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By Govinda Dasi (ACBSP)

Govinda Dasi & Srila Prabhupada

The book editing issue is a very serious one, perhaps the most serious issue in ISKCON today. I have seen the attractive and seemingly authentic website promoting these changes, but most of it is propaganda, a lot of it based on speculation of what took place. It is most unfortunate that this has occurred, as it endangers everything Srila Prabhupada came to this world to do. He came from Krishna Loka “to write some books.”

So many times, Prabhupada said, referring to his books, “NO Changes!” “Don’t change anything!” but this instruction, given repeatedly, has been glossed over by so many elaborate, and often untruthful, explanations and excuses.

The very real danger is that his books could be lost in time, as some changes lead to more changes, and “tinkering” with editing is the disease of the American nature. Prabhupada complained of this “Westerner disease” often, and there is ample evidence that he did not want his books changed after he left this world.

Posthumous editing is not respected by the scholarly community (see Dr. John Trimble, famous for his Writing with Style) nor is it respected or approved of by the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. The opinions of such famous Western scholars as Dr. Trimble, and the opinions of famous Gaudiya scholars, have not been included in this BBT-edit website — because they are NOT favorable. So the reasoning for doing this massive edit is flawed, i.e. “to make the books more acceptable to scholars…”

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