same spiritual family. Kaunteya Prabhu in my view brilliantly harmonized Vaiṣṇava cultural capital with liberal and universal missiology of the saṅkīrtana movement. I was thrilled by his congregational development seminars. I still appreciate his sincere services and was recently praying for his recovery from Covid complications. I was honored to host him with his good south Indian wife Rādhā Govinda Mātājī in my home in Slovenia in 2010. Kaunteya Prabhu was till 2013 a project coordinator of WDG. After I read Bhakti Vikāsa Svāmī’s Women, Masters or Mothers? (2015) or WMM, I purchased and read WDG too. I was eager to compare both books.
I dropped out University study of Sociology in 1995 never to return. I rather studied Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books with a special concern on the Vedic social philosophy. Thus I was naturally triggered to compare WMM and WDG with assorted guru-sādhu-śāstric sources. As from 2012 I am doing researches on Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, I scrutinized every paragraph and sentence of WDG’s chapter Dīkṣā Lineage of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura (pp. 91-100). I found it poorly researched and discovered many cardinal mistakes in it. Discussing it with Kaunteya Prabhu in 2017 I came to a conclusion, that WDG is not taken as a flexible and discutable philosophical treatise, but a conclusive political pamphlet of the FDG agenda, that although poorly argumented is through its’ fixed idea trying to enforce the unified FDG policy to the entire ISKCON movement and to politically divide Prabhupādānuga-vaiṣṇavas.
In February 2022 a ŚRI (Śāstric Reasearch Institute) coordinator unexpectedly asked me to write precisely on the chapter Dīkṣā Lineage of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura (pp. 91-100) of the WDG book. Then I found out, that Śrīdhara Śrīnivāsa Prabhu (1) already wrote a draft of over 170 pages for his upcoming book The Eye Of The Śāstra, A Comprehensive Refutation To Female Dīkṣā-guru refuting errant arguments of the entire WDG book. Seeing his draft, I found Śrīdhara Śrīnivāsa Prabhu’s responses to WDG compatible with my views and resonating with my own ruminations. Seeing our two angles of vision in complementing compatibility as Lord Kṛṣṇa’s arrangement, I surrendered to the seva of writing this paper.
(1) The author of “A Divine Prophecy, Śrī Nammalvar’s predictions about Lord Caitanya,” Bhakti Vikasa Trust, 2017-18., a book about connecting Śrī Vaiṣṇava and Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava perspectives on the holy name.
The divide between pro-FDG and anti-FDG in ISKCON saddens me. I have friends and gurus on both sides. I sincerely want to see politics sublimated to philosophy and to our common love for Śrīla Prabhupāda. The philosophical platform of vāda dialogue and the awareness of being servants in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s movement, and not guru-bhogīs is never enough emphasized. All Vaiṣṇavas must be respected, be them from pious or sinful background, from East or West. All are uniquely valuable products of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mercy, so we must sincerely love our fellow Prabhupāda-anuga Vaiṣṇavas, even those, we disagree with on some issues, such as FDG. That would be the proof of truly loving Śrīla Prabhupāda. With this preamble in mind, I present the following, taking Vaiṣṇavas’ dust on my head.
(2) A Political Fixation of WDG Book On The FDG Quotas
Śrīdhara Śrīnivāsa Prabhu sent me his draft of 2022-2-3 triple in size compared to responded chapter The Dīkṣā Lineage of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura of the WDG book. WDG (pp. 81-91) lists Sītā Ṭhākurāṇī, Jāhnavā Ṭhākurāṇī, Hemlatā Ṭhākurāṇī, Gaurāṅga-priyā Devī and Gaṅgāmātā Gosvāmīnī as the primary examples of FDG, along with secondary examples in various dīkṣā lineages. In some of these FDG represents upto six out of twelve dīkṣā-gurus. Thus WDG attempts at establishing precedence for the future FDG on a quota system, transforming guru-tattva into a politically negotiable consensus of modern FDG share.
The basic question is if the quota fixation of the WDG is deliberately covering up the question on apa-sampradāyas? Is the quota logic above the considerations of vāda, tattva and siddhānta? Is guru-tattva based on śāstric philosophy or pragmatic politics? WDG establishes an obsessive interest, or fixation on quota system bypassing philosophical query into siddhāntic facts, orthodox values and epistemology. Śrīdhara Śrīnivāsa Prabhu argues, that FDG quota is against Śrīla Prabhupāda’s desire ‘’not so many’’. Śrīdhara Śrīnivāsa Prabhu sees Bharadvāja-saṁhitā (1.42-44.: FDG is not a general rule, but an exception reserved for spiritually perfect mātājīs) as harmonizing Śrīla Prabhupāda’s various statements.
