After the Ācārya's Departure: The Gauḍīya Maṭha and ISKCON

In 1974 Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Prabhupāda wrote to one of his disciples about what had happened to the Gauḍīya Maṭha — the mission of his own spiritual master — after its founder's departure. The letter ends: "Therefore we may not commit the same mistake in our ISKCON camp" (letter of 28 April 1974).

A few years after Prabhupāda's own departure, many of his disciples and many scholars began to say that ISKCON had in large part repeated the history of the Gauḍīya Maṭha. This article is about the two stories: what two great ācāryas left their disciples, what happened after they departed, and what is still disputed. We rely on the documents and on Prabhupāda's own words. Where the sources disagree, or where there are different interpretations, we set out each position.

Who Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī and Bhaktivedānta Svāmī were, and their place in the tradition, is told in the article Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism: The Path of Love for Kṛṣṇa.

The Gauḍīya Maṭha: how it began

In 1918 Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, son of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, took sannyāsa and founded the first maṭha in Māyāpura, at the birthplace of Śrī Caitanya. Soon a centre opened in Calcutta under the name Śrī Gauḍīya Maṭha, and in 1930 a large temple was opened in the Calcutta district of Bagbazar.

In less than twenty years the mission grew into one of the most visible forces in Bengal: 64 maṭhas across India and centres in London, Berlin and Rangoon. Bhaktisiddhānta printed books and journals on his own presses; he called the printing press the bṛhad-mṛdaṅga, the "great drum" of kīrtana, because it is heard further than an ordinary drum. In 1933 his disciples went to preach in Europe for the first time.

Bhaktisiddhānta demanded a strict life and unity in service from his disciples. But the mission's greatest test came after his departure.

Bhaktisiddhānta's last wishes

Bhaktisiddhānta departed on 1 January 1937. His last instructions have come down to us in several documents.

His address to his disciples at the end of December 1936 is advice on how to live on. Its main idea: work together, jointly, without quarrelling, for the service of God; remain united in following the āśraya-vigraha, the one who is the shelter. Translators render this word differently — some as "the spiritual master", others as "Rādhā". The address says nothing about a governing body or a successor.

The minutes of his last wishes, 31 December 1936. According to the historian Ferdinando Sardella, who studied this document, Bhaktisiddhānta asked for a governing body to be formed, with Kuñjabihārī Vidyābhūṣaṇa (Kunja Babu) to remain manager for as long as he lived. He named no successor guru.

How Prabhupāda recounts it. In a 1973 conversation he gives his master's will as: "You form a governing body of twelve men and go on preaching, and Kunja Babu may be allowed to remain manager during his lifetime" (conversation of 21 September 1973). And he explains the intention: "His idea was 'Let them manage; then whoever will be actual qualified for becoming ācārya, they will elect. Why I should enforce upon them?'"

The split of 1937

Soon after Bhaktisiddhānta's departure the council of disciples elected Ananta Vāsudeva as ācārya. Kuñjabihārī opposed this. The mission split in two.

The sources tell why the split happened in different ways.

• Prabhupāda's account: both sides wanted the post of ācārya, which their master had given to no one. "Just after his passing away, his leading secretaries made plans, without authority, to occupy the post of ācārya, and they split into two factions" (Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi 12.8, purport).
• The historian Sardella's account: the council was in fact formed and itself elected the ācārya, and Kuñjabihārī at first accepted this. The conflict flared because the council did not confirm Kuñjabihārī as chief manager, as the last wishes had said, and from then on the dispute was over power and property.

Both accounts agree on the essential point: the unity the master had asked for was not kept, and the matter ended up in court.

The court case over property. In 1937 Kuñjabihārī filed suit in the Calcutta High Court. Judgment was given in 1940 and finally accepted by both sides in 1948. The property was divided: Ananta Vāsudeva received the Calcutta temple at Bagbazar and founded the Gaudiya Mission; Kuñjabihārī received the maṭha at Māyāpura and nearby centres (the Śrī Caitanya Maṭha). He later took sannyāsa as Bhakti Vilāsa Tīrtha.

