C HAPTER 3: S CIENCE AND ISKCON B EFORE

The Origins of ISKCON

The Hare Krishna movement, known more formally as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), developed out of a preexistent Hindu devotional sect transplanted to the West. On the one hand, the group shared a theological base with a number of conventional Hindu religious groups, and its founder stood at the end of a verifiable lineage of spiritual teachers recognized by most Hindus as legitimate. Yet one cannot agree with Kim Knott, who asserts that “Hare Krishna is not a new religious group, except in the most superficial sense; it is not stuck in the cultural and social groove of the 1960s; nor is it just one of the many contemporary cults, and hence interchangeable with Divine Light, the Moonies, or the Rajneesh movement.”1

Indeed, to declare ISKCON “interchangeable” with the Unification Church or other new religions that thrived in the 1960s and 1970s would be incorrect, as surely as each of those groups cannot be interchanged with another. This does not, however, mean that ISKCON is not a new religious movement. ISKCON represented something radically new: a Hindu devotional sect transplanted to, and transformed in, America, where it appealed primarily to Western converts and drew inspiration from—and simultaneously rejected—the postwar American, and subsequently Euro-American, counterculture.2 _Though

equivalent in doctrine to the Gaudiya Vaishnava sect of Hinduism, ISKCON’s founder Bhaktivedanta innovated in how he introduced the religion to Americans and how he positioned it vis-à-vis the wider culture. The American Hare Krishna converts rejected

what they saw as the corrupt outside world and crafted a sectarian religious world for themselves, a hybrid culture drawing from Indian as well as countercultural norms. In constructing this hybrid worldview, the American devotees of Krishna turned to science and their view of it to define themselves and their movement.

Abhay Charan De and the Origin of the Hare Krishnas

Like the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Bhaktivedanta’s early exposure to industrialization and modernization shaped his later life, and he employed modern technological and technocratic methods in propagating and operating his religious society. However unlike Moon, the young Abhay Charan (A.C.) De, as Bhaktivedanta was known before adopting the religious life, did not embrace the idea of modernization and the Western scientific worldview behind it. At most willing to accept the modern scientific world as a tool for spreading his religious message, even before sailing to the Americas and leading a new religious movement, the future founder of the Hare Krishnas demonstrated ambivalence towards science and technology.

Born September 1, 1896, with the given name of Abhay Charan De, the future Hare Krishna founder witnessed half a century of British colonialism, and the rise of a modern and independent India. The child of high-caste middle-class parents in Calcutta, Abhay Charan De grew up literally across the street from a Hindu temple of the Gaudiya Vaishnava lineage, the variety of Hinduism professed by his parents and other members of his immediate family, and that later defined the theological moorings of the Hare Krishna movement. Biographical sources portray a religiously-centered child whose daily life revolved around home and temple worship activities dedicated to the Hindu god

Krishna, the central deity of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, and one of the most popularly worshipped Hindu gods.3

The official biography produced by ISKCON, which also serves as the most thorough source on the early life of Swami Bhaktivedanta, details his parents’ successful efforts to inculcate religious devotion in their young son. By the age of six, Abhay had become an informal religious leader among his siblings and friends, gathering them for worship and even organizing a children’s version of the eight day long religious festival Ratha-yatra. Though the biography, which tends towards the

hagiographic, admits that Abhay mimicked the religious activities of the adults around him, clearly the boy had internalized the Hinduism of his parents.4

In addition to a foundation in traditional Hindu religiosity, Abhay Charan De’s parents sought a modern Western style education for their child, turning to the British colonial educational system. Like Sun Myung Moon, who studied traditional Western subjects among Presbyterian missionaries, Abhay Charan De undertook his schooling under the guidance of Western Christian institutions, particularly the prestigious college operated by the Church of Scotland, the Scottish Church College of Calcutta, which he attended from 1916-1920.5

The college had a reputation for excellent scholarship, training students in Bengali and English culture, and as a center of Bengali

intellectualism. Swami Vivekananda, the Hindu missionary who spoke at the Chicago Parliament of World’s Religions, attended the college, as did Paramahansa Yogananda, another guru who spread Hinduism to the West. Swubhas Chandra Bose, the future president of the Indian National Congress and Indian military leader, attended Scottish Church College in the class ahead of Abhay.6

