Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Socially Progressive Hermeneutical Lens
By Akshay Gupta, originally published in Religions, 12(8), 595
Prabhupāda concretely demonstrated how his hermeneutical lens1 can be applied with his adjustment of some traditional gender norms concerning the intermingling of men and women within ISKCON. In one instance, Prabhupāda observes that certain individuals with a socially conservative mindset2 had criticized him for allowing his male and female students to intermix freely in Europe and America (Kavirāja and Prabhupāda 1998a, p. 835). Prabhupāda states that such individuals had failed to consider that “one cannot suddenly change a community’s social customs” (Kavirāja and Prabhupāda 1998a, p. 835). Indeed, elsewhere, Prabhupāda states that the practice of Kṛṣṇa-bhakti should be developed according to the contingencies of “deśa-kāla-pātra (the place, the time and the recipient)” (Kavirāja and Prabhupāda 1998a, p. 842), and this is a notion that echoes A.K. Ramanujan’s claim that certain dimensions of Hindu thought and religious praxis are context-specific (Ramanujan 1989, p. 53). Prabhupāda explains that “stereotyped” gender norms can never help to spread devotion to Kṛṣṇa within the Western countries (Kavirāja and Prabhupāda 1998a, p. 835), thus reinforcing the motif that the performance of Kṛṣṇa-bhakti should be adapted to one’s particular sociocultural historical contexts in order for its propagation and cultivation to be effective.
Prabhupāda also describes the benefits of allowing both men and women to perform ISKCON’s missionary activities. He explains that he instructed both men and women about how to proselytize ISKCON’s theology, and, as a result, both men and women have been able to propagate ISKCON’s teachings with “redoubled strength” (Kavirāja and Prabhupāda 1998a, p. 842). Prabhupāda also states that he finds the combined preaching efforts of his male and female students to be “wonderful” (Kavirāja and Prabhupāda 1998a, p. 842), thus implying that making praxic adjustments that allowed women in the Western countries to propagate and practice Kṛṣṇa-bhakti according to their country’s social conventions produced more favorable results than imposing on them restrictions such as some of the patriarchal Indian customs of his time.
Prabhupāda’s modification of gender roles is worth highlighting because it challenges some prevalent patriarchal attitudes within Hindu thought that are commonly associated with strī-dharma. Strī–dharma can be loosely translated as the duties of women, and patriarchal interpretations of strī–dharma defined women’s roles as servants of their husbands and as domestic caretakers (Lipner 2012, p. 116). Presently, patriarchal and androcentric attitudes still persist amongst men in India. For instance, as Subhadra Mitra Channa states, “one of the biggest contradictions in Indian society today is that the ideals of womanhood have not been transformed to include the modern woman. For a majority of Indian men, the ideal is still their mother” (Channa 2013, p. 178). Thus, Prabhupāda’s de-emphasis of the religious importance of patriarchal attitudes is highly significant because it indicates that a patriarchal interpretation of strī–dharma is not a soteriologically essential principle within ISKCON’s theological framework but is instead a context-specific detail, which can be disregarded if it turns out not to be conducive to one’s performance of Kṛṣṇa-bhakti.
[…]
Prabhupāda’s hermeneutical lens can be utilized to address other forms of oppression within Hindu contexts. For example, caste oppression is still prevalent within India, and as recently as 2016, an Indian Ph.D. student named Rohith Vemula committed suicide due to the discrimination he had experienced because of his lower caste status (Divya and Ankur 2019, p. 216). However, in certain interpretations of the Bhagavad Gītā (c. 500 BCE–200 CE) (henceforth BhG), which is one of the most important Hindu sacred texts, varṇa, the idealized textual model of caste, is not viewed as soteriologically necessary. For instance, BhG 9.32 states, O Arjuna, those who have resorted to me [Kṛṣṇa] can reach the highest destination, even if they are from wicked families, women, vaiśyas, or śūdras [the lowest caste]”.3 While it is beyond the scope of this paper to draw a definitive conclusion as to whether or not one’s membership in a particular caste is soteriologically necessary for the Hindu traditions that adhere to the BhG, it is worth reinforcing that verses such as BhG 9.32 do support the thesis that members of all castes can attain soteriological perfection. At the very least, if there are Hindu traditions that wish to hold to a view of social equality, such readings, when paired with Prabhupāda’s hermeneutical lens, could inform their ethical frameworks and assist their attempts to end caste-based oppression. Prabhupāda’s hermeneutical lens could be used similarly to combat racism. While it is also beyond the scope of this paper to examine the relationship between one’s membership in a racial group and their ability to attain liberation within Hindu traditions, I can briefly note that Hindu traditions that do not ascribe any meaningful soteriological role to one’s race could also draw upon Prabhupāda’s hermeneutical lens in order to support a view of racial equality.
- Prabhupāda’s hermeneutical lens can be characterized as an exegetical tool that is shaped by, and which also aids and enhances, the discernment between (a) a religious tradition’s doctrinal tenets that are soteriologically necessary and (b) the details of spiritual praxis that are context-specific. Prabhupāda’s hermeneutical lens acknowledges that there is a vital distinction to be made between soteriologically essential “principles” and context-specific “details” of spiritual praxis. Of course, applying Prabhupāda’s hermeneutical lens is done the most effectively when an individual is consciously aware of, and educated about, the soteriologically necessary doctrinal tenets within a particular religious tradition. [↩]
- It can be implied that these individuals were from India during Prabhupāda’s time, where such norms would have been more common. [↩]
- māṃ hi pārtha vyapāśritya ye ’pi syuḥ pāpa-yonayaḥ/striyo vaiśyās tathā śūdrās te ’pi yānti parāṃ gatim // (Schweig 2007, p. 303). [↩]
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Despite this clear and unambiguous evidence of Prabhupada’s application of hermeneutics there are those who believe, and espouse (often loudly) that he “never compromised,” going so far as to say that any adjustment with regard to women’s roles relative to how they engage with Bhagavata-dharma is done under the influence of (Western) modernity and constitutes a break with the *true* tradition. He did in fact never compromise essential principles, while adjusting social roles and norms in service of those same principles. This fact often escapes the very people who were brought into Mahaprabhu’s fold by such adjustments and who would have otherwise been able to participate in Bhagavata-dharma only peripherally in a ‘traditional’ Indian setting. For example, while anyone can chant Sri Nama, Westerners would not be able to cook for the Deity, what to speak of worship on the altar. And other practices like giving diksa would be utterly out of bounds. These ideas of course reveal a smarta influence and moreover a fundamental misunderstanding of the very nature of Mahaprabhu’s dispensation–giving the highest thing to the least qualified.