Vaishnava blog feeds

Dear Devotees,

Please accept my humble obeisances
All glories to Srila Prabhupada

If you won’t be able to join us in person at the ISKCON Studies Conference (Prabhupadadesh, 27-30 July), then perhaps you can join us virtually.

If the internet gods allow, we will be podcasting the main sessions on the evening of the day they take place. These can be followed at
http://podserve.biggu.com/podcasts/show/iskcon-studies

I’m also attaching the programme with this text.

Your servant
Lal Krishna Dasa

To see the article properly download the pdf file

ISKCON and Interpretaion: Context, History, Theory, Practice

Prabhupadadesh, Italy

Friday 27 - Monday 30 July, 2007

ISKCON Studies Institute

Aims

The ISKCON Studies Institute aims to,
* develop the field of ISKCON studies and related areas of interest;
* develop forums for academic exchange;
* promote relevant research and facilitate publishing about ISKCON in various disciplines.

Members

Its members are,
* Krsna-ksetra Dasa
* Lal Krishna Dasa
* Merudevi Dasi
* Pranava Dasa
* Radhika Raman Dasa
* Rembert Lutjeharms
* Shaunaka Rishi Dasa

Day One: Preparing the ground

1.1 10-11.20am Introductions

1.2 11.40am-1pm Introduction: Mapping the field

Radhika Ramana Dasa

Interpretaion is a central human acivity, and an inevitable funcion of religious insituions. In this session, Radhika Ramana Dasa will provide an overview of the themes that will be explored during the meeings. He will raise key quesions, poining out both the necessity and diiculies of interpretaion in a devoional context. Who is qualiied to interpret the scriptures? What are the limits of interpretaion, and why are we warned against it? How can we facilitate proper interpretaion and learn to recognise it?

Lunch

1.3 3-3.50pm Text and context

Rembert Lutjeharms

What is the importance of interpretaion for Hindu religious tradiions and how do they approach sacred texts? How do these approaches compare with those of the Gaudiya Vaishnava acaryas? How unique was their approach and how much did it mirror other Indian tradiions? What did they reject and what did embrace and modify? Finally, what role does tradiion play in interpretaion? How does tradiion shape interpretaion and how is it in turned shaped by it?

1.4 4-4.50pm Bhaktivinoda and bhadralok: Responses to colonial Christianity

Krsna-ksetra Dasa

Christian missionaries and the forces of European secularism posed a great challenge to nineteenth-century India’s religious tradiions. Bhakivinoda Thakura’s interpretaion of Vaishnava scripture someimes resisted and someimes embraced these new views. This important acarya in the Gaudiya tradiion wrestled vigorously and fearlessly with the Vaishnava tradiion he so loved, turning it into a ‘modality of change’ for reformulaing spiritual renewal to the tune of universalism that resonated with Enlightenment thinking of his ime.

1.5 5-6pm Viewing the East from the West

Federico Squarcini

How does our cultural background afect our interpretaion? Our commonly shared European aitude towards anything needs an act of interpretaion to be understood. We tend to be convinced by our own ‘understanding’ and our own ‘comprehension’ of reality. Using classical South Asian materials and example we will see the potenial incompaibility between our largely shared ‘post-modern’ view and a more ‘classical’ understanding of what it means ‘to interpret’.

Day Two: Spiritual institution or institutional spirit?

2.1 10-10.50am Re-Visioning ISKCON: Constructive theologising for reform and renewal

Krishna Ksetra Dasa

This paper, co-authored in 2000 (and published in
2004) by Krishna Ksetra Dasa and the late Tamal Krishna Goswami, was an atempt to engage in ‘construcive theology’ within an educated public forum. The ideas generated in this aricle may be perceived as anywhere from passé to downright blasphemous, as either creaive interpretaions or misinterpretaions of the Caitanya Vaishnava tradiion.

2.2 11-11.50am Session Two: Institution as interpretation

Jayadvaita Swami

While interpreing the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradiion, ISKCON also interprets itself. That is, its members and leaders develop ideas of what ISKCON is and should be. And these in turn afect both ISKCON and the personal lives of its members, as well as others with whom ISKCON stands in relaion. Those afected then further afect ISKCON itself. How do post-charismaic dilemmas and other social forces inluence ISKCON’s interpretaion of itself? And how does ISKCON’s self-interpretaion afect the way ISKCON arouses, interprets, and responds to the forces of alienaion, schism, heresy, and compeiion? What has history shown us, and what can we expect?