Though the college required study of the Christian Bible and theology, Christianity did not interest Abhay Charan De, whose

religious world his parents had bequeathed him. Though the future founder of ISKCON dutifully attended classes and studied the standard British colonial curriculum—British history, modern science, classical literature—he would come to reject it. Much of Abhay Charan De’s later work directly criticized the material that he learned at the Scottish Church College, rejecting Western culture, history, literature, and of course science as pale comparisons to what he considered India’s ancient glorious civilization. Though introduced to Western modernity, Abhay Charan De would not accept it.

Alongside internalizing Hindu religiosity and a Western education, during his childhood, adolescence, and college years Abhay Charan De also witnessed the modernization of India. British colonial administrators in the nineteenth century had already established an efficient technological infrastructure linking India’s major cities, but targeted most of their development towards entrenching their political and military dominance and transporting resources for export. What British governor-general Lord Dalhousie called “the three great engines of social improvement, which the sagacity and science of recent times had previously given to the Western nations—I mean Railways, uniform Postage, and the Electric Telegraph” successfully linked upper class Indians and British bureaucrats in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Delhi by the end of the 1850s.7 However, outside of these socially and geographically limited corridors of power, India remained a pre-modern society, at least when judged by Western notions of economic and scientific development. In his encyclopedic history of modern India, Claude

Markovitz argues that “[u]p to 1905, modern Indian industry was more or less limited to the textile sector, both cotton and jute. From then onwards, partly under the influence of the swadeshi [nativist] movement, industrial diversification began to crystallize,

essentially through Indian initiatives. Cement factories, chemical factories, paper mills, all oriented towards the domestic market, emerged, but, in the absence of tariff

protection, they often faced considerable difficulties.”8

During the dawning years of the twentieth century, India slowly emerged into the modern economic world. Abhay Charan De was right in the middle of it.

Abhay’s childhood coincided with the emergence of modern Indian economic and technological society. After decades of stagnation, in part due to global economic factors but primarily the product of colonial control, the Indian economy picked up during his first few years of life, peaking during his teen years (the early 1910s). Abhay witnessed the effective creation of a natively-operated (rather than colonially imposed) export market, at first mostly agricultural, with jute (a native Indian fiber), tea, and opium predominating. Economic figures show steep increases in all those products during the final decades of the nineteenth- and first decade and a half of the twentieth-centuries. The rate of construction and expansion of factories likewise rose, with 1913 witnessing the first domestic production of Indian steel from natively mined iron sources.9

Electricity and telegraph began to penetrate the countryside and the older areas of the cities, rather than merely the centers of colonial power. Of the changes wrought by the modernization of India, electricification personally impressed the young Abhay Charan De the most. Piecing together oral histories, interviews, and diaries, ISKCON biographer Satsvarupa dasa Goswami wrote of his movement’s founder:

Abhay turned ten the same year the rails were laid for the electric tram on Harrison Road [on which he lived]. He watched the workers lay the tracks, and when he first saw the trolley car’s rod touching the overhead wire, it amazed him. He daydreamed of getting a stick, touching the wire himself, and running along by electricity. Although electric power was new in Calcutta and not widespread (only the wealthy could afford it in their homes), along with the electric tram

came new electric streetlights—carbon-arc lamps—replacing the old gaslights. Abhay and his friends used to go down the street looking on the ground for the old, used carbon tips, which the maintenance man would leave behind.10

Although enamored as a child by the advent of electricity and modern technology, Abhay Charan De would later react against these very innovations, complaining that Western science and technology distracted from the religious or spiritual pursuits upon which he believed Indians and all people should base their lives. Just as he rejected the whigish notions of British civilization he learned at Scottish Church College, Abhay Charan De did not embrace Western technology or science. Tellingly, however, the place of science and technology reappeared throughout his religious writings, as he attempted to rectify the ideal of Indian Hindu religious centeredness and the reality of Western technological and scientific modernization.

