In Defense of Tamal Krishna Goswami
BY: KRISHNABHISHEK DAS
Jun 11, USA (SUN) — This a response to Mukunda prabhu’s recent article on the “doctoral dissertation” of HH Tamal Krishna Maharaja, "Tamal Krishna Goswami on Srila Prabhupada, published on June 7th 2009 in the Sun. I am writing this in the capacity of a student/scholar of Gaudiya Vaisnavism presenting our siddhanta both within the Vaishnava community and to the secular academia, as well as disciple of T Tamal Krishna Goswami Maharaja, who engaged me directly in these services. I cannot speak on behalf of Krishna Kshetra prabhu, but here are a few points that the author of the above article might want to consider:
1. I am not going to belabor the point that two other Vaishnavas have somewhat responded to in terms of the ethnic roots of Tamal Krishna Maharaja - it’s simply a grave theological error called “vaishnave jati buddhi” and is an offense: to Tamal Krishna Maharaja or any other Vaishnava for that matter. If the author doesn’t understand what I am saying, I humbly request him to search up the Vedabase.
2. I am one of the devotees involved in assisting to review his thesis for publication along with his friend Garuda Prabhu (Dr. Graham Schweig, PhD Harvard). I also personally know Prof. Julius Lipner from Cambridge, Maharaja’s advisor (not handler), who initially helped prepare it for publication. It is presently undergoing review at the Columbia University press and should hopefully be published in a year or two if everything goes right. I have LEGAL ACCESS to his actual dissertation and read it several times and *what the author presents is not from Maharaja’s thesis*. It’s rather from a book edited by Dr. Edwin Bryant and it seems that the author of the article begins his whole tirade on a wrong track.
3. Simply put, Maharaja’s idea behind getting into the academia was to represent Gaudiya Vaisnavism, especially coming from the line of Srila Prabhupada, to worldly scholars. From reading Srila Prabhupada’s books and biographies quite thoroughly over the last 17 years, I gather that he himself valued this kind of preaching. With this very purpose he had founded the Bhaktivedanta Institute to explain Krishna Consciousness to worldly scholars, philosophers and scientists - “in their own language”. For a sample quote, please refer to: “I think Revatinandana can come there and preach very nicely to the scholarly class *in their own language*”. [Srila Prabhupada Letter 16th June 1972, Los Angeles] And if the author is not convinced about introducing Krishna Consciousness to these circles, there is nothing much one can do about it.
4. To respond to another point - there is a need to understand that each area of studies will have their own technical jargon. This implies that presenting Krishna Consciousness to secular the academia “in their own language” would mean that some common ISKCON jargon would need to be temporarily set aside. For example, if one mentions to some worldly scholar who doesn’t know anything about our philosophy that “XYZ prabhu left the planet in 2009” he might imagine an Apollo 13 mission with a devotee in an astronaut suit leaving planet earth. I hope that the author can comprehend this simple example?
5. To point out another example, the word “charismatic” is very commonly used among worldly scholars while studying religion. The famous sociologist Max Weber who studied religious leaders, coined the term in this context explained that it is “a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities.” After all don’t we say that Srila Prabhupada was “as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities” - the sakti of Lord Nityananda? Or that he is exceptional and is set apart from us, way above? That’s presenting our siddhanta in “their own language”, isn’t it?
6. Before letting out all the vitriol the author must understand how the academia/intellectual world works and to effectively spread Krishna Consciousness in that area, it takes time, energy and resources, patience and intelligence to deal with intellectuals who influence the way the world thinks - and sometimes are unfavorably indisposed towards our movement. If the author thinks however that the devotee-scholarly preaching led by Tamal Krishna Maharaja has not been satisfactory, I challenge him to explain our philosophy effectively “in their own language” by writing a dissertation on the teachings of Srila Prabhupada from a world class university like Cambridge and getting it published from a reputed scholarly press like Columbia and be taken seriously by major intellectuals in the academia. Only then will I - or perhaps any scholar or devotee - can take his accusations seriously.
7. Finally, I humbly request the author and all other Vaishnavas questioning the motives of Tamal Krishna Maharaja in the academia to seek the essence of his words and actions; a careful unbiased analysis will clearly reveal Maharaja’s true intentions if one is honestly open to it. If the author is interested in reading Maharaja’s real thesis, it should be hopefully out from Columbia sometime soon and I urge him to be a bit more patient; it cannot be given out at this moment, like any other about to be published manuscript.
Having said that, I’d also like to mention that I don’t have the time, energy or resources to engage in unlimited internet debates or respond to personal rants and raves. I am *not* going to respond to anything or anyone unless it is a personal query on something specific.
