Cults and Society, Vol. 1, No.

1, 2001

http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_articles/flood_gavin_hinduismvaisismandiskcon.htm

Hinduism, Vaisnavism, and ISKCON: Authentic Traditions or

Scholarly Constructions?

Gavin Flood

This paper will examine some problems in understanding the terms “Hinduism,” “Vaisnavism,” and
“ISKCON,” and enquire into the usefulness of these terms in understanding Indian religions, with
particular reference to ISKCON. Two broad scholarly opinions have been developed with regard to
“Hinduism.” One, an essentialist view, regards Hinduism as a single, great tradition of many interrelated
parts stemming from the revelation (sruti) of the Veda. The other view regards Hinduism as a nineteenth-
century construction to which no social or religious entity refers.

In discussing some of the issues relevant to this, I will herein argue that “Hinduism” is an important
concept, especially in regard to Hindu self-perception. Within this loose designation, the Vaisnava tradition
is one current; and ISKCON must be understood in the context of that tradition. Inevitably when a tradition
moves from one cultural and geographical location to another, transformations of the tradition occur and
questions of identity and authenticity are raised. This paper concludes with some thoughts on the issues
facing ISKCON in the contemporary world.

What is Hinduism?

A simple answer to this question might be that Hinduism is a term used to denote the religions of the
majority of people in India and Nepal (and of some communities in other continents) who refer to
themselves as “Hindus.” However, difficulties arise when we try to understand precisely what this means,
for the diversity of Hinduism is truly vast, and its history long and complex. Some (from both within the
tradition and from outside of it) might claim that because of this diversity there is no such thing as
Hinduism, while others claim that in spite of its diversity there is an “essence” which structures its
appearances. The truth probably lies somewhere between these claims. Most Hindus will be certain that
their identity as “Hindu” contrasts with that of Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist. Yet the kinds of Hindus
each Hindu is may vary as much as differences between Hindus, Buddhists, or Christians.

In India’s population of approximately nine hundred million people, seven hundred million are Hindus,1
the remainder are Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Parsees, Jews, and followers of “tribal”
religions. There are 120 million Muslims, 45 million tribal peoples or adivasis, 14 million Sikhs, and an
estimated 14 million Christians. (Klostermaier, 1994) This is a wide mix of religions and cultural groups,
all of which interact with Hinduism in a number of ways.

There are also sizeable Hindu communities beyond the South Asian boundaries in South Africa, East
Africa, South America, the West Indies, the U.S.A., Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Bali, and
Java. The 1981 U.S.A. census estimated the population of Indian communities as 387,223, most of whom
would classify themselves as Hindu. The number of Hindus in the U.K. for the same year is estimated at
300,000. (Knott and Toon, 1982) There are also many Westerners from Europe and America who would
claim to follow Hinduism or religions deriving from it, and ISKCON is an example here. Ideas such as
karma, yoga, and vegetarianism are now commonplace in the West.

The actual term “Hindu” first occurs as a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the
River Indus (from the Sanskrit word sindhu). In Arabic texts Al-Hind is a term for the people of modern
day India. (Thapar, 1993:77) “Hindu” or “Hindoo,” was used towards the end of the eighteenth century by
the British to refer to the people of “Hindustan,” the area of northwest India. Eventually “Hindu” became
virtually equivalent to any “Indian” who was not a Moslem, Sikh, Jain, or Christian, thereby encompassing
a range of religious beliefs and practices.

The “ism” was added to “Hindu” around 1830 to denote the culture and religion of the high-caste
Brahmans in contrast to other religions. The term was soon appropriated by Indians themselves as they
tried to establish a national identity opposed to colonialism.

While a Hindu identity (as we might understand it today) developed during the nineteenth century, the term
“Hindu” does occur in earlier Sanskrit and Bengali hagiographic texts (such as the Caitanya-caritamrta)
from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In these Bengali Vaisnava texts (one of which ISKCON
reveres), the term “Hindu” is used to indicate a class of people as distinct from the Yavanas, and is used
along with the term dharma (law, duty, socio-cosmic order). Thus the term “Hindu dharma” indicates ritual
practices of “Hindus” in contrast to those of the “foreigners,” the Yavanas or Mlecchas, which referred to
the Muslims (O’Connell, 1973:340-344). So there would seem to be some indication of Hindu self-
perception as Hindu in contrast to Moslem as early as the sixteenth century.

Defining Hinduism

There is a problem arriving at a definition of the term “Hindu” because of the wide range of traditions and
ideas incorporated by it. Most Hindu traditions revere a body of sacred literature, the Veda, as revelation,
though some do not; some traditions regard certain rituals as essential for salvation, while others do not;
some Hindu philosophies postulate a theistic reality who creates, maintains, and destroys the universe, yet
others reject this claim. Hinduism is often characterized as belief in reincarnation (samsara) determined by
the law that all actions have effects (karma), and that salvation is freedom from this cycle. Yet other South
Asian religions, such as Buddhism and Jainism, also believe in this.

