Evidence Tampering: Rtvik Sleight of Hand
BY: ROCANA DASA
Jul 07, 2011 — CANADA (SUN) — This article is the first of a two-part response to the recent article by Dusyanta dasa entitled "Ritvik or Rittik", which was in reply to my previous article entitled, "New Evidence, New Arguments or New Realizations". While he made a number of interesting comments, I believe that Dusyanta dasa missed my point entirely with respect to noting that the term "ritvik" does not appear in the July 9th Letter. Although the Rtviks today consider the July 9th Letter to be Absolute, when it comes to a misspelling of one of the single most important words in the entire document, that apparently causes them no concern at all.
Not only is the term stated as rittik (not ritvik) in the July 9th Letter, it is a term provided in quotation marks. In this context, quotation marks are used to give emphasis to the word. Tamal Krishna Goswami composed the July 9th Letter and Srila Prabhupada signed it, and the letter he signed contained a word emphatically placed in quotations – "rittik" – which is a different word than the one Rtvik-vada relies upon.
So the point I was making by raising the subject in my article, which appears to elude Dusyanta dasa, is the fact that the Rtviks are basing their entire philosophy on this letter, and on one particular word in the letter – henceforward – which of course they interpret to mean 'for ever after Srila Prabhupada's disappearance'. And while there is interminable argument on this word "henceforward" (which is spelled correctly), there is rarely any mention about the word "rittik" and its spelling. In fact, members of the Rtvik camp actively work to hide the fact that this key word has a different spelling in the original July 9th Letter.
Take, for example, the presentation made on a Rtvik site run by the infamous Puranjana das -- www.harekrsna.org. Under the banner, "Original Letter of July 9, 1977", he provides a copy of the letter followed by the Rtviks' analysis of its contents. Not only does he conveniently change the actual wording in his version – changing both the spelling and eliminating the quotation marks around "rittik" – he also neglects to point this fact out in the supposedly careful analysis that follows. This is clearly a case of changing the words of the pure devotee's letter, dishonestly and out of convenience.
To really appreciate the hypocrisy behind this changing of the original July 9th Letter's text, one only needs to read the commentary that follows on the above-mentioned webpage. Note the great emphasis placed on exactness of terminology, semantics, definitions, and the preciseness of what Srila Prabhupada conveyed in this letter …except for that one key word, which they changed and obfuscated. That is not mentioned.
They even provide an exhaustive list of all the alternate spellings of "rtvik" found in Srimad Bhagavatam, but they fail to mention that they have changed the word from what appeared in the letter Srila Prabhupada actually signed. This is their idea of "straightforward and indisputable".
While the Rtviks rail on and on about how the non-believers are great offenders because they will not take 100%, as it is, without change, the precise instructions of the July 9th Letter, here we see that they are engaged in wholesale cheating on that very topic. [For the record, here is a PDF version of the Harekrsna.org webpage.]
This lack of ethics goes to the heart of the Rtvik camp. Not only is Puranjana one of the prominent members of the West Coast Rtviks, he has also been for many years the close confidant of Yasodanandana dasa, who is now actively engaged in bridge-building between the Bangalore Rtviks and the West Coast Rtviks. Given all the credibility problems Madhu Pandit dasa is currently struggling with, he might want to reconsider his association with Rtviks who are so blatantly deceiving the devotees about the actual instructions of the Spiritual Master. As we have become painfully aware thanks to the dispute over changes to Srila Prabhupada's perfect books, changing even a word is highly offensive and dangerous. Yet the Rtviks have been doing just that.
Of course, we cannot put all the blame on Puranjana das for this bending of the truth (although it's a pastime he has raised to an art form):
The Hare Krishna Society founded by Yasodanandana das and associates employs the same cheating tactic, in their Analysis of the July 9th Letter, one of the 'Fundamental Documents' of their organization. Their version of the Letter states: "…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as " ritvik "- representative of the acarya". This analysis is listed as one of the "Fundamental Documents" on their website.
