Senior ISKCON leaders respond to the removal of the “expert at rape” paragraph from SB 4.25.41
Senior ISKCON leaders react to the removal of the final paragraph of Srila Prabhupada’s purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.25.41 from vedabase.io. Hridayananda Dasa Goswami supports the removal; Sukadeva Swami opposes it. Statements will be added as they arrive.
On October 1 Akincana Gocara reported that the final paragraph of Srila Prabhupada’s purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.25.41 had been removed from vedabase.io at the written request of the BBT’s copyrights office, without public explanation.
The paragraph in question reads: “In this regard, the word vikhyātam is very significant. A man is always famous for his aggression toward a beautiful woman, and such aggression is sometimes considered rape. Although rape is not legally allowed, it is a fact that a woman likes a man who is very expert at rape.”
Since publication, senior ISKCON leaders have written to us with their reactions. We publish their messages below in full.
Favorable to removal
Hridayananda Dasa Goswami
Hridayananda Dasa Goswami, initiated by Srila Prabhupada in 1970, is one of the eleven disciples appointed to initiate after Prabhupada’s departure and a long-serving GBC member. He completed the translation and commentary of the Srimad-Bhagavatam left unfinished by Prabhupada, holds a Harvard PhD in Sanskrit and Indian Studies, and is the founder of Krishna West.
Dear Akincana Gocara,
Jaya Prabhupada! Many souls will be lost if that statement is not removed. And many more will blaspheme Prabhupada. I clearly understand that in general, we should not change Prabhupada’s books. But Prabhupada already approved removing statements that had no affect on the philosophy and would incite large numbers of people to blaspheme Prabhupada and reject Krishna consciousness.
With best wishes,
HD Goswami
Unfavorable to removal
Sukadeva Swami
Sukadeva Swami, a medical doctor from Andhra Pradesh, joined ISKCON in the United States in the early 1980s and has since preached across India. He built ISKCON temples in Kurukshetra and Nellore, runs a mid-day meal program feeding about 40,000 children in Nellore, and has authored several books, including Srila Prabhupada in Nellore and Vaisnava Aachara Samhita.
Sex is inbuilt in conditioned bodies. Like food, people need sex. Many big big doctors recommend and say masturbation is OK. Similar are their ideas about gay marriages and lesbian marriages. High court judges and intellectuals opine such ideology. SP says sex is perversion of ādi-rasa or original sex, i.e. love for Krishna, which is pure and not an indulgence of material bodies.
So, in that backdrop, when SP explained Bhagavatam verses in their true context and meaning, what is wrong about it? In so-called sex education, shamelessly things are said by psychologists and other sociologists; why should anybody feel bad about what SP has commented? BG third chapter says insatiable lust burns and destroys our decency. What is truth about conditioned life, why does that statement have to be seen as not so nice? There are persons in all levels of consciousness and SP is guiding and solving the problem so that gradually, by the grace of Lord Krishna, one can gain mastery over impulsive life by practicing Krishna consciousness. By the grace of Krishna and our honest efforts, we can improve and overcome this instinct. Why shun it as taboo? Post Prabhupada’s disappearance, we have no right to change his books, especially as his disciples. If SP is a pure devotee, whatever he has written is under the dictation of the Lord. It is very bad to think we know better than the Lord or SP, His prophesied Senapati, HDG Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada.
These are penny-worth points and humble yet bold comments in support of SP’s personage.
Sukadeva Swami
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This article will be updated as further statements arrive. Senior ISKCON leaders, ISKCON institutions such as the GBC, its ministries and committees, and the BBT itself are invited to send their statements to akincananet@gmail.com.
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We’ve lost a lot of devotees in our history – during zonal acharya debacles, during exodus to Gaudiya Maths, to people starting families and careers, to sex and abuse scandals, and we have no shortage of devotees being burned for lots of other reasons, but I’ve never heard of anyone leaving because of this one paragraph. When it comes to retaining devotees it’s a non-issue.
Or maybe “lost” refers to potential devotees – in that case it’s hard to imagine anyone reading Bhagavatam almost to the end of the Fourth Canto and still sitting on the fence when they see this paragraph. It’s not “women are less intelligent” kind of statements one can encounter almost everywhere very early on, it’s one paragraph at the end of one purport in the middle of multi-volume series and the idea is not repeated anywhere else.
No one will even notice – it took concerned devotees two years to notice it has been removed from the printed Bhagavatam, what to speak of ordinary people who simply don’t read nowadays.
Blasphemers do not rely on latest BBT versions and any AI chatbot can easily provide a long list of controversial statements to feed their minds. In fact, this clumsy attempt to hide a paragraph from the all remembering internet would only give one more reason to our critics.
“Prabhupada already approved removing statements that had no affect on the philosophy” – did he? I’ve never heard of it and my own research brought me only ritvik summary of an old Mahatma Prabhu’s interview on Namarasa’s podcast:
“…Hayagriva found something in the books and he said, Prabhupada […] I think this will work against us, against our movement […] and Prabhupada said take it out, based on that.”
They, the ritviks, also never heard of this incident and they set three reasonable conditions for it to be acceptable.
1) The original statement printed in Srila Prabhupada’s books.
2) Later printings with statement removed.
3) Recorded evidence that Srila Prabhupada asked Hayagriva to remove it.
I can help with the first two – Hayagriva removed Moon travel passages from Easy Journey to Other Planets and Srila Prabhupada called him a rascal for that. This is what is documented and it’s the opposite of what is claimed. Another documented statement, a comment on “guru mukha padma vakya…” line:
“Guru-mukha-padma-vākya, cittete koriyā aikya. Everyone should do that. But if he makes addition, alteration, then he is finished. No addition, alteration. You have to approach guru—guru means the faithful servant of God, Kṛṣṇa—and take his word how to serve Him. Then you are successful. If you concoct, “I am very intelligent than my guru, and I can make addition or alteration,” then you are finished.”
I would also disagree that the removed paragraph has “no affect on the philosophy”. It starts with “In this regard, the word vikhyātam is very significant” – so it’a gloss of a Sanskrit word from the verse and Srila Prabhupada thought it was important. As far as I checked, no acharya glossed over this word and certainly not in Srila Prabhupada’s way, so it’s his unique contribution to understanding this Bhagavatam verse. How can we say it has no affect on the philosophy? Its removal deprives us of it, at least of one of its aspects, which Srila Prabhupada called “a fact”.