2.3 12-1pm Case Study One: Bhaktisiddhanta and the Gaudiya Math

Pranava Dasa

In what way was the Gaudiya Math a response to the need to translate the Vaishnava tradiion for a broader audience and to meet the challenges posed by modernity? Tradiionally in Gaudiya Vaishnavism a network of personal, spiritual relaionships was the accepted patern of social hierarchy and interacion. However, if the tradiion was to reach the educated Hindu middle class and a Western audience, a modern, sophisicated insituion was required. Bhakisiddhanta Sarasvai, building on the legacy of Bhakivinode Thakura, developed that kind of insituion. This allowed Gaudiya Vaishnavism to expand beyond the cultural and religious borders of Bengal and, later on, India.

Lunch

2.4 2.50-4.10pm Session Four: Introducing schism

Massimo Introvigne

The term ‘schism’ is not originally sociological, but theological. It belongs to the jargon of the Roman Catholic and of the Eastern Orthodox churches, where its use has always been poliically important. Some recent examples, both Catholic and Orthodox may illustrate how the use of the word ‘schism’ is socially constructed and poliically negoiated. The original theological meaning does not apply well to religious organisaions
(including Protestanism) that don’t use the episcopal Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox model. However in a landmark 2004 aricle, Suton and Chaves tried to construct a sociological concept of ‘denominaional schism’ applicable to Protestanism (Zuckerman did the same for Judaism in 1997 but his aricle was less inluenial). Although not easily applicable to a Hindu or non-Judeo-Chrisian context, these sociological works may form the basis for a typology of schisms independent from the original theological meanings of the term.

2.5 4.20-5.10pm Case Study Two: Legislative interpretation

Sesa Dasa

How well equipped is ISKCON Law to handle irraional erupions, ideological erupions, and other destrucive emoional responses that can easily form the basis of ‘witch trials’. Who interprets ISKCON Law? Who enforces ISKCON Law? Does ISKCON Law contribute to hysteria or miigate against hysteria?

2.6 5.20-6.00pm Session Six: Plenary

Day Three: Day trip

Day trip to Lake Garda

Cost Euro 25

Day Four: Interpretation and schism

4.1 10-11am ‘As It Is’ As it is: Understanding the hermeneutical principles of Srila Prabhupada

Ravindra Svarupa Dasa

Srila Prabhupada makes claims about his principles of understanding scripture that appear, to the modern mind, to be patently false, even absurd, and they tend to be dismissed out of hand as an instance of naive, unrelecive ‘fundamentalism’. This study shows, however, that Prabhupada works from a profound and highly sophisicated theology of sacred uterances, which consitutes in efect a defence of his hermeneuics. A close reading from Prabhupada’s translaion and commentary on Srimad Bhagavatam (1.3.44-1.4.1), discloses the core of Prabhupada’s hermeneuical process. We see that essenial to it is the systemaic formaion of the intellect and character required by which the hearer atains the qualiicaion (adhikara) for recepion. In this light, Prabhupada’s creaion of ISKCON is revealed as a necessary component of the hermeneuical process itself. Indeed, that process consitutes the raison d’etre for the insituion. Those who want to understand Prabhupada’s hermeneuics, must take into account both his theology and the hermeneuical way of life it entails.

3.2 11.10-12.00am Schism: Cause and effect (historical examples)

Kumari Priya

In this session we will survey several instances of schism in religious tradiions. The main focus will be on analysis of a few examples of ‘heresies’ that led to schisms in early Chrisianity. Examples from Buddhism and Islam will also be discussed. We will touch on themes previously introduced, such as ‘Whose tradiion is it?’ and therefore ‘Who has the right/privilege to assume authority of interpretaion and why?’ We will also assess the importance of context for ‘orthodox’ and ‘heterodox’ interpretaions. The main area of discussion will address: ‘What moivates schisms?’ What can we draw from the examples discussed that will help us to idenify and construcively address the roots of schisms? Can we idenify deining lines between orthodox and heterodox interpretaions?

3.3 12.10-1.00pm ISKCON schisms: The good, the bad, and the normal

Braja Bihari Dasa

Schismaic groups - groups that break away from the established religious organization - are a common phenomenon in history. ISKCON is no excepion. Even during Srila Prabhupada’s ime one existed, and since then there have been several major schisms. This presentaion will examine the history of ISKCON’s schisms, place those schisms in the light of social theory and the history of other religious organizaions, and discuss the beneits and problems these schisms create.

Break

3.4 2.30-4.00pm Wrapping up

Acknowledgements

Relecions from speakers

Summary on behalf of ISKCON Studies Insitute - Radhika Raman Dasa

6pm Closing dinner

The speakers

Braja Bihari Dasa (Brian Bloch) is the director of ISKCONResolve, ISKCON’s conlict management system. He is presently inishing his Master’s degree in Conlict Transformaion at Eastern Mennonite University. He is a trained mediator and ombudsman having mediated dozens of ISKCON-related conlicts and met with hundreds of visitors to his ombud’s oice. He is the former director of the Vrindavan Insitute of Higher Educaion. Originally from New York, he joined ISKCON in 1977. He now lives in Vrindavan, India, with his wife Ananda Vrndavana Devi Dasi and their son, Gopinath.