A similarly contrived statement is included in the Hare Krishna Society's core manifesto, 'Srila Prabhupada Siddhanta', which quotes this slightly different version of the July 9th Letter: "He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as "ritvik" - representative of the acarya,".
Madhu Pandit dasa and ISKCON Bangalore are perpetuating the deception by presenting falsified text of the July 9th Letter in their bhakta program, as seen in the written test they use, entitled "Harinam Diksa Question Paper", which states: "He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as "ritvik -representative of the acharya,"
The Hare Krishna Movement's blog site also uses a doctored-up version of Srila Prabhupada's words in the July 9th Letter: "…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as " ritvik "- representative of the acarya".
Madhudvisa dasa – a champion defender against Jayadvaita Swami's changes to Srila Prabhupada's books – has included articles in his website that include falsified quotes of the July 9th Letter, like this article by Mahesh das, which says: "He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as "RITVIK–REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ACARYA". And this one by Gauridas Pandit das, which says: "He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as "ritvik-representative" of the acarya".
You will even find a falsified version in a 2007 article by Mahesh Raja posted in the Sampradaya Sun: "Ritvik - **Representative**", in which he quotes the July 9th Letter this way: "…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as "ritvik--representative of the acarya ". We extended an invitation to debate guru-tattva (including this matter of devious semantics) with Mahesh Raja prabhu, but he would not engage us.
We are not talking here simply about words changed in a paraphrased version of the July 9th Letter -- many of these examples are changed text in a presentation of the actual letter itself. And while there is variation in the different bogus versions of the July 9th Letter text, they all have one thing in common: none of them bears a footnote that admits the words have been changed to suit someone's agenda. The pattern of deception is obvious.
The deception becomes even more clear when we isolate the altered lines from each of the examples given above, and compare them to one another. What becomes very evident is that the proliferation of falsified versions of the July 9th Letter is not simply a matter of 'someone did it, and everyone else copied it'. It's not that someone thought they would correct a typo and post an edited version of the Letter, which everyone else then copy/pasted and duplicated. No, that is not the case.
What's happening here is that a number of leading Rtviks, acting independently but obviously with 'group mind', have taken the liberty to purposefully change the undesirable word "rittik" that appeared in the letter Srila Prabhupada signed, replacing it with their own unique version in the phrase. It probably didn't occur to them that one day, all these different versions might be compared and the pattern of deception would emerge.
Taken just from the examples given above, we see below no less than seven different versions of the phrase from the July 9th Letter. Please notice the variations in use of quotation marks (backward and forward), hyphens, double-hyphens, dashes, spacing, capitalization, italics – even the spelling "acarya". The original July 9th Letter that Srila Prabhupada signed is the top line, in blue: The Rtvik-edited versions follow.
…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as "rittik" - representative of the acarya"
…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as " ritvik "- representative of the acarya"
…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as "ritvik" - representative of the acarya
…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as "ritvik -representative of the acharya,
…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as " ritvik "- representative of the acarya
…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as "RITVIK–REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ACARYA"
…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as "ritvik-representative" of the acarya
…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as "ritvik--representative of the acarya
Granted, there may be some Rtvik websites and authors who have been unwittingly repeating the same false information because they haven't done their own research. Like good religionists, they have simply accepted whatever their authorities told them was right, and they did copy/paste an already changed version of the July 9th Letter. But in the instances above, we see seven examples of unique changes – and these undoubtedly represent but a small percentage of what one would find online if they really searched. We found these seven examples with just a little effort.
Needless to say, this is a classic example of why one should never take Rtvik-vada at face value, or take the Rtviks on their word without doing your own research. Devotees must take personal responsibility for the siddhanta they accept, and then preach to others. And that includes all the evidence a position is based upon.