Ananta Vāsudeva's fate. He took sannyāsa, but in 1951 he left his post, gave up his vows, married, and in the end rejected the validity of his own master's initiations. He died in 1958 (other sources say 1959).

What became of the mission. Many of Bhaktisiddhānta's disciples joined neither party and founded missions of their own: the Gauḍīya Vedānta Samiti (1940), the Śrī Caitanya Sārasvata Maṭha (1941), the Śrī Caitanya Gauḍīya Maṭha (1953) and others. The unified Gauḍīya Maṭha, in Sardella's words, "more or less ceased to exist". Among the disciples who carried on their master's work outside these parties was Abhay Caraṇāravinda, the future Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Prabhupāda.

What Prabhupāda said about it

Prabhupāda returned to this story many times, always as a warning. Here are his main words.

• In his purport to Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi 12.8 he writes that Bhaktisiddhānta, at the time of his departure, "requested all his disciples to form a governing body and conduct missionary activities cooperatively. He did not instruct a particular man to become the next ācārya." Both factions, he writes, "were asāra, or useless, because they had no authority, having disobeyed the order of the spiritual master." And: "because the two parties, busy dividing the material assets of the Gauḍīya Maṭha institution, stopped the preaching work, we took up the mission" (Ādi 12.8).
• The next purports state the general rule: "When disciples do not stick to the principle of accepting the order of their spiritual master, immediately there are two opinions" (Ādi 12.9).
• Letter to Rūpānuga, 28 April 1974: "He never recommended anyone to be acarya of the Gaudiya Math… He said openly you make a GBC and conduct the mission. So his idea was amongst the members of GBC who would come out successful and self effulgent acarya would be automatically selected… Therefore we may not commit the same mistake in our ISKCON camp" (letter).
• Letter to Kīrtanānanda, 18 October 1973: "Our Gaudiya Math people fought with one another after the demise of Guru Maharaja but my disciples have already begun fighting even in my presence" (letter).
• Conversation of 31 October 1973: "Just like after the departure of Guru Mahārāja, the Gauḍīya Maṭha… Fratricidal war" (conversation).

According to his biographer, in the last months of his life Prabhupāda told his disciples: "Your love for me will be shown by how much you cooperate to keep this institution together after I am gone" (Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta, ch. 52 — a biographer's account, not a recording).

What Prabhupāda left behind

Remembering the Gauḍīya Maṭha, Prabhupāda set up ISKCON's structure in advance. There are four key documents.

1. On 28 July 1970 he signed the "Direction of Management" and established the GBC (Governing Body Commission), a governing council. Its purpose is stated as "to act as the instrument for the execution of the Will of His Divine Grace". The same document says that "His Divine Grace has the final approval in all matters", and that the GBC "has no jurisdiction in the publication of manuscripts": the books are handled by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, whose function "is not dependent on the GBC" (the document and its scans).
2. On 28 May 1977, asked by members of the GBC how initiations would be conducted after his departure, he answered: "I shall recommend some of you to act as officiating ācāryas" — that is, to perform initiation as the ācārya's representatives, on his behalf. Asked "Is that called ṛtvik-ācārya?", he said: "Ṛtvik, yes." And further: "When I order, 'You become guru,' he becomes regular guru… He becomes disciple of my disciple" (conversation). A ṛtvik is an officiating priest who performs initiation on behalf of the guru.
3. On 4 June 1977, his will: "The Governing Body Commission (GBC) will be the ultimate managing authority of the entire International Society for Krishna Consciousness… The system of management will continue as it is now and there is no need of any change" (text).
4. On 9 July 1977, a letter written on Prabhupāda's instruction by his secretary Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī and approved by Prabhupāda. It names eleven disciples who would perform initiations as his ṛtvik representatives: "Temple Presidents may henceforward send recommendation for first and second initiation to whichever of these eleven representatives are nearest their temple… The newly initiated devotees are disciples of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada" (the letter and its scan).

Prabhupāda departed on 14 November 1977 in Vṛndāvana.

What happened after 1977

This part of the story is acknowledged by all sides, though they explain it differently.