Massimo Introvigne is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an internaional network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of numerous books and aricles in the ield of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is also an atorney specialising in intellectual property rights and part-ime professor of Sociology of Immigraion in the postgraduate programme of the European University of Rome.

Jayadvaita Swami serves as an editor and trustee for the Bhakivedanta Book Trust.

Krsna-ksetra Dasa, a research fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, recently published his doctoral thesis Atending Krsna’s Image: Caitanya Vaisnava Muri-seva as Devoional Truth (Routledge,
2006). He teaches regularly at Bhakivedanta College, recently taught for one year at the University of Florida, and will soon begin teaching in the department of Cultural and Religious Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong as a visiing scholar.

Kumaripriya Dasi (Claire Robison) was a student in the pioneering year of the ministerial training programme at the Bhakivedanta College. She has recently completed her BA in Theology at Oxford, where she came irst in her year in the University’s Theology Faculty. She plans to pursue graduate studies in Comparaive Religion, with a specialisaion in Hinduism.

Rembert Lutjeharms joined ISKCON in 1999 in Penang, Malaysia. In
2001 he received an undergraduate degree in Oriental Studies from the University of Ghent, Belgium, specialising in Sanskrit, and two years later earned his Master’s degree from the same department. He has served the Dutch branch of the BBT as a Sanskrit editor, translator, and proof-reader since 2000. He is currently inishing a doctoral degree at the University of Oxford on Kavikarnapura’s poetry and poeics, and he teaches ‘Introducion to Hinduism’, ‘Vedas and Upanisads’ and ‘Introducion to Sanskrit Poetry’ at Bhakivedanta College, Belgium, as well as courses on Hinduism and Sanskrit at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies.

Pranava Dasa joined ISKCON in Vrindavan in 1983. Ater ten years of book distribuion in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, he served as the congregaional director (1993 to 1996) and the temple president of ISKCON Gothenburg in Sweden (1996 to 1999). He started his academic career in 2000. He completed an MA in the History of Religion and Indology at the Universiies of Gothenburg and Stockholm. He teaches courses on ‘Indian Philosophy’ and ‘Science and Religion’ at the Bhakivedanta College, Radhadesh. He is presently compleing his Ph.D. on the contribuions of Bhakisiddhanta Saravai. He and his wife, Kalpavasini Devi Dasi, live in Gothenburg.

Radhika Ramana Dasa (Ravi M. Gupta) is Assistant Professor of Religion at Centre College, USA, where he recently received the teaching award for junior faculty. He teaches every year at Bhakivedanta College in Belgium, holds a D.Phil. in Hindu Studies from the University of Oxford, and is the author of The Caitanya Vaisnava Vedanta of Jiva Gosvami (Routledge, 2007).

Ravindra Svarupa Dasa received iniiaion from Srila Prabhupada in 1971. He has a BA in Philosophy and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies. In ISKCON he has served as a temple president, as a writer and editor for Back to Godhead, and as a researcher and writer in the Bhakivedanta Insitute. Currently he serves as a member of the Governing Body Commission. He is also the leader of the Vedic Planetarium Cosmology Project.

Sesa Dasa teaches Ethics. He joined ISKCON in 1973, inspired by the political acivism of the In God We Trust Party for Purified Leaders, organised by members of ISKCON. He is a member of the Governing Body Commission and head of the Ministry of Educaional Development. He served as the temple president in both Washington DC and Philadelphia; as the Managing Editor of Back to Godhead magazine; and as the North American Secretary of the Bhakivedanta Book Trust. He atended the United States Military Academy and later received a degree in Poliical Science from the State University of New York, Albany. In 1991 he earned a Juris Doctor degree from the UCLA School of Law. He lives in Alachua, Florida, with his wife, Madhumai, and two daughters.

Federico Squarcini received a Ph.D. in ‘Social and Historical Studies of Religions’ from the University of Bologna. He is currently researching the sociology of South Asian classical religious and juridical tradiions and is teaching ‘History of Indian Religions’ at the University of Florence, where he is ailiated at the Chair of Sanskrit Language and Literature. Federico is author and editor of volumes including Ex Oriente Lux, Luxus, Luxuria. Storia e sociologia delle tradizioni religiose sudasiaiche in Occidente (SEF 2006) and Boundaries, Dynamics and Construcion of Tradiions (Firenze University Press 2005), he has published in Criica Sociologica, Orientameni Pedagogici, Parole Chiave, Rivista di Studi Orientali, Social Compass, and serves on the board of directors of Religioni e Società and Kykéio.