Book Changes | The Hare Krishna Movement

Arsha Prayoga – Part One
April 26, 2010 by Locanananda Prabhu

…For those who saw the Hare Krishna movement spread from city to city and from country to country, it was clear that the original version of Srila Prabhupada’s books was full of spiritual potency and did not require to be changed in any way for his words to act upon the hearts of the conditioned souls…

The question as to whether the writings of the acarya may or may not be revised by his disciples after his disappearance is answered by the rule of “arsa prayoga”. This principle states that one should not see mistakes in what the spiritual master has written or think that his writings may be changed to make them more effective or politically correct. To preserve his teachings in their originally published form is the way by which the acarya is honored, and to do otherwise is to dishonor him. That is the rule of “arsa prayoga”, a principle that devoted followers of a bona fide spiritual master must adhere to without deviation.

Letter on Book Changes

Letter on Book Changes
by Govinda Dasi (ACBSP)

Dear Yashoda Dulal Prabhu,

Pamho. Yes, the BBT always gives that one worn-out example of cattle, and of course the other one, planet of the trees. Yes, those are typos, mistakes. They fail to mention the other four thousand and nine hundred and ninety eight changes they made!

And had these two errors been corrected, along with any misspelled words, etc. there would have been no cause for alarm–or for a million dollar lawsuit with bbt defending the edited version–one which they lost in the courts. That court case is the only reason that now the world has an option to read Prabhupada’s original words. But the 5000 changes that were made, and changing the “writer’s voice” was unwarranted and factually criminal.

In a meeting at Honolulu temple some years back, Jayadvaita M. actually stated, “Oh, those (original) books were horrible!” Those “horrible” original books, filled with Srila Prabhupada’s divine mercy, made thousands of devotees in the ’70s. More books were distributed then than now.

It seems you believe the propaganda that Hayagriva was never around Prabhupada much, and there were many editors etc. What can I say? This is simply not true. I knew Hayagriva from the time I joined Prabhupada in San Francisco, January of 1967. Hayagriva was there, and was already editing the Gita, and spending hours every day with Srila Prabhupada going over every verse!