Śrīdhara Śrīnivāsa Prabhu notes, that dīkṣā lineage of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura is caste gosvāmī and their process is siddha-praṇālī, as given by Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura to his son Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura (1880-1980). Śrīdhara Śrīnivāsa Prabhu quotes, that Śrīla Prabhupāda forbade his disciples to visit Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura in 1972. Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s another son Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī didn’t participate in Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s caste gosvāmī and siddha-praṇālī dīkṣā-sampradāya. He was fiercely against this apa-sampradāya. Śrīdhara Śrīnivāsa Prabhu elaborates on this dīkṣā-sampradāya and siddha-praṇālī lineage being extensively rejected by Śrīla Prabhupāda and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī in their many sources. WDG (pp. 91, 93.) is talking away their position on the issue with some blunt literalism and pre-google data research of Bhaktarūpa Prabhu from 1999:
‘’Personally, we have no issue with the above succession. If this lineage was good enough for Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura (and there is no evidence of him rejecting this lineage at any point), it is good enough for us. But not good enough for anyone. For instance, among those against the idea of women dīkṣā-gurus in ISKCON, someone attempted to label this entire disciplic succession as a caste gosvāmī apasampradāya; which would conveniently dispose of all the lady dīkṣā-gurus in it. However, we have not heard any explanation on when or how this parivāra supposedly became deviated.’’
WDG reads, that it is highly unlikely, and we have not heard anyone suggesting it that this parivāra became deviated in times of Jāhnavā Ṭhākurāṇī that we have heard all sorts of things and allegations on Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī’s rejecting Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s dīkṣā-guru Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī, but no one so far provided any evidence to prove it. WDG states that after thoroughly studying the existing documentation, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disciple Bhaktarūpa Prabhu concluded (1999) that not a single piece of written information is available on Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī being criticized by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and his disciples.
After suggesting many opposite evidences to Kaunteya Prabhu in 2017, thanks to improved Google-algorithm that excelled Bhaktarūpa Prabhu’s research capacities from 1999; I became convinced, that even if Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura would personally present it to Kaunteya prabhu, he would still not be able to give up his fixed idea, the obsessive fixation on his political agenda. Such is the anti-intellectual power of the party-spirit. Once a political manifesto, such as WDG is fixated, established and promoted, even Lord Kṛṣṇa personally would not be able to convert believers of a certain political dogmatism. Politicians nourish their second class intelligence, chastity to a party-spirit and similar narrow-minded fixations, for which they are ready to compromise just anything, including the teachings on guru-tattva of Śrīla Prabhupāda, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura.
But let us approach the subject as philosophers, broad-minded truth-seekers devoid of a deceitful political agenda. In (3) I will contextualize the alternative perspective to the fixation on FDG quota as if absolute unquestionable hermeneutics. Then in (4) I will present our true śikṣā-sampradāya, which WDG tries to overshadow. I will present the most direct evidences, that Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī (1850-1919) just prior to his own disappearance posthumously rejected Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura (1838-1914) in 1919, and therefore Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura made a shift into Caitanya-sārasvata paramparā, refuting the dīkṣā lineage of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, that rejected our Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, accusing him of being a pretentious deviant, falsifier of scriptures and rejected his claim that Śrīdhama Māyāpura is the real birthsite of Śrī Caitanya.
- An Introduction Into Opposite Sources, References And Evidences
In 1750’s Totarāma dāsa Bābājī of Navadvīpa coined his Thirteen Apa-sampradāyas axiom, proclaiming, that he distances himself from āuls, bāuls, kartābhajās, neḍās, daraveśis, sāṅis, sahajiyās, sakhībhekīs, smārtas, jāta-gosāñis, ativāḍīs, cūḍādhārīs and gaurāṅga-nāgarīs. These groups misrepresented pure Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, and after the disappearance of Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa (1768), the dark century followed, till in 1869 Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura began his pure bhakti mission. In one hundred and one years in between the pure mission collapsed, but the lineages continued, spreading from 13 to 56 by the time of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s ministry. Most scholars (including our Dr. Valpey & Dr. Gupta) divide the 13 archetypical devious groups into ‘populistic’ (sahajiyā-like) and ‘elitistic’ (smārta-like). To designate all 13 as sahajiyā would be inappropriate.