The zonal ācāryas. From early 1978 the eleven disciples named in the 9 July letter began to initiate no longer on Prabhupāda's behalf but as independent gurus, each in his own "zone" of the world. They were given raised vyāsāsana seats and worshipped as Prabhupāda had been. Many senior disciples disagreed. As early as 1980 one of the eleven, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī, publicly admitted that Prabhupāda had appointed them only as ṛtviks, not as his successor ācāryas.

Falls. During the 1980s several of the eleven broke their vows, were removed, or left the movement. Many of their disciples then drifted away from ISKCON too.

The 1987 reform. The GBC abolished the zonal system. Since then the word "ācārya" has been reserved for Prabhupāda alone; personal vyāsāsanas and public worship of other gurus are forbidden; and new gurus are approved by a GBC vote.

Terrible events. The gravest events of those years are confirmed by courts and official reports:

• in 1986, in Los Angeles, a devotee who had openly denounced the leader of the American community of New Vrindaban was murdered; the killer was convicted, and the leader himself, Kīrtanānanda — one of the eleven — pleaded guilty in 1996 to racketeering and was sentenced to twenty years in prison;
• in the gurukula schools of the 1970s and 1980s children suffered cruelty and abuse. In 1998 ISKCON itself published a study of this in its ISKCON Communications Journal; in 2000 former students filed a lawsuit against ISKCON in the United States; and in 2002 a number of American temples went through bankruptcy proceedings.

The dispute over initiation: two positions

The main question that still divides Prabhupāda's followers is: what did he want for initiations after his departure? The answer decides what exactly the mistake after 1977 was. Below are both positions as their own proponents present them.

The GBC position

The official position of ISKCON's governing council (the paper "Gurus and Initiation in ISKCON", 1995; a 2004 resolution):

• Prabhupāda wanted his disciples to become regular gurus after his departure and to initiate on their own. The GBC finds support for this in the conversation of 28 May 1977, in the words "he becomes regular guru… disciple of my disciple".
• He had taught the same before. In a letter of 2 December 1975 he writes that by custom, while the spiritual master is alive, prospective disciples are brought to him, "and in his absence or disappearance you can accept disciples without any limitation. This is the law of disciplic succession" (letter).
• The 9 July letter describes how initiations were to be done during Prabhupāda's lifetime, when he could no longer perform them himself; it does not cancel the traditional succession after his departure.
• The mistake was the form, not the institution of guru itself: zones, personality cults, the self-assumed title of ācārya. The 1987 reform corrected it. Many of Prabhupāda's disciples who became gurus serve honestly, and the fall of some does not cancel the sincerity of others.

The ṛtvik position

The position of the supporters of the ṛtvik system (the book The Final Order, 1996; the IRM movement, founded in 2000; set out in the academic volume The Hare Krishna Movement, Columbia University Press, 2004):

• The 9 July letter is Prabhupāda's last written order on initiation, sent to the whole movement. It says "henceforward" and says nothing about the arrangement ending at his departure.
• The will, written a month earlier, requires the system to "continue as it is now", without change.
• In the 28 May conversation Prabhupāda says: "When I order 'You become guru,' he becomes guru." That is a condition, not an order: he never gave the order "become guru" — he appointed only ṛtviks, representatives who initiate on his behalf.
• On this view, Prabhupāda's calls to "become guru" in his books and letters mean becoming a śikṣā-guru — instructing, preaching, passing on knowledge — not accepting disciples of one's own.
• Nor does the 1975 letter say that anyone becomes an ācārya once the master departs. An ācārya there is "one who knows the scriptural injunctions and follows them practically in life, and teaches them to his disciples", and one becomes a guru by being "trained up very rigidly". A self-appointed ācārya, on this view, is a deception. And the etiquette in the same letter — while the master lives, prospective disciples are brought to him — is not always kept in ISKCON today: since 2019 the GBC has allowed disciples to initiate in their own guru's lifetime as an exception, by a special vote (ISKCON Law 7.3.2).
• Therefore initiations should have continued on Prabhupāda's behalf, with new initiates becoming his disciples. On this view both the zonal ācārya system and today's system of many gurus are an unauthorised departure from his last instruction — just as Bhaktisiddhānta's disciples installed an ācārya their master had not appointed.

