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Rascal editors

Conversations and Morning Walks

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

You please send this. Get some copies and send this rascal editor Karanji. He is known to you? He is a Parsee?
Room Conversation -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: He has made the ground. (laughter)

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It's really like an essay.

Gargamuni: We should send this to Blitz, this article. Because they have said "ungodly," and he is saying "divine messenger."

Prabhupāda: Yes. You please send this. Get some copies and send this rascal editor Karanji. He is known to you? He is a Parsee?

Mahāṁśa: No, I don't know him.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Go on.

Maṇihāra: ISKCON, which is a worldwide nonsectarian movement dedicated to propagating the message of the Vedas for the benefit of mankind. The society was founded in 1966 by Swami Prabhupāda, who had come to the United States a year earlier on the order of his spiritual master to teach Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the Western world. Over the years ISKCON has steadily grown in popularity and influence, and today it is widely recognized by theologians, scholars and laymen as a genuine and important spiritual movement."

Prabhupāda: This is "theologians, scholars," and they, he said... Just see. Go on.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

So write them immediately that "The rascal editors, they are doing havoc, and they are being maintained by Rāmeśvara and party."
Conversation, 'Rascal Editors,' and Morning Talk -- June 22, 1977, Vrndavana:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's not the responsibility of the BBT trustee, to see these things don't change without Prabhupāda's sanction?

Prabhupāda: And Rāmeśvara is indulging this. The great rascal is that Jagannātha? He's there in Los Angeles.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Jagannātha dāsa?

Prabhupāda: Maybe.

Indian devotee (2): Jagannātha-suta.

Prabhupāda: Jagannātha-suta.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No...

Prabhupāda: And the one rascal is gone.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Nitāi.

Prabhupāda: It is starting. What can I do? These cannot... These rascals cannot be educated. Dangerous. Little learning, dangerous. So how to correct? The leader of these dangerous-Rādhā-vallabha.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Rādhā-vallabha?

Prabhupāda: Hm. He's a dangerous, who maintains these rascal with this work. He'll always have questions and alteration. That is his business. That is American business. They take that always. What can I do? Ultimate, it goes for editorial. They make changes, such changes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Your original work that you're doing now, that is edited by Jayādvaita. That's the first editing.

Prabhupāda: He is good.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He is good. But then, after they print the books, they're going over. So when they reprint...

Prabhupāda: So how to check this? How to stop this?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They should not make any changes without consulting Jayādvaita.

Prabhupāda: But they are doing without any authority.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I think we should make whole survey, all books already printed, before printing the next batch and check any mistakes so that it should be all corrected. Otherwise, if the scholars find out that there are so many mistakes in the books, then the quality and the appreciation will be reduced.

Girirāja(?): (indistinct)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. We find so far that they are appreciating so much within the scholarly circle, and we want to maintain that actually.

Prabhupāda: Very serious feature. It is not possible for me to check, and they are doing all nonsense, freedom. (pause)

Yaśodā-nandana: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: What to do?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think Svarūpa Dāmodara's point, that all the books should now be checked before they're reprinted again... And they have to be checked not by some so-called learned Sanskrit man but by a learned devotee. Just like you always favored Jayādvaita because his Kṛṣṇa consciousness...

Prabhupāda: Jayādvaita, Satsvarūpa...

Yaśodā-nandana: Bhakti-prema, Satsvarūpa is there.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So Bhakti-prema... That's a good solution.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You know, the real point is that the Sanskrit is often not translated properly in the translation, what Nitāi and others have done.

Prabhupāda: He's a rascal. That's... He's finding out guru and job for filling the belly. That is the latest news.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What is he doing?

Prabhupāda: To find out some job to fill up the belly. Otherwise he'll starve if he doesn't get any job. And he's finding out guru. Job-guru. Now do the needful. Otherwise everything will be spoiled. These rascal editorial... That Easy Journey, original, this (indistinct) Hayagrīva has changed so many things.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He actually took out the whole part about their going to the moon being childish. He deleted the whole section.

Yaśodā-nandana: Also in the Bhāgavatam, where Prabhupāda was talking about Lord Buddha... You mentioned that if the followers of Lord Buddha do not close the slaughterhouse, there is no meaning to such a caricature. That word was very nice. But in new book that word is not there any more. They have pulled the word. The meaning of the word is not... So many times.

Prabhupāda: It is very serious situation. Rāmeśvara is in direct...

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I think they're working too independently without consulting properly.

Yaśodā-nandana: Sometimes they appeal that "We can make better English," so they change like that, just like in the case of Īśopaniṣad. There are over a hundred changes. So where is the need? Your words are sufficient. The potency is there. When they change, it is something else.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's actually a very dangerous mentality.

Yaśodā-nandana: What is it going to be in five years? It's going to be a different book.

Prabhupāda: So you... What you are going... It is very serious situation. You write one letter that "Why you have made so many changes?" And whom to write? Who will care? All rascals are there. Write to Satsvarūpa that "This is the position. They are doing anything and everything at their whim." The next printing should be again to the original way.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They should have a board of Satsvarūpa and Jayādvaita.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Those two men are both in Los Angeles now.

Prabhupāda: So write them immediately that "The rascal editors, they are doing havoc, and they are being maintained by Rāmeśvara and party."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sometimes there's a fear that some word will be unpopular, and on account of desire to gain popularity or acceptance, they lessen the strength of the word. They change the word. They choose a word which is more so-called acceptable.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Same thing is with the Back to Godhead. Just publish some photo, try to change so many things in order to make it popularized. They have been doing that even with the philosophy. (pause)

Śatadhanya: I remember when Rāmeśvara was here, he had mentioned that in one article you had denounced the Christians strongly, so he said he left one part out because he was afraid there would be a bad reaction from the Christians in America.

Prabhupāda: That is possible. That is possible. He should be careful. Then?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think in addition to Satsvarūpa and Jayādvaita checking the English, that Bhakti-prema Mahārāja has to check all the Sanskrit of all of the books... He's translating now, so as he's translating, he can check. He's going, starting from the First Canto.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I think this is very appropriate, because checking English doesn't have any meaning without checking the Sanskrit, the original.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There was one verse in the Fifth Canto. From the way that they translated it, there was no way that anyone could possibly have understood what the verse meant. I mean, it was made unintelligible by the translation. So we were reading. Finally Bhakti-prema says, "Wait a minute. This translation is wrong. They have edited an extra statement here that is not there, and it makes it completely not understandable." Then suddenly, when he corrected the Sanskrit, it was easy to understand. It was very clear.

Prabhupāda: So what to do?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So I think we just have to be slow but sure. We have to go over all of the books and make sure that they're perfect before they're printed again. Not be in such a rush, print, print, and print all nonsense.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: One time I had a strong talk with Rāmeśvara Mahārāja about our article for printing in the Back to Godhead. I didn't want them to be printed in Back to Godhead because they made so many changes...

Prabhupāda: Oh, he has dared to change yours also?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh, yes. They change so many things in our article. And it was on the telephone. I was speaking to him in Atlanta from Los Angeles. And I told him that "This article should not be printed because they have made so many changes." And I didn't like that. Then they answered that "It has already been offset, and BBT policy is always to be rushing. It's always BBT policy." Then I told him that "If you sacrifice quality on the strength of rushing, then it is your business, but that's not my way, so please don't print it." But in any case, they have printed anyway that article. And we all had a bad reaction.

Prabhupāda: So you bring this to Satsvarūpa. They cannot change anything.

Page Title:Rascal editors
Compiler:Visnu Murti
Created:15 of Mar, 2010
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=2, Let=0
No. of Quotes:2