The jāta-gosāñis or caste gosvāmī groups were prominent category of elitistic dīkṣā-givers (called ‘’the popes of Navadvīp’’ by Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura in 1869) containing a plethora of vaṁśas and parivāras such as Advaita-vaṁśa and Nityānanda-vaṁśa (as refered to in the WDG pp. 81-91), sub-branch of which was Bāghnapāḍā Nityānanda-vaṁśa from which Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura accepted dīkṣā (1880) and honorary Bhaktivinoda title (1886).
Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura was a new convert that at his age of thirty first read Śrīmad Bhāgavatam and Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta in December 1868. Immediately after, in January 1869, he started to preach and write purely devotional books. In 1870-75 followed the peak of his professional career. He got the highest administrative position, which British gave to native Indians. He was a Deputy Magistrate for Purī district, Deputy Collector and he was overseeing and managing the pilgrimage infrastructures of the Jagannātha temple complex in Purī. Yet despite his power, prestige and influence and although awakened into his nitya-siddha mahā-bhāgavata pārṣada ācāryic position, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura could not establish himself as a religious and spiritual authority of the traditional Hindus.
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Sundarānanda Vidyāvinoda (1942) elaborated on Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura being self-manifested uttama-adhikārī at Purī (1870-75). But Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura was externally śūdra by caste, and needed a formal dīkṣā by a caste-gosvāmī, to get recognized as a preacher. In 1880 he took dīkṣā from Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī. But in the very next year (1881) he acepted a śikṣā-guru Śrīla Jagannātha Dāsa Bābājī, that he held superior to his dīkṣā-guru, as affirmed even by the successors of Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī.
Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī were both heresiologists and heresiographers, analyzing various deviations of dīkṣā-lineages. They both embraced Tota’s doctrine, according to which caste-gosvāmīs are one of the thirteen apa-sampradāyas. Throughout his many Sajjana-toṣaṇī articles (1881-1907) Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura ideated an alternative śikṣā-sampradāya, that Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura than designed in a form that Śrīla Prabhupāda proudly puts at the beginning of his Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. That is our real paramparā, that WDG negates, overshadows and insinuates at all costs for the precise fact, that among the 32 names on the list, there is not even one single lady.
Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura wrote, that in Jāhnavā Ṭhākurāṇī’s times, after the disappearances of Advaita Ācārya (1545) and Nityānanda Prabhu (1550) the movement in Bengal became apa-sampradāyic. Therefore Jīva Gosvāmī had to send his śikṣā-disciples Śrīnivāsa Ṭhākura, Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura and Śyāmānanda Gosvāmī from Śrī Vṛndāvana dhama to save the movement in East Bengal, West Bengal and North Odisha (Uttkal). Kheturi festival (1578) hosted Jāhnavā Ṭhākurāṇī as the senior most by protocol, but without the higher śikṣā-intervention of Śrīnivāsa Ṭhākura, Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura and Śyāmānanda Gosvāmī, Advaita-vaṁśa and Nityānanda-vaṁśa in themselves could not preserve movement’s orthodoxy. Being themselves engrossed in their narrow dīkṣā-sampradāyic caste, pedigree and inheritance churchianity, they missed the real spirit of Caitanya-vaiṣṇavism.
Jīva Gosvāmī commented such caste-gosvāmī apa-samprādayism: guru should be accepted independently of hereditary, customary and ecclesiastical conventions. That is the essentialist approach to guru-tattva of rūpānugas. Perhaps WDG and FDG believers consider Śrīnivāsa Ṭhākura, Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura and Śyāmānanda Gosvāmī as male-supremacists over Jāhnavā Ṭhākurāṇī and the narrative on these three ācāryas as patriarchialist hagiography. But Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, after he analyzed Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava historiography and its’ 17th century hagiology (2), he turned to being a rūpānuga (his dīkṣā lineage was NOT). He recognized the superiority of śikṣā-sampradāya, as flexible fuse, protecting the orthodoxy of the overall movement from dīkṣā-sampradāyic deviations. Elitistic caste-gosvāmīsm was a cardinal one, inducing lower castes to revolt against it through the another extreme of populistic sahajiyā movements, that were deviating even more.
