Deviant Vaiṣṅava Sects, Part 1

Deviant Vaiṣṅava Sects

From the time of Lord Caitanya to the present day, His pure followers have defended His teachings against philosophical perversions.

By Suhotra Swami

Part One: Caste Gosvāmīs and Smārta-brāhmaṅas

From time to time a devotee of Kṛṣṅa is faced with touchy questions about the shadow side of his religion. “Is it true there are gurus in West Bengal who do dope when they chant Hare Kṛṣṅa?” Or, “What about that place in West Virginia where they mix Kṛṣṅa, Christ, New Age, and everything else?”

It’s best to keep a broad historical perspective when considering this problem. Hybrid versions of Kṛṣṅa worship, or even downright perversions of it, are nothing new. They all tend to fit a pattern laid down long ago in India by thirteen deviant sects known as apasampradāyas.

But before looking at the deviants, one should understand the correct culture of Kṛṣṅa consciousness. Fashionable or not, there is a definite standard of spiritual life. It is called sampradāya.

The word sampradāya implies “genuine instruction that has been received through guru paramparā, or disciplic succession” (guru paramparāgatu sad upadeśasya, from the Amarakośa Sanskrit dictionary). In the fourth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Kṛṣṅa declares Himself to be the original source of genuine spiritual instruction and says that a person is connected to His teachings only through disciplic succession.

Genuine spiritual instruction is meant to foster ideal qualities in the human being. Truthfulness, cleanliness, austerity, mercy, humility, and freedom from material desire are called daivi-sampat (transcendental qualities) because they have their origin in Śrī Kṛṣṅa, the transcendental Supreme Person. But fallen souls have no way of associating with Kṛṣṅa directly. The scriptures therefore say, sarva mahā-guṅa-gaṅa vaiṣṅava-śarīre: in this world, all the best qualities are embodied by the Vaiṣṅavas, Kṛṣṅa’s pure devotees. Vaiṣṅava spiritual masters instill these qualities in their disciples through association and instruction. The disciples of a Vaiṣṅava guru thus become qualified to impart daivi-sampat to their own disciples in turn. This is the meaning of disciplic succession.

In Kali-yuga, the present age, there are only four genuine sampradāyas wherein saintly Vaiṣṅava association can be found. One of these is the Brahmā Sampradāya, established in South India by the great ācārya Madhva. This sampradāya was accepted by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu when He received initiation into the chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṅa mahā-mantra from His guru, Śrī Īśvara Purī. Then, in Bengal (Gauḍadeśa), Lord Caitanya began His movement of saṅkīrtana, the congregational chanting of the holy names of Kṛṣṅa. Lord Caitanya’s saṅkīrtana mission, of which the International Society for Krishna Consciousness is the worldwide exponent, is known as the Brahma-Mādhva-Gauḍīya Sampradāya.

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura has identified thirteen apasampradāyas that claim to have inherited Lord Caitanya’s mission, though they have nothing to do with the Brahma-Mādhva-Gauḍīya Sampradāya. They are known by the names āula, bāula, kartābhāja, neḍā, daraveṣa, sānī, sahajiyā, sakhībhekī, smārta, jāta-gosāñi, ativādī, cūḍadhārī, and gaurāṅga-nāgarī. Because these apasampradāyas (apa means “deviated”) do not nurture Vaiṣṅava qualities, their missionary activities are condemned as cheating.

As mentioned in Vaiṣṅava Ke, by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, the apasampradāyas display only inauspicious qualities. One is anitya-vaibhava, the hankering for material success. Another is kāminīra-kāma, illicit sexual affairs that are usually passed off as “transcendental.” And a third is māyā-vāda, philosophical speculation that undercuts the personal nature of God as taught by the Vaiṣṅava sampradāyas.

What follows is an in-depth look at the deviations of each of the thirteen apasampradāyas. In this article’s first installment, two of the most important, the jāta-gosāñi and the smārta, are dealt with.

