Who is Actually Printing Srila Prabhupada's Books?
BY: ACARYAVILASA DASA
Dec 26, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA (SUN) — A reply to Jayadvaita Swami.
In his recent article, "The Reluctantly Given License", Jayadvaita Swami states, "Srila Prabhupada's desire, as he clearly wrote to every temple in ISKCON, was to have the BBT serve as his exclusive publisher." And Jayadvaita has published a letter on the web to back that up. Hmmm. Yes, Srila Prabhupada wanted the BBT to publish and distribute his books. But the BBT is not doing that – the BBTI is doing that.
BBT Made Defunct
In fact, the BBT is practically defunct. So who made it defunct? Why, that was Jayadvaita and his trustee clan. So it is quite farcical for Jayadvaita to posture faithfulness to Srila Prabhupada instructions and Srila Prabhupada's BBT when he and his clan are the people who have destroyed the BBT, with the creation of the BBTI.
Let the devotees be quite sure that the BBT and BBTI are completely different legal entities. The BBTI is not the BBT that Srila Prabhupada created. So if Jayadvaita wants us to buy Srila Prabhupada's books from the Srila Prabhupada's BBT, well yes we'd like to, but that means we should not buy from Jayadvaita's BBTI. The BBTI is not Srila Prabhupada's BBT.
The Real Issue
But the real issue is, where are Srila Prabhupada's books? Are they with the BBT, the BBTI, or the KBI? Therein lays the rub. Where are Srila Prabhupada's books? Suffice to say that Jayadvaita and his merry band of expense account editors have been trawling Srila Prabhupada's books not just anxious to find a small grammatical or spelling mistake or two, as per Srila Prabhupada's irrefutably clear instructions, but rather they have been trawling Srila Prabhupada's books looking to change the Vaisnava philosophy therein to suit their own ideas. That unauthorised alteration is then combined with wholesale unnecessary changes of style and syntax that are generally grammatically needless and often grammatically incorrect due to the editors' lack of proficiency.
Back to the Original
"Unauthorised alteration" you say? Well, we all know of the "back to the original" justifying argument of Jayadvaita. Haven't we heard that one enough? But what we have never heard is where Srila Prabhupada told Jayadvaita to do wholesale editing on that basis. Any minimal research in the Vedavase quickly reveals that Srila Prabhupada's great concern was that his "changing-disease-ridden" disciples would do exactly what Jayadvaita, Dravida, et al. have done: whimsically change his books without need or authorisation. In fact, Srila Prabhupada intimated this fear of his so clearly that it is hardly presumptuous to assume that Srila Prabhupada foresaw exactly this rascal behavior of the present BBTI editors. "Rascal Editors", indeed.
Where are the Originals
So when Jayadvaita says "Srila Prabhupada's books", we must agree. Yes, that's what we want, ultimately from any source. But there is a clear argument that "Srila Prabhupada's books" are actually the original books that were published before Jayadvaita and his editorial clan went to work on them with hyperactive zeal, blind to Srila Prabhupada's editorial directions. And those original books are the ones that KBI, Krishna Books Inc. publish, not the BBTI. So when Jayadvaita directs us to Srila Prabhupada's "back to the original" books we must end up looking towards the KBI, rather than the BBTI.
Jayadvaita's BBT Exploits
Instead of pointing the finger at Hansadutta personally, perhaps Jayadvaita should look at the man in the mirror. And is that a person preferable to Hansdutta that Jayadvaita will find in the mirror? At least Hansadutta now admits that the GBC diksa-guru rubber-stamping is bogus. Jayadvaita complies with that aberrant system of GBC rubber-stamp apasampradaya. Jayadvaita continued to spend untold millions of dollars of Srila Prabhupada's BBT on the courtcase, even though he had been advised early on that defeat was assured. Jayadvaita et al. in the public court record declared that Srila Prabhupada had not the copyright to his own books because Srila Prabhupada was a "writer for hire of ISKCON" – ISKCON being in the position of financially supporting and facilitating Srila Prabhupada. Yes folks, that is now part of the public court record: "Srila Prabhupada was hired by his own disciples of ISKCON to translate the books; thus Srila Prabhupada was actually an employee of his disciples" – such being the statements of the BBTI trustees. Let Jayadvaita say that offensive nonsense directly to Srila Prabhupada's face and take the response.
And of course Srila Prabhupada's actual BBT has been made defunct with the illicit concoction of the BBTI. Shall we move on now to the illicit editing that Jayadvaita and Dravida have done to Srila Prabhupada's original books, completely ignoring the directions of Srila Prabhupada? Shall we mention how the BBTI has tacitly ignored Srila Prabhupada's directions to expand into the publication of all the literatures of the Brahma-Madhava Gaudiya Sampradaya? Jayadvaita and clan only want to publish the tortoise speed translations of one man – Gopiparanadhana dasa. And what did Gopiparanadhana do with the Bhagavatamrta of Srila Sanatana Goswami? Why, he mixed his comments in with the commentary of Sanatana Goswami and put his name on the cover of the book, bigger than the Goswami! Actually on the spine of the book, Srila Sanatana Goswami's name has been omitted and replaced with that of Gopiparanadhana, giving the appearance to the world that Gopi actually wrote the Brhat Bhagavatamrta! Now there's a humble Vaisnava for you, working for the BBTI.
If one looks around an ISKCON book shop these days, one will find that practically all the new publications are from devotees independent of the BBTI. Under the management of Jayadvaita and his merry band of trustees, the BBTI has being going downhill fast, devoid of new translations and new ideas. Under Jayadvaita, book and magazine printing has plummeted. Perhaps Jayadvaita will explain to us the story of how literally millions of Russian translations of Srila Prabhupada's books stored in a giant warehouse were shredded. Yes, destroyed, because the storage cost was too high and it was considered that to give them out free or free to Russian devotees to distribute would not profit the BBTI, and would destroy the market for new printings of the books in the future. Yes, try to figure out the logic in that one.
Time to Resign
Actually in any properly run publishing house, Jayadvaita and his clan would have been sacked for incompetency long, long ago. But this is ISKCON and in ISKCON, if you carry around bamboo, then you are faultless and absolute and anyone who dares to question gets the almighty boot up the backside for being "envious". In fact, in ISKCON nowadays things are so bad that if you dare to quote Srila Prabhupada's directions for the management of the BBT and ISKCON, then you may be quickly labelled as "envious". Yes, we have come to that: quoting Srila Prabhupada can quickly make one "envious" in the eyes of the dedicated managers of the BBTI and ISKCON.
Whistleblowers
And after calling the whistleblower "envious", what's the next line of these managers? Usually it is the "What have you done for Srila Prabhupada compared to us glorious souls of management?" Well the answer to that is quite simple. What we have done is actually keep in mind the instructions of our glorious spiritual master, even though the managers of the GBC and the BBTI have spent the last thirty years doing their best to ignore those directions and have simply become a disturbance to the ISKCON society as a result of their offenses and concoctions.
To Inspire Your Sadhana
What ISKCON and the BBT need now is new managers who are actually faithful, rather than show-bottle imitations. But let us not waste time hoping for that. Better to get the original books of Srila Prabhupada from wherever, become absorbed in them, chant Hare Krsna, and go Back to Godhead. Don't worry, when you go Back to Godhead, the GBC and the BBTI managers won't be there holding meetings to invent concoctions. Now that should act as inspiration in your sadhana.