(2) Prema Vilasa, Narottama Vilasa, Bhakti-ratnakara, Viracandra-carita, Syamananda-carita and Rasika-mangala
The above narrative on guru-tattva and sampradāya as given by Śrīla Prabhupāda, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura is not good enough of an epistemology and hermeneutics for FDG ideology and its’ WDG manifesto. Yet Śrīla Prabhupāda’s and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī’s sharp rhetoric, arguments and clear conclusions against siddha-praṇālī and caste-gosvāmī apa-sampradāya precisely apply to the dīkṣā-lineage of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. In their cultured style they don’t mention Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura and Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī by name but they systematically dismantle their ideas one by one. If Bhaktarūpa Prabhu (1999) missed this, and stated that after ‘’studying all the existing documentation’’ that ‘’not a single piece of written documentation is available’’ on criticism of Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī (by name reference), than the saying ‘’You say, you have read Rāmāyaṇa, and now you are asking whose father is Sītā ?’’ is just made for him. But those who know the history of our movement, can read between the lines and understand Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī’s many references, such as the following (1926):
”One evening, during the first half of the month of Vaiśākha in 1320 [20 April 1914] (3) at Bhakti-bhavana in Kolkata, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura made this prophesy in very clear words, right before me:
In due course of time, the contaminated seed of Rūpa Kavirājī apa-sampradāya named atibaḍī shall be transmitted to you people and will make the hollow tree of your heart the residence of (…) snakes whose poison destroys pure devotional service.
(…) at that time, I protested against this statement, saying:
Those people are proud to be your followers. They shall never engage in openly organizing themselves to preach against the ideal of service to Śrī Hari as taught by you, and in case they do so, I shall obstruct them with all my might, without even caring for my life.”
Thinking that all of you would be aggrieved at heart [to hear of this conversation], I did not tell you about my vow until now. (…) you have already instigated all of these acts, and at each and every step till date, you have acted to obstruct the fulfillment of Śrīla Bhakti Vinoda Ṭhākura’s chersihed transcendental desires. Therefore śuddha-bhakti and Śrīla Ṭhākura Mahāśaya never has any relation whatsoever with an apa-sampradāya such as yours. I have been proclaiming this very loudly from the outset. You have not listened to that, and now you have wandered off track. (…).” (4)
(3) Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī, 2018., p. 132.
(4) The Rays of the Harmonist, No 26, 2014, p. 18-19.
But for the semi-litearate unable to connect data and information level references with exegetical methodology this reference is invalid, for they cannot read the name Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura in it. They proudly advocate themselves as semi-litarate research experts of the noble FDG ideology, and congratulate themselves for it.
- Caitanya-sārasvata Paramparā
Our authorized paramparā, that WDG doesn’t list at all, but rather insinuates it, should be proudly mentioned: 1. Kṛṣṇa, 2.Brahmā, 3. Nārada, 4. Vyāsa, 5. Madhva 6. Padmanābha, 7. Nṛhari, 8. Mādhava, 9. Akṣobhya, 10. Jaya Tīrtha, 11. Jñānasindhu, 12. Dayānidhi, 13. Vidyānidhi, 14. Rājendra, 15. Jayadharma, 16. Puruṣottama, 17. Brahmaṇya Tīrtha, 18. Vyāsa Tīrtha. 19. Lakṣmīpati 20. Mādhavendra Purī and 21. Īśvara Purī (Nityānanda, Advaita) 22. Lord Caitanya, 23. Rūpa, (Svarūpa, Sanātana), 24. Raghunātha, Jīva, 25. Kṛṣṇadāsa, 26. Narottama, 27. Viśvanātha, 28. (Baladeva), Jagannātha, 29. Bhaktivinoda, 30. Gaurakiśora, 31. Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī and 32. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.
It has three parts. (i) purāṇic (1,2,3,4) and medieval divided on (ii) the Brahmā-Madhva dīkṣā lineage (5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18). 19,20,21 are considered by the Madhvas outside of their line, but Śrī Caitanya accepted the link by the śikṣā-logic of rasa. (iii) Caitanya-sārasvata śikṣā-paramparā (22,23,24,25, 26,27,28,29,30,31) has exceptional dīkṣā connections (30.31.32.), but prior to that all connections are śikṣā (23,24,25,26,27,28,29), which precisely and clearly proves, that Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī disconnected from his father’s dīkṣā-sampradāya. This fact is the principal evidence. A radical shift into śikṣā-paramparā by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Śrīla Prabhupāda is self-evident.