Caste Gosvāmīs

The word jāta means “by birth” or “by family.” Gosāñi is a Bengali form of the Sanskrit word gosvāmī, which means “one who controls his senses.” The word jāta-gosāñi is used in a critical sense to refer to those who take the position of gurus only on the basis of heredity, without having the required spiritual qualifications as well. The point here is that it is not enough to claim family connections to associates of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. One must be a pure devotee of the Lord.

The devotees in the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṅava sampradāya, follow the original Six Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana. These six devotees, who were all in the renounced order of life, were most illustrious disciples of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. About these Gosvāmīs Śrīnivāsa Ācārya has written:

The Six Gosvāmīs—Śrī Rūpa, Śrī Sanātana, Śrī Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa, Śrī Raghunātha Dāsa, Śrī Jīva, and Śrī Gopāla Bhaṭṭa—are worshipable because they renounced their aristocratic family life as insignificant and became mendicants to preach and deliver the fallen souls. They are always bathing in the waves of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṅa.

Thus the Six Gosvāmīs set the ideal example of pure devotional service.

To follow in the footsteps of the Six Gosvāmīs, one must strictly follow the rules and regulations of devotional service, as explained by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (The Nectar of Devotion).

Sometimes, however, persons who neglect these devotional principles claim to be gosvāmīs simply on the basis of heredity. They have inherited the name Gosvāmī but not the consciousness of a gosvāmī.

Without proper devotional training, such jāta-gosāñis, or caste gosvāmīs, disregard the regulative principles, neglect the devotional service of the Lord, and use the temple as a place for their own family comforts.

As Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī used to say, such untrained persons use the worshipable form of the Lord as “stones for cracking nuts” (that is, as a means of income for sense enjoyment).

On the other hand, in India there are still families that are learned and devoted by tradition and training. They strictly follow regulative principles, they render excellent service to the Lord, and they foster Kṛṣṅa conscious devotional service generation after generation.

Those born in such gosvāmī families have the fortunate opportunity to serve the Lord, and when properly trained they may also become pure devotees. They are then to be accepted as gosvāmī not only in name but in fact.

The essential consideration, therefore, is pure devotional service. Whether born in a high family or a low family, anyone, from any part of the world, can become a pure devotee of the Lord. As stated by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu:

kibā vipra, kibā nyāsī, śūdra kene naya yei kṛṣṅa-tattva-vettā, sei 'guru’ haya

The pure devotee is one who knows the science of Kṛṣṅa and follows its principles. Such a person can be accepted as a bona fide spiritual master.

What is objectionable, therefore, is the claim that pure devotional service can be performed or spread only by a particular caste or clan. This idea is contrary to Lord Caitanya’s teachings.

An example of such a clan is the so-called Nityānanda Vaṁśa, who claim to descend from three grandsons of Lord Caitanya’s great associate Lord Nityānanda. The members of the Nityānanda Vaṁśa sometimes say that Lord Nityānanda’s divine essence is carried in their family blood line.

This is mendacious on two counts. First, the ancestors of the Nityānanda Vaṁśa were actually disciples, not sons, of Lord Nityānanda’s only and childless son, Śrī Vīrabhadra Gosvāmī. Second, a person is known to be a Vaiṣṅava not by birth from a particular womb but by his character.

Up until the early part of this century, the Nityānanda Vaṁśa held the lower-caste Vaiṣṅavas in a thrall of superstition and wrong teachings.

But beginning in the late 1800’s, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura challenged them in his popular Bengali-language books like Jaiva Dharma and Hari Nāma Cintāmaṅi. He proclaimed that it is not enough to accept a spiritual master merely on the basis of caste. Before taking initiation, the candidate must be sure that the initiator is fully conversant with the scriptures and can lift his disciples out of ignorance. The guru should be of spotless character: if he is addicted to sinful acts, then even those he may have already initiated must reject him.

Bhaktivinoda’s books unleashed a wave of reform in Bengal that pushed the jāta-gosāñi into a defensive stance. But the confrontation came to open war when his son, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, took over the Gauḍīya mission.

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī publicly smashed the arguments placed before him by those who held that devotional service was a monopoly of their own caste. Such ideas, he said, were products of “skin disease.”