How each side answers the other

• The GBC answers the ṛtviks: a ṛtvik system after the guru's departure has no precedent in disciplic succession; the 1975 letter and the 28 May conversation speak clearly of future gurus; single quotations must not be torn out of Prabhupāda's whole teaching on succession.
• The ṛtviks answer the GBC: the 1975 letter is a private letter to one disciple about etiquette, not a general order; the last general order is the 9 July letter; and the history of the zonal ācāryas and their falls shows how dangerous it is to set up gurus without a clear order.

Supporters of the ṛtvik position also question the authenticity of the recording of the 28 May conversation. We have not been able to find an independent expert examination of it.

The GBC: executive or legislator?

The second great question concerns the role of the governing council itself. According to the documents Prabhupāda left, the GBC is an executive body: it manages the society and carries out the founder's will; it does not make new rules.

• "Direction of Management" (1970): the GBC is "the instrument for the execution of the Will of His Divine Grace"; final approval in all matters rests with Prabhupāda; the council has no jurisdiction over publishing (the document and its scans).
• The will (1977): the GBC is "the ultimate managing authority", and "the system of management will continue as it is now and there is no need of any change" (text).

Critics of the GBC point out that after 1977 the council went beyond this role, introducing what Prabhupāda had not ordered or setting aside what he had:

• Zonal ācāryas. Prabhupāda established no such system; his disciples introduced it themselves in 1978 (see above).
• Sannyāsa. On 7 January 1977 Prabhupāda said: "This should be strictly outlawed — no more sannyāsīs. And those sannyāsīs who have fallen, you get them married" (conversation). After 1977 ISKCON went on giving sannyāsa.
• The books. On 22 June 1977 Prabhupāda was shown changes made to his books without his knowledge, and he said: "The rascal editors, they are doing havoc… The next printing should be again to the original way" (conversation). After his departure, in 1983, the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust published a new edition of Bhagavad-gītā As It Is with a great many changes, and later other books were revised too.

Hence the critics' central charge: a council meant by its founder only to execute his instructions behaved as a legislator.

The answer of the GBC and the BBT. The council itself recognised the zonal ācārya system as a mistake and abolished it in 1987. The book revisions, the BBT says, bring the text back to Prabhupāda's manuscripts and dictation tapes rather than distorting it. The words about sannyāsa, supporters of the council hold, concerned the falls of that time and were not a permanent ban. And as "the ultimate managing authority" the council has to decide questions Prabhupāda did not directly address.

What is shared and what differs

What is shared. Both stories follow one pattern: an ācārya builds a worldwide mission and, before departing, asks his disciples to act together under a council, without naming a single successor ācārya. After his departure the disciples begin to struggle for position, factions form, and then come division, lawsuits, deviations and falls. This is exactly what Prabhupāda warned about long before his departure. The historian Sardella writes plainly: "just as problems arose in the Gaudiya Math shortly after Bhaktisiddhānta's demise, problems arose in ISKCON after Bhaktivedanta's departure, largely owing to the missteps and shortcomings of leading disciples who were supposed to function as initiating gurus."

What differs. Unlike the Gauḍīya Maṭha, ISKCON did not break up into warring organisations: the GBC kept the society united, and the 1987 reform corrected what the council itself recognised as a mistake. But no unity was reached on the central question — who initiates, and on whose behalf — and many groups with different answers to it have separated from ISKCON.

In place of a conclusion

Both stories teach the same thing: a spiritual mission rests not on buildings, posts or numbers of disciples, but on faithfulness to the instructions of the one who founded it. Bhaktisiddhānta asked his disciples to work together without quarrelling. Prabhupāda asked his not to repeat the mistake of the Gauḍīya Maṭha and to stay united.

How exactly to carry out his last instructions is still disputed. But on one thing all sides agree: wherever disciples began to struggle for power instead of serving, trouble followed. It is a lesson not only of history but for everyone who walks this path today.