In accordance with Bengali tradition, Abhay married a high caste woman whom his father selected for him, and a year after graduating from Scottish Church College started a family and a business career, becoming a part time pharmacist and manager for a small pharmaceutical company owned by a family friend.11

Although a competent manager and chemist, questions of ultimate meaning concerned Abhay Charan De far more than business interests. While in college, he embraced Mahatma Gandhi’s religiously inspired Indian nationalism, so much that Abhay adopted the simple handmade tunic that publicly declared him a follower of Gandhi, and later refused to participate in his own graduation ceremony as a protest against the colonial nature of his now alma matter, the Scottish Church College.12

He had made his choice in favor of Indian culture, Indian values, and the Indian religion of Hinduism. Yet the ecumenical liberalism of Gandhi’s movement failed to satisfy Abhay, who even as a Gandhian

showed a renewed interest in the religion of his childhood, the more conservative Gaudiya Vaishnavism of his family and the temple in whose shadow he had grown.

The religion that Abhay Charan De followed, and subsequently became the most influential exporter of, grew out of two sets of Hindu revivals, the first led by the

sixteenth century Indian mystic Chaitanya, and the second the Bengali reformers of the nineteenth century, who worked under the influence of British colonialism. Gaudiya Vaishnavism’s roots, however, derived from the traditional Hindu worship of the god Vishnu, who along with Shiva and Brahma compose the threefold godhead of Hinduism. The term Vaishnavism itself refers to the worship of Vishnu. (A Vaishnava or

Vaishnavite is a person who worships Vishnu). Of these three major gods, Hindus most frequently worship Vishnu, whom tradition associates with guiding and preserving human society. A majority of Hindus believe that Vishnu periodically takes physical forms, what are called avatars, in order to guide and preserve human society. Such forms vary depending on the need of human society, but among Vishnu’s avatars, Hindus most frequently venerate the cowherd prince Krishna (sometimes spelled “Krsna”), a slayer of demons and savior of villagers as well as friend and companion to the mortal Arjuna, a noble warrior facing the gruesome task of warring against his own kinfolk.

In keeping with their reading of Hindu sacred texts, Gaudiya Vaishnavism reverses the more common Hindu understanding of Krishna as an avatar of Vishnu, and proclaims that Krishna is the most intimate name and identity of the one true God who creates and sustains the universe, who then creates the triune godhead of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (some schools within Vaishnavism explain that Krishna separates himself into the triune Godhead, rather than creating it ex nihilo), and then further

manifests himself in the form of avatars. Of the many avatars that Vishnu takes, Gaudiya Vaishnavism recognizes Krishna as most central, since only during that incarnation did the one true God manifest with his true name and personality. As Graham M. Schweig, a scholar of Gaudiya Vaishnavism as well as intellectual leader within the tradition writes, using the technical Sanskrit terminology, “within those Vaishnava traditions for whom the form of Krishna is considered the supreme and ultimate form of the divinity, he is both an avatara [avatar] and the adi-purisha devata (the original person of the godhead). He is the supremely intimate deity from whom the more powerful and cosmic forms emanate.”13

Krishna, therefore, is both the single cosmic God of the universe as well as a specific incarnation—the most important incarnation, at that—which God takes.

As one might guess, Gaudiya Vaishnavism understands itself as a monotheistic form of Hinduism, since it recognizes only Krishna as the supreme lord, albeit a lord who periodically incarnates himself on Earth in order to dispense compassion and wisdom to human beings. Gaudiya Vaishnavas such as the Hare Krishnas often point to the parallels with Trinitarian Christianity in order to explain their belief in a single God with several forms or names. According to this form of Vaishnavism, the various deities in the Hindu pantheon exist as demigods, created beings that Krishna employs for various tasks, a belief that some scholars note disqualifies ISKCON’s theology from pure monotheism. Schwieg explains that Krishna “fills the cosmos with a stratified government of minor divinities working under his direction. He is often recognized as part of the triune cosmic godly powers: Brahma, the god of creation; Vishnu, the god of sustenance; and Shiva, the god of destruction. From the Vaishnava theological perspective, Brahma and Shiva, although extraordinarily powerful minor divinities within the complex cosmic

government, are not on an equal level with Vishnu.”14

Regardless, Gaudiya Vaishnavism maintains that only Krishna merits human worship. Singular devotion to Krishna, whom his worshippers consider the creator and sustainer and the entire cosmos, characterizes Gaudiya Vaishnavism.