The basic misunderstanding in materialistic life is that the body is the self. Under illusion, one thinks of oneself as American, British, or Indian, young or old, man or woman, white or black. In fact, however, these are merely bodily designations, labels for the skin. And so too are designations of family and caste. To take birth in a high family may offer one an opportunity to become Kṛṣṅa conscious. But the birth itself is not an automatic guarantee. Nor does birth in a low family exclude one. Anyone who performs pure devotional service to the Lord, regardless of jāti, or birth, becomes a member of the transcendental family of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṅa. This is Lord Caitanya’s teaching.

Smārta-brāhmaṅas

The Padma Purāṅa, a text of Vedic teachings, states that if we always remember Viṣṅu or Kṛṣṅa (smartavyaḥ satataṁ viṣṅoḥ) before performing our duty, we automatically fulfill all scriptural rules and regulations. If we forget Him, we unavoidably transgress the spirit of the scriptures even if we observe them to the letter, because keeping Kṛṣṅa always in mind is the purpose of all the scriptural codes of behavior.

Not everyone admits that purpose. There are three classes of brāhmaṅas: the dvija, the vipra, and the Vaiṣṅava. The third-class dvija is ritualistically initiated, the second-class vipra is learned in the Vedas, and the first-class Vaiṣṅava knows that the goal of the Vedas is to always remember Kṛṣṅa and never forget Him. A dvija or vipra who is not a devotee can’t know the real sense of the rules and regulations of scripture; like a crooked lawyer, he’ll use the law to enrich himself materially. The nondevotee dvija or vipra is what is meant by the term smārta-brāhmaṅa.

Smārta-brāhmaṅas totally reverse the instruction of the Padma Purāṅa: rather than always remember Kṛṣṅa and thus fulfill the rules and regulations, they remember the rules and regulations and always forget Kṛṣṅa. The ācāra (behavior) of a strict smārta-brāhmaṅa and a strict Vaiṣṅava may externally be almost the same, but the consciousness is completely different.

In its subtlest form, the smārta contamination is a shift of values more than of behavior or even philosophy. Smārta values are called puruṣārthika, whereas Vaiṣṅava values are paramapuruṣārthika. The difference between the two is explained by Śrīla Prabhupāda in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Antya 7.24, Purport):

Puruṣārtha (“the goal of life”) generally refers to religion, economic development, satisfaction of the senses, and, finally, liberation. However, above these four kinds of puruṣārthas, love of Godhead stands supreme. It is called paramapurusārtha (the supreme goal of life) or puruṣartha-śiromaṅī (the most exalted of all puruṣārthas).

Smārta-brāhmaṅas think that one must be born in the brāhmaṅa caste to be a guru. But according to Lord Caitanya, a person from any family, race, color, or creed can be guru as long as he or she knows the spiritual science of Kṛṣṅa consciousness.

The smārtas also claim the exclusive birthright to worship the śālagrāma-śilā (Lord Viṣṅu’s form as a black stone, which may be worshiped only by qualified brāhmaṅas). And they never marry outside of the brāhmaṅa caste—this taboo is followed so rigidly that a smārta father would rather give his daughter to the son of a priest of the tantric school (which uses black rituals and offerings of meat and wine) than to a non-brāhmaṅa Vaiṣṅava.

The smārtas then, are afflicted by upper-caste pride. But although the jāta-gosāñis who overemphasize birthright may also be afflicted by pride, the two communities differ in their mode of worship. Caste gosvāmīs are exclusively priests of Kṛṣṅa temples; ritualistically, at least, they are Vaiṣṅava brāhmaṅas. Caste brāhmaṅas, on the other hand, worship according to the Māyāvādī pañcopāsana conception. Thus they regard Lord Kṛṣṅa or Viṣṅu to be one of five forms of Brahman. Of the five (Durgā, Gaṅeśa, Sūrya, Śiva, and Viṣṅu), Bengali smārtas have always preferred Goddess Durgā because she supplies her devotees with material opulence.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries A.D., the importance of the Bengali smārta community was practically nullified by Lord Caitanya’s saṅkīrtana movement. Among the great Vaiṣṅava ācāryas of that period, Śrīla Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura stands out as the preacher who most cut down their pride.