FDG propagandists are bothered by Śrīla Prabhupāda’s paramparā having 32 males and 0 females. Therefore WDG tries at all cost to insinuate and overshadow it with an apa-sampradāya of 8 men and 4 ladies, through a deviant and highly misplaced slogan, that it ‘’if was good enough for Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura it’s good enough for us’’. The WDG pamphlet (pp. 94-100) on seven pages exalts Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī against our ācāryas’ teachings and instructions precisely for Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī being a dīkṣā-guru in a lineage with FDG. For WDG obsessive quota fixation is real hermeneutics, and not the heresiologic orthodoxy of our school presented by Śrīla Prabhupāda, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī and Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. WDG literally sweeps it under the rug.
In WDG (pp. 134) there is even a bizarre numerology about our 800 years ‘medieval’ lineage being 0,0000000003 time of the entirety of the sampradāya from Brahmā, and therefore within this span more FDG might have been there, than the last 28 names in 800 years. This is another example of deceitful word-jugglery aimed at talking away real arguments, that are not in pathological quota fixation and assorted numerological charade, but in guru-tattva.
B.G. Nrisingha Svāmī’s book The Authorized Caitanya-Sārasvata Paramparā (1998) extensively elaborates on śikṣā-sampradāyic shift, drawing many references mainly from B.R. Śrīdhāra Mahārāja and also B.P. Keśava Mahārāja, Sundarānanda Vidyāvinoda and others. I am surprised by Bhaktarūpa Prabhu’s claim (1999, quoted in WDG pp. 93.) that ‘’there is not, to our knowledge, a single piece of written information from any DISCIPLE (capitals in original) of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura reporting that he criticized Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī, or even themselves criticizing Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī’. Bhaktarupa Prabhu is not reading between the lines, as proven before, his research method being limited to blunt literalism of data and information level, sadly also without any trace of siddhāntic exegesis.
Narasingha Svāmī reveals, that in 1919 Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī rejected his disciple Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura’s western disciple Jagadānanda Dās (Dr. Jan L. Brzezinski) in response to Narasingha Svāmī’s book wrote 9 essays (2008-2020), in the first of which (2008), as the representative of Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī’s dīkṣā-sampradāya confirms that Vipina-bihari Gosvami in his Gaurāṅga-sevaka Patrikā published (1919), that he rejects Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. Lalita-mādhava Prabhu (Dr. Lucian Wong), who completed his Ph.D on Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura (2021) in Namarasa Podcast (2021) said, that Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī’s great grandson Dr. Kānanbehārī Gosvāmī, in his Bāghnapāḍā Samparadāya O Vaiṣṇava Sāhitya wrote, that Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura was rejected by Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī for ”preaching untruths regarding Māyāpura being the birthsite of Śrī Caitanya.” WDG mentions Dr. Kānanbehārī Gosvāmī’s book, but emits this cardinal fact.
Gadādhara-prāṇa Prabhu is besides Jagadānanda Prabhu, another disciple of Śrīla Prabhupāda, who disobeyed his order, and in 1974 approached Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura and got initiated by him in the dīkṣā-lineage of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. Gadādhara-prāṇa Prabhu in his book Another Side Of Ṭhākura Bhaktivinoda (2020) on 341 pages explains the siddha-praṇālī lineage of Bāghnapāḍā sampradāya, and adds another apa-siddhāntic aspect of gaurāṅga-nāgarī (another of the 13 apa-sampradāyas), a heretical philosophy, that Lord Caitanya was the enjoyer of young girls. Gadādhara-prāṇa Prabhu claims that Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura through his Gaura-Gadādhara worship prepares siddha-praṇālī young girls to be enjoyed by Śrī Caitanya in His Navadvīpa-līlās. This idea was considered a great blasphemy in our rupānuga śikṣā-sampradāya, including by our recent ācāryas Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Is this the direction, WDG is pursuing to by its’ stubborn obsessive and pathological fixation on the FDG quotas? Is WDG pamphlet ready to compromise just anything, blackmailing us with various apa-siddhāntic and apa-sampradāyic ideas overshadowing our ācārya’s teachings and instructions? Is this now to become a precedence of how to negotiate FDG share of power and prestige in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s movement? I hope not.
