Back To Prabhupada, Issue 79, 2024
In our free book, The Authorised Bhagavatam, we proved that the translations and purports for the Srimad-Bhagavatam given by GBC guru HH Hridayananda Dasa Goswami ("HD") – i.e. Cantos 10 (after Chapter 13), 11 and 12 – were not authorised by Srila Prabhupada. In an interview which HD gave on 15/1/24, he revealed further insight into his unfitness to produce such elevated literature. In the interview, he recounts what was happening at the time he worked on the Bhagavatam. All quotes in shaded boxes are from this interview.
Emphases added.
"all the final translations and all the purports were mine. Originally, they put my name as the author. They changed it and said ‘by a group of devotees' because they said if I fell down they'd have to retranslate it and it was too much trouble. So, therefore, even though I actually did the work, they took my name off [...] I mean, imagine if on Prabhupada's Bhagavatam you put the editor like Jayadvaita as the co-author. So all these things were going on, you know, they didn't miss a chance to humiliate us"
1) HD states that a decision was made to remove his name as the author from the final cantos of the Srimad-Bhagavatam which he translated and wrote the purports to. He compares this to if Srila Prabhupada had not been given full credit on Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavatam, and considered the removal of his own name to be a ‘humiliation'.
2) By making this point of comparison with "Prabhupada's Bhagavatam", he considered "his" Bhagavatam to be on a par with "Prabhupada's Bhagavatam" – where both persons are authors of equal repute who should not be disrespected but rather honoured by being given credit.
However, his complaint about not getting ‘credit' reveals a mindset which is adverse to Krsna consciousness, because a devotee is not supposed to desire personal recognition in the first place:
"As soon as personal motivation comes in it is not possible for one to understand our Krishna Consciousness philosophy."
(Srila Prabhupada Letter, 21/9/70)
"Everyone is after some profit, some adoration and some position. Therefore these things have been forbidden for persons who are advanced in this Krsna consciousness. Because if you have got all these material desires, then you cannot become Krsna conscious."
(Srila Prabhupada, Philosophy Discussions with Syamasundara Dasa)
"For one who is always expecting some honor in this material world, it is not possible to surrender to the Supreme Person."
(Bg., 15.5, purport)
Yet, as we showed in The Authorised Bhagavatam, the qualification for translating such elevated literature is that one must be "very realized" (Srila Prabhupada, Conversation with GBC, 28/5/77), not to speak of still being on the base level of desiring profit, adoration or distinction.
HD: "I would do the final translation. I would look at the commentaries and then I would do the purport. Sometimes I would use the commentary, sometimes I didn't. I was just praying to Krsna and I felt Krsna guided me and so –"
Interviewer: "Following Srila Prabhupada's – he, Prabhupada also did the same."
HD: "Yes. Yeah. So I did the final translations and the purports. [...] I would do the purport, which were my purports."
Despite having produced his work whilst being in the deep illusion of an admitted guru hoax (see Editorial), HD makes the bold admission that, in writing his purports, he did not always rely on the commentaries of the previous acaryas, but instead was directly guided by Krsna. Thus, having already drawn one parallel between "his" Bhagavatam and Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavatam, as quoted above, HD then agrees with another comparison: that his process of writing was supposedly "the same" as Srila Prabhupada's, due to being directly "guided" by Krsna. This again shows that HD is eager to claim lofty comparisons with Srila Prabhupada, this time about how his writing is supposedly on the same level as Srila Prabhupada's transcendental literature. This despite the fact that HD himself states in the same interview that:
"I mean, I never thought for a moment I'm on Prabhupada's level. I mean, it's obvious to me I'm not. I mean, it still is."
And, as we documented in The Authorised Bhagavatam, HD's purports contained such nonsense that parts had to be removed from subsequent publications, thus revealing his lofty comparisons with Srila Prabhupada's transcendental literature to be even more ridiculous. Such false comparisons are therefore a sign of false pride. Hence, these admissions pointing to the desire for recognition and false pride, are further evidence that HD was not "very realized" – whereas, as noted above, being "very realized" is the qualification demanded by Srila Prabhupada for spiritual translation.
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