The smārtas, considering Narottama just a low-born kāyastha (the clerical caste in Bengal), became so infuriated at his making disciples from among their ranks that they enlisted the king, Rāja Narasiṁha, and a conquering paṅḍita named Śrī Rūpa Nārāyaṅa to lead a crusade to somehow expose Ācārya Ṭhākura as a fraud. The king, the paṅḍita, and a large party of caste brāhmaṅas made their way to Kheturi, where Śrīla Narottama Dāsa had his headquarters.

When Śrī Rāmakṛṣṅa Bhaṭṭācārya and Śrī Gaṅgā Nārāyaṅa Cakravartī, two Vaiṣṅava brāhmaṅas, came to know of the smārta conspiracy, they disguised themselves as śūdras and set up two small shops in the Kumarapura market: one a pān and betel nut shop and the other a store selling clay pots.

As the party arrived at Kumarapura, the smārtas sent their disciples to the market to purchase wares for cooking. When the students came to the shops of Rāmakṛṣṅa and Gaṅgā Nārāyaṅa, they were dumfounded to find that these merchants spoke perfect Sanskrit and were eager not to do business but to engage in philosophical disputation. Finding themselves outmatched, the distressed students called for their gurus, who arrived on the scene with Rāja Narasiṁha and Rūpa Nārāyaṅa. When the smārtas fared no better than their disciples, Rūpa Nārāyaṅa himself was drawn into the debate and was soundly defeated.

The king demanded they introduce themselves. The two shopkeepers humbly submitted that they were low-born and insignificant disciples of Śrīla Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura Mahāsāya. Shamed, Rūpa Nārāyaṅa and the smārta-brāhmaṅas lost interest in proceeding to Kheturi. They returned immediately to their respective homes.

That night, Rāja Narasiṁha had a dream in which an angry Durgā Devī threatened him with a chopper used for killing goats. Glaring at him with blazing eyes, the goddess said, “Narasiṁha! Because you greatly offended Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura, I shall have to cut you to pieces! If you want to save yourself, then you had better immediately go and take shelter at his lotus feet.”

His sleep broken, the frightened king quickly bathed and set out for Kheturi. Arriving there at last, he was surprised to meet the paṅḍita Rūpa Nārāyaṅa, who sheepishly explained that he’d had a similar dream. They went to the temple of Śrī Gaurāṅga to meet Śrīla Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura.

Ācārya Ṭhākura was absorbed in his devotions, but when a disciple informed him of the arrival of the two guests, he came out to meet them. Simply by seeing his transcendental form, the two offenders became purified and fell down to offer their obeisances at the Ṭhākura’s lotus feet. Finally he initiated them with the Rādhā-Kṛṣṅa mantra.

Because their leaders had become Vaiṣṅavas, many lesser smārtas thought it fashionable to externally adopt Vaiṣṅava customs. This is how the smārta apasampradāya, or Vaiṣṅavism compromised by caste brahmanism, began.

In the late nineteenth century a well-known member of this community claimed to be the incarnation of Rāma, Kṛṣṅa, and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He established a missionary movement that preached the worship of Kālī-Kṛṣṅa, a concocted deity blending the forms of goddess Kālī and Śrī Kṛṣṅa.

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura soundly defeated the smārta apasampradāya at the town of Valighai Uddharanapura, West Bengal, in September 1911. He presented a work in which he conclusively argued the superiority of Vaiṣṅavas to brāhmaṅas. He read the paper before a gathering of more than ten thousand paṅḍitas, and though he was the youngest speaker present, the judges acclaimed Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī the winner of the dispute.

Nowadays, the smārta-brāhmaṅa community of Bengal has largely succumbed to secularism and exerts little influence in spiritual affairs.

Suhotra Swami, an American disciple of Śrīla Prabhupāda, has taught Kṛṣṅa consciousness in Europe since the mid-seventies. He was recently appointed ISKCON’s Governing Body Commissioner for Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and Czechoslovakia.