May 10, 2020 — DENMARK (SUN) —
If you are involved in the controversy about the posthumous changes made to Srila Prabhupada's books then I guess you know who Garuda Dasa (Graham M. Schweig) is. Otherwise you can easily inform yourself by searching the internet.
To avoid any misunderstandings about my position in relation to Garuda Dasa I will now explain where and why I disagree with him on the topic of the posthumous editing of Srila Prabhupada's books.
Unlike me Garuda Dasa wants a new edition, or version, of Bhagavad-gita As It Is. He is not satisfied with the work of Jayadvaita Swami, but at the same time he thinks we still need some posthumous editing. Garuda would like to do this editing himself – with a small group of qualified devotees.
I strongly disagree with him, and I recently presented my worries to him thus (slightly edited):
"You keep bringing up a couple of quotes to support posthumous editing, for example this one:
'Our editing is to correct grammatical and spelling errors only, without interpolation of style or philosophy' (Letter to Rupanuga Dasa, February 17, 1970).
And then you add that Srila Prabhupada's instructions on editing his books can be summed up in the mantra "no changes, no mistakes," and that this mantra must guide the posthumous editing of his books.
I find your argument fallacious for the following reasons:
1) There is no evidence that Srila Prabhupada included the idea of posthumous editing when he spoke these words. The context was that he was present to supervise the work – if he so desired.
2) Srila Prabhupada spoke out against posthumous editing on several occasions.
3) Srila Prabhupada's own example was that he did not change his guru's or previous acarya's mistakes when he found them. Srila Prabhupada would not even allow corrections of grammatical mistakes made by the editors of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura (see more below).
4) Caitanya Mahaprabhu also did not correct the mistakes of the acaryas.
So why do you want to extrapolate these quotes to include posthumous editing?
Why not do as Srila Prabhupada did, i.e. let the books be! And then perhaps create separate booklets to explain the mistakes?"
Garuda Prabhu first said he more or less agreed with me. But a few days later he wrote this:
'I've looked into every one of the changes in the BGAII with the help of an extremely competent devotee. My conclusion: I can accept up to 25% of the editing, and even some of it very good. But at least 75% of the editing was totally unnecessary, even intrusive. With just the 25% of valid editing, no second edition would have been necessary.' (Garuda Dasa, Facebook post, May 2020)
Garuda says he can accept 25% of Jayadvaita Swami's editing. And then he wants to do some editing himself. First we had Srila Prabhupada's Gita, then we had Jayadvaita Swamis new edition, and now Garuda might take over Jayadvaita Swami's role as a posthumous editor, and then we will have a third.
It should be obvious that Garuda Prabhu's attempts will not settle the matter. Intelligent devotees are against all sorts of posthumous editing. Why? Well, first of all because of the above mentioned reasons. But also because no matter how well-articulated your reasons are for making a certain change you cannot get Srila Prabhupada's approval. And that is certainly needed.
This affair can only be settled by reference to an absolute principle. We are fortunate to have this principle. It is called arsa-prayoga. It means that we cannot make any changes to the acaryas words (without explicit instructions from the acarya himself). This settles the matter. There is nothing further to discuss.
But as long as we have conditioned souls taking up roles as authorities on the editing of Srila Prabhupada's books there will be disagreements as to what constitutes a good, or the best, editor, and what constitutes a good reason to change. One editor will reject the other editors, and new, differing editions of Srila Prabhupada's books will be published.
My position is, therefore, that this dispute cannot be settled with reference to conditioned souls no matter how good they are at editing. It can only be settled by reference to an absolute principle – arsa-prayoga.
Post November 18, 1977 all editing stops, and thereafter only commentaries on the books are allowed. Everyone can, if they so desire, make their individual commentary describing the mistakes in the original Bhagavad-gita As It Is. And then they can personally publish it at their own cost, and also get all the material profit.
Unfortumately Garuda's attempts, however well-intented, will result in more frustration. We will have more and more new editions, or versions, of Srila Prabhupada's Gita. People will lose their trust in Srila Prabhupada's books, and in the Krishna consciousness movement.
With Garuda Dasa at the helm of the ongoing editing the changes to Srila Prabhupada's books will not be stopped.
Your servant,
Ajit Krishna Dasa
