The Hare Krishna Movement: The Postcharismatic Fate of a Religious Transplant

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Edwin Bryant, Maria Ekstrand
Columbia University Press, Jun 23, 2004 - Religion - 496 pages

Dancing and chanting with their shaven heads and saffron robes, Hare Krishnas presented the most visible face of any of the eastern religions transplanted to the West during the sixties and seventies. Yet few people know much about them.

This comprehensive study includes more than twenty contributions from members, ex-members, and academics who have followed the Hare Krishna movement for years. Since the death of its founder, the movement, also known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), has experienced debates over the roles of authority, heresy, and dissent, which have led to the development of several splinter movements. There is a growing women's rights movement and a highly publicized child abuse scandal. Providing a privileged look at the people and issues shaping ISKCON, this volume also offers insight into the complex factors surrounding the emergence of religious traditions, including early Christianity, as well as a glimpse of the original seeds and the germinating stages of a religious tradition putting down roots in foreign soil.

 

Contents

KRISHNA The Intimate Deity GRAHAM M SCHWEIG
13
THE HISTORY OF INDIC MONOTHEISM AND MODERN CHAITANYA VAISHNAVISM
31
HARE KRISHNA MAHAMANTRA Gaudiya Vaishnava Practice and the Hindu Tradition of Sacred Sound
35
KRISHNA IN MLECCHA DESH ISKCON Temple Worship in Historical Perspective KENNETH VALPEY KRISHNA KSHETRA DAS
45
PART 2 Bhaktivedanta Swami and His Predecessors
61
WHO IS SHRI CHAITANYA MAHAPRABHU
63
CHARISMATIC RENEWAL AND INSTITUTIONALIZATION IN THE HISTORY OF GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM AND THE GAUDIYA MATH
73
BHAKTIVINODA AND SCRIPTURAL LITERALISM
97
HERESY AND THE JIVA DEBATE
264
Social Issues
271
AIRPORTS CONFLICT AND CHANGE IN THE HARE KRISHNA MOVEMENT
273
HEALING THE HEART OF ISKCON The Place of Women KIM KNOTT
291
LIFE AS A WOMAN ON WATSEKA AVENUE Personal Story I NORI J MUSTER
312
CHILD ABUSE AND THE HARE KRISHNAS
321
FIFTEEN YEARS LATER A CRITIQUE OF GURUKULA Personal Story 11
344
RACE MONARCHY AND GENDER Bhaktivedanta Swamis Social Experiment EKKEHARD LORENZ
344

THE GURU MAYAVADINS AND WOMEN Tracing the Origins of Selected Polemical Statements in the Work of AC Bhaktivedanta Swami
112
AC BHAKTIVEDANTA SWAMI S PREACHING IN THE CONTEXT OF GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM
129
PostBhaktivedanta Controversies of Lineage
147
CLEANING HOUSE AND CLEANING HEARTS Reform and Renewal in ISKCON WILLIAM H DEADWYLER RAVINDRA SVARUPA DAS
149
THE GUARDIAN OF DEVOTION Disappearance and Rejection of the Spiritual Master in ISKCON After 1977
170
THE NO CHANGE IN ISKCON PARADIGM
194
THE ROUTINIZATION OF CHARISMA AND THE CHARISMATIC The Confrontation Between ISKCON and Narayana Maharaja
214
Heresies
239
DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSY AND THE GROUP DYNAMIC
241
Reevaluations
365
ON LEAVING ISKCON Personal Story 111 STEVEN J GELBERG
367
ON STAYING IN ISKCON Personal Story IV
377
REVISIONING ISKCON Constructive Theologizing for Reform and Renewal
388
CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS
403
GLOSSARY OF SANSKRIT TERMS
415
INDEX
419
Copyright

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Page 2 - Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
Page ix - The Quest for the Origins ofVedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. New York: Oxford University Press.

About the author (2004)

Edwin F. Bryant is assistant professor of Hinduism at Rutgers University. His publications include The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Cultureand Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God, Srimad Bhagavata Purana Book Ten. Maria L. Ekstrand is a psychologist on the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco who was involved in the development of ISKCON's child abuse investigation guidelines.

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