Bhaktarūpa Prabhu’s research (1999) might have been from another pre-google and pre e-books era, but till 2013, when WDG was published, the technology improved and the topic was progressively updated by more researches. New angles were explored and dialectics churned out sources in defense of our true lineage. How and why did WDG miss this? Double-checking WDG’s semipermeable referential style page after page, my logical conclusion is that WDG is either dishonestly cherry-picking references or that the WDG researchers were merely very poorly qualified for the job. I sincerely hope for the second.
- On The Right Side Of Gaṅgā And History
For Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura was a conditioned soul, who got dīkṣā and siddha-praṇālī from Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī, and thus by his mercy became uttama-adhikārī. (5) Former Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disciples Jagadānanada Prabhu and Gadādhara-prāṇa Prabhu, who were initiated by Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura into Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s dīkṣā lineage both continue this propaganda in the 21st Century. I can only hope that WDG book opportunistically (non-sincerely) subscribes to it, as it is evidently ready to compromise just anything in its’ political and intellectual prostitution into FDG quota system. I sincerely hope and pray that such spiritual prostitution is reformable.
(5) B.G. Narasingha Svami, 1998., p. 21-22.
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura on the other hand insisted, that Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura was a nitya-siddha, who only formally took dīkṣā, in order to get a preaching license, and he didn’t need siddha-praṇālī either. Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura wrote: ‘’Holy name gives me a spiritual body, and leads me to Śrī Vṛndāvana”. (6) Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī and Śrīla Prabhupāda rejected siddha-praṇālī as bogus. Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura accepted it as a formal protocol of his times, for he was alone in front of the entire caste-gosvāmī apa-sampradāya establishment. But he also described a complete process from śraddhā to prema, and transmitted his real lineage of sarva vāṇī and śikṣā (complete teachings and instructions) to Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, his substantial śikṣā-disciple and real successor.
(6) Saranagati
Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī and Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura in 1880-1914 nicely cooperated and both agreed that the Janmasthan of Śrī Caitanya, as discovered by Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura in 1888 was in a Muslim village Miapur. Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī was ”appointed as one of the directors overseeing Māyāpura” (Bhaktarūpa 1999 in WDG pp. 95) in 1891, was also a prominent member of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s Māyāpura Dhāma pracāriṇi Sabhā and in 1893 the guest of honor at the installation of Śrī Śrī Gaura-Viṣṇupriya deities at the Yoga-pīṭha in Śrīdhāma Māyāpura. Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura then in 1904 gave Śrīdhāma Māyāpura project to his chosen son Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, who made his base there.
Brajmohān Dāsa in 1915 made a new research and claimed the birth site (Prācīna Māyāpura) to be at Rāmacandra-pura in the suborbs of Navadvīpa town. Considering this evidences, Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī sided again with the Navadvīpa-gosvāmīs against Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, who inherited from Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura the Māyāpura shrines (Yoga-pīṭha, Śrīvāsa Aṅgana, Vrājapattana), and engaged his followers in developing new pilgrimage centers at the expenses of the caste-gosvāmīs and their Navadvīpa pilgrimage establishment, who were to lose their lucrative pilgrimage business.
Gadādhara-prāṇa Prabhu (2020) wrote, that in 1916 Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī changed his mind, and speculates, that if Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, who passed on in 1914 would know it, he would abandon his Māyāpura and follow his guru to the other side of Gaṅgā. Jagadānanda Prabhu admits (2008) that not only Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī rejected Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s Māyāpura, but Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī rejected Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura as a
disciple slandering him posthumously in 1919 as a falsifier of scriptures.
Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī in 1919 claimed, that in order to promote Śrīdhāma Māyāpura, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura fabricated the scriptural evidences in Caitanyopaniṣad (1887), Prema-vivarta (1906) and Navadvīpa-satakam (n.d.). Jagadananda Prabhu wrote (2008), that Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s Navadvīpa-dhāma-māhātmya (1890) in a sthala-purana style uses all spectre of Vedic personalities, demigods, Vedic ṛṣis, and other historical figures like Jayadeva till Madhva and Rāmānuja, and ascribe to them activities and words that glorify the place in question. All are described, to spend time in Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s dhāma and have premonitions of His future appearance there. Jagadānanda Prabhu (2008) insinuates this fact, as many other times, clearly stating his fundamental disbelief in Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s position of a pure devotee:
”(…) This could only mean that he [Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura] was either sufficiently confident of his own position as a ‘realized Vaiṣṇava’ who could claim to have mystic visions of this sort and be believed, or that he never intended for it to be taken literally as history, but as a fanciful work in glorification of [Śrī Caitanya] Mahāprabhu. The Gauḍīya Maṭha and others who believe in the divine status of [Śrīla] Bhaktivinoda take this work as literal ‘truth’ but to those who do not share in the vision of a Navadvīpa which has its center in Māyāpura, it is a gratuitous fabrication.”