Gaudiya Vaishnavism differentiates itself from other forms of Vaishnavism in a second way, its attachment to the Indian mystic reformer Chaitanya (1486-1533),

understood by members of the Gaudiya sect as not merely a reformer, but an incarnation of Krishna himself. Chaitanya taught that the best form of worship is that of emotional or ecstatic devotion, particularly communal chanting and joyful singing of hymns and prayers. In this way, Chaitanya stressed the path of Hindu religiosity called bhakti, or devotion. Unlike some of the more intellectual forms of the religion, such as the disciplines of physical yoga, meditation, or study,bhakti appealed to a wider audience. Like the Jewish Chasidic movement or Protestant pietism, Chaitanya deemphasized social class, educational level, and intellectual sophistication, and subsequently brought his form of Vaishnavism to the uneducated masses. As Edward C. Dimock, Jr, the West’s premier scholar of Gaudiya Vaishnava history wrote, such bhakti-centered movements as Chaitanya’s “spoke to the people of the non-high culture, as well as those participants in the Sanskrit culture who for their own reasons were no longer satisfied with the rigid and highly formulaic religious system represented by brahmanism [Hindu orthodoxy].”15

Particularly, Chaitanya ignored the strictures of caste, preaching to mixed audiences and publicly declaring that all people could equally participate in the

Later commentators understood Chaitanya’s mission in light of the Muslim dominance of Bengal.16

During Chaitanya’s life, Islamic leaders criticized Hinduism’s acceptance of caste restrictions as unjust, particularly when contrasted with the Muslim ideal of the umma, the Islamic holy community comprised of all people. Hindu reformers such as Chaitanya countered Muslim condemnation by deemphasizing caste and

preaching more popular forms of Hindu devotionalism. Chaitanya focused upon his birth tradition of Vaishnavism. His reform efforts succeeded to such an extent that during his own lifetime, followers began to see Chaitanya as a literal godsend, that is an incarnation of Vishnu sent to reform and reinvigorate religious devotions. The movement that he founded, taking its name from the geographical region of Gauda where he preached, became known as Gaudiya Vaishnavism, and unlike other forms of Vishnu-worship, envisioned its founder Chaitanya as an avatar. The singular piety to Krishna that Chaitanya demonstrated, which itself reflected Bengali popular religiosity and

devotionalism, also installed within Gaudiya Vaishnavism the doctrine of Krishna as the sole cosmic God, thus further differentiating the sect from other forms of Hindu

Vaishnavism.17

Before it reached Abhay Charan De, Gaudiya Vaishnavism filtered through another era of reform, that of the nineteenth century Bengali reformers who reacted to both British colonialism and the modernization of India. Though reformers differed widely, they all agreed that Hinduism needed to adapt to the modern world, especially in light of their personal and collective exposure to British culture and religion. Further, they declared that a suitably modernized Hinduism equaled the Christianity of the British and other Western religions in terms of theological and philosophical sophistication. One

of the earliest of these Bengali reformers, Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833), influenced by liberal Protestantism and the Hindu philosophical traditions, founded the Brahmo Samaj, which emphasized the non-personal monotheism of the Hindu sacred texts called the Upanishads.18

A subsequent wave of reformers, including Ramakrishna (1836-1886) and Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) applied a more theistic or personal perspective,

emphasizing worship of the supreme Goddess, Sakta, alongside philosophical introspection.19

Finally, reformers within Gaudiya Vaishnavism, namely Bhaktivinoda Thakur (1838-1914) and Abhay Charan De’s own spiritual master, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati (1874-1937) focused reform efforts on the worship of Krishna.

The reformists, particularly the charismatic monk Vivekananda, who forcefully defended Hinduism at the World’s Parliament of Religions at the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair, declared that modern Indians could look to their own religious heritage rather than turn to Christianity. Like Abhay Charan De, the reformers straddled the boundaries of East and West, often studying under missionaries or in Europe itself, and becoming fluent in Christian and Western philosophical concepts. Vivekananda himself graduated from