How many Rtviks have known all along that they've been peddling a contrived document, but decided that the end justifys the means? Surely the big Rtvik pandits are all aware of it. Certainly the seven individuals who made the edits shown above knew what they were doing. Devotees like Yasodanandana, Damoghosa, Gauridas Pandit, Mahesh Raja and others have been pushing Rtvik-vada for years, generating thousands of pages of commentary and analysis and the minutia evidence they use to propagandize. Now devotees like Madhu Pandit dasa and his Bangalore associates are carrying the falsehoods forward, training hundreds, and potentially thousands of new devotees up to believe in a contrivance.
How many devotees are in the world now who consider themselves to be Rtviks, and staunch defenders of Rtvik-vada, but haven't even done enough homework to realize that they're perpetuating a falsified version of Srila Prabhupada's letter – a falsification that is the worst kind of hypocrisy and deception. The Rtviks are constantly preaching "no change". It's their mantra – you cannot change a thing Srila Prabhupada gave! Yet here they are, changing the Spiritual Master's own correspondence, nudging it this way and that way, until they get something that suits them. This is the consciousness that has grown out of the asiddhantic morass known as Rtvik-ism. And it is a completely predictable phenomenon.
As the old saying goes, if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. So it is with "ritviks" in the July 9th Letter. And to those persons foolish enough to brush the importance of this deception aside, thinking oh well, the only thing that really matters is the meaning, not the words, I would ask them to think long and hard about perpetuating siddhanta based on a fabrication of the Sampradaya Acarya's words.
It is difficult to know with any certainty when and where the deceptive practice originated of altering the term "rittik" in so-called original copies of the July 9th Letter. In Krishnakant's manifesto, The Final Order, released in 1996, he provides a copy of the July 9th Letter in the Appendices, and it contains the original text, with "rittik" left intact. Throughout TFO, the term "rittik" appears three places -- once in the Appendix Letter, and two places in the body of the text. Everywhere else in the document the author simply uses the word "ritvik", offering no comment on the fact that this key word was spelled differently in the original letter.
While we have only made a cursory search thus far in the HareKrsna.com archives, our earliest record of the word being changed in the body of a supposedly original July 9th Letter is in the paper entitled "Analysis of Srila Prabhupada's Last Will and July 9th Letter", written by "Prabhupadanugas" in 1995.* This was one of a number of documents given to us by Yasodanandana dasa, who we believe was the actual author. (He typically used "Prabhupadanugas" for manuscripts that he had personally penned, many of which we typed from his hand-written sheets into digital copy so they could be published at HareKrsna.com, where they first appeared online.)
In "Analysis of Srila Prabhupada's Last Will and July 9th Letter", the July 9th Letter provided says: "…He would appoint some of His senior disciples to act as " ritvik "- representative of the acarya". This is precisely the same version of the Letter referred to above, with the same typography as that found on Yasodanandana dasa's Hare Krishna Society website.
Around that same time, Yasodanandana dasa gave us his manuscript for Srila Prabhupada: Our Diksa Guru. Again, he used the byline 'Prabhupadanugas', but the manuscript copy we typed from was in his own writing. This document was a reply to Sivarama Swami's paper, Continuing the Parampara (1994). While Srila Prabhupada: Our Diska Guru doesn't include a copy of the July 9th Letter, the following statement is made:
"On July 9th 1977 when a letter naming the eleven ritviks is sent out to all Temple Presidents and members of the Governing Body Commission, the word used is ritvik, not ritvik acarya."
Both these papers stand as early examples from the West Coast Rtvik camp (aka the Prabhupadanugas) of a misrepresentation of the July 9th Letter.
We will continue this article in a segment to follow, addressing in more detail the contents of Dusyanta dasa's article and our own position on the May 28th Conversation and the July 9th Letter.
* The document, "Analysis of Srila Prabhupada's Last Will and July 9th Letter" by the Prabhupadanugas originally appeared online in the Vada section of HareKrsna.com. While the document was released in 1995, to the best of our knowledge, it was listed as 1997 at one point, in our Vada index. We think that was an error, however, and it was actually a 1995 release.