Jagadānanda Prabhu even goes to extensively grammatically prove, that Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura supposedly falsified scriptures. Such is the glory of the dīkṣā-lineage Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī – Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura – Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura – Jagadānanda Prabhu (Gadādhara-prāṇa Prabhu). WDG in its pathological fixation on FDG quota agenda tries to overshadow our real śikṣā-paramparā with lineage,that directly offends Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī and Śrīla Prabhupāda. This I have clearly proved.
Due to a 1919 schism and posthumous rejection of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura by his dīkṣā-guru Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī, Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura stopped collaborating in a mission with his brother, therefore Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura in 1920 transformed Bhaktivinoda Āsana (a preaching project based at 1 Ultadingi Jn. Road, that he shared with Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura in 1918-19) into Śrī Gauḍīya Maṭha, and started his own branch of Sārasvata-bhaktivinoda-dhārā, his line of thought of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura as separated from the anti-party of Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī and Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura. In 1919 Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura also revived Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s missionary institutions Viśva-Vaiṣṇava-rāja Sabhā (also called The Gauḍīya Mission) (7), and Śrī Navadvīpa-dhāma-pracāriṇi Sabhā as the tools of reestablishing Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s authority for the new generations of followers, that he thus kept away from the dīkṣā-line and the anti-party of Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī and Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura.
(7) Sardella, 2013., p. 122-125.
(6)The Conclusion And Verdict
The WDG chapter culminates (pp. 95-100.) into the extensive six pages apologetics and glorification of Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī. Perhaps Kaunteya Prabhu’s research team didn’t have sufficient capacity to explore other sources, perhaps it deliberately neglected existing sources till 2013 and siddhāntic notions on guru-tattva or perhaps it sincerely sees Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī’s apa-sampradāya as a legitimate complementary option, to ballance our lineage, as it suggests. The fact however is, that WDG is very poorly researched, is unambiguously and directly proposing deviant theories and practices, non-authentic religious authorities and is in implicit and explicit opposition with the clear conclusions and instructions of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Śrīla Prabhupāda. WDG does not consider the rich opus of references of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Śrīla Prabhupāda as essential primary source, nor even in its’ secondary capacity, but rather talks it away in the name of blunt data and information level references. There is no semantics reconstructed through syntagma into a paradigm, as methodologically done by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Śrīla Prabhupāda, who elaborated on the topic while politely emitting the names of Vipina-bihārī Gosvāmī, Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura and other protagonists of apa-siddhāntic and apa-sampradāyic ideas and practices.
WDG is therefore entirely misleading and deviant in both heterodoxies and hetero-praxis. It uphelds wrong doctrines, teachings, neglects instructions and philosophical hermeneutics and epistemology; at the same time proposing deviant approach to devotional mysticism. It is a classical example of politics overthrowing philosophy. WDG uses for that purpose the entire arsenal of deceitful technologies, such as interpolation, extrapolation, myth, personal angles, prejudices, confabulations, and calculated distortions in order to merge with or replace facts. In other words, WDG is methodically, systematically and with direct purposeful intention changing our philosophy, deviating from teachings of Śrīla Prabhupāda, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura.
If the contributors and researchers for WDG were ignorant of this, and now became awakened to this truth, they should publicly revoke WDG and repent for misleading the readers and apologize to all. If the rest of the WDG demagogues are not ready to reason with sound logic, arguments and proofs, we should compassionately pray for their well-being and be gentle with their misfortune. It is impossible to wake up one pretending to sleep, nor is it possible to bring him or her to reason in any pedagogical or andragogical way. We can only pray for them in sincere compassion, considering them being programmed by their traumatical post-charismatic experiences and victimization. We should still appreciate whatever other good service and surrender they are capable to properly perform for our beloved Śrīla Prabhupāda, who is ultimately the connecting-savior of his sincere and insincere, pious and sinful followers according to his will, independent of our always limited theological understandings. But I, the author with this essay insist, that philosophy over politics matters.
Hari-guru-vaiṣṇava dāsānudāsa Mahāprabhu Gaura dāsa, completed in Crnomelj, Slovenia on 21th of February 2022., appearance day of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura.