Part of the problem of definition is due to the fact that Hinduism does not have a single historical founder,
as do so many other world religions; it does not have a unified system of belief encoded in a creed or
declaration of faith; it does not have a single system of soteriology; and it does not have a centralized
authority or bureaucratic structure. It is therefore a very different kind of religion in these respects to the
monotheistic, Western traditions of Christianity and Islam, though there are arguably stronger affinities
with Judaism.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, said that Hinduism is “all things to all
men” (Smith, B. K., 1987:36), certainly an inclusive definition, but so inclusive as to be of little use for our
purposes.

Yet while it might not be possible to arrive at a watertight definition of Hinduism, this does not mean that
the term is empty. There are clearly some kinds of practices, texts, and beliefs which are central to the
concept of being a “Hindu,” and there are others which are on the edges of Hinduism. I take the view that
while “Hinduism” is not a category in the classical sense of an essence defined by certain properties, there
are nevertheless prototypical forms of Hindu practice and belief. The beliefs and practices of a high-caste
devotee of the Hindu god Visnu, living in Tamil Nadu in South India, fall clearly within the category
“Hindu” and are prototypical of that category. The beliefs and practices of a Radhasoami devotee in the
Punjab, who worships a God without attributes, who does not accept the Veda as revelation, and even
rejects many Hindu teachings, are not prototypically Hindu, yet are still within the sphere and category of
Hinduism. In other words, “Hinduism” is not a category in the classical sense to which something either
belongs or doesn’t.

George Lakoff (Lakoff, 1987) maintains that categories do not have rigid boundaries, but rather that there
are degrees of category membership in which some members of a category are more prototypical than
others. He calls this Prototype Theory. These degrees of category membership may be related through
family resemblance; “members of a category may be related to one another without all members having
any properties in common that define the category” (Lakoff, 1987:12). In this sense Hinduism can be seen
as a category with fuzzy edges. Some forms of religion are central to Hinduism, while others are less
clearly central but still within the category. And Ferro-Luzzi has developed a Protoype Theory approach to
Hinduism2 (Ferro-Luzzi, 1991:187-95).

To say what is or isn’t central to the category of Hinduism is, of course, to make judgements about the
degree of prototypicality. The question arises as to what the basis of such judgements is. Here we must turn
to Hindu self-understandings, for Hinduism has developed categories for its own self-description
(Piatigorsky, 1985:208-224), as well as looking at the scholars’ understandings of common features or
structuring principles seen from outside the tradition.

Although I have some sympathy with Jonathan Z. Smith’s remark that religion is the creation of the
scholar’s imagination (Smith, J. Z., 1982:xi), in so far as the act of scholarship involves a reduction, a
selection, a highlighting of some discourses and texts, and a backgrounding of others, there is nevertheless
a wide body of ritual practices, forms of behaviour, doctrines, stories, texts, and deeply felt personal
experiences and testimonies, which the term Hinduism refers to.

In the contemporary world the term “Hindu” certainly does refer to the dominant religion of South Asia,
albeit a religion which embraces a wide variety within it. But it is important to bear in mind that the
formation of Hinduism as the world religion we know today has only occurred since the nineteenth century,
when the term started being used by Hindu reformers and Western orientalists. However, its origins and the
“streams” which feed in to it are very ancient, extending back to the Indus Valley civilisation (Smart,
1993:1).

I take the view that Hinduism is not purely the construction of Western orientalists to make sense of the
plurality of religious phenomena within the vast geographical area of South Asia, as some scholars have
maintained3 (Smith, W. C., 1962:65; Stietencron, pp.1-22; Halbfass, 1991:1-22), but that Hinduism is also
a development of Hindu self-understanding, a transformation in the modern world of themes already
present.

Religion and the Sacred

What we understand by Hinduism as a religion partly depends upon what we mean by “religion.” Our
understanding of Hinduism has been mediated by Western notions of what religion is and the projection of
Hinduism as an “other” to the West’s Christianity (Inden, 1990). While this is not the place for an
elaborate discussion of the meaning of religion, it is nevertheless important to make some remarks about it,
and to indicate some parameters of its use. The category “religion” has developed out of a Christian, largely
Protestant, understanding, which defines it in terms of belief. This is indicated by the frequent use of the
term “faith” as a synonym for “religion.” If “religion” is to contribute to our understanding of human views
and practices, its characterisation purely in terms of belief is clearly inadequate and would need to be
modified to include a variety of human practices.

Definitions of religion provoke much debate and disagreement, but to use the term, we have to have some
idea of what we mean by it. Religion needs to be located squarely within human society and culture; there
is no privileged discourse of religion outside of particular cultures and societies. The famous sociologist
Emile Durkheim in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, first published in 1915, defined religion as
“a unified set of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things” which creates a social bond between people
(Durkheim, 1964:37). This unified set of beliefs and practices is a system of symbols which acts, to use
Peter Berger’s phrase, as a “sacred canopy,” imbuing individual and social life with meaning. The “sacred”
refers to a quality of mysterious power which is believed to dwell within certain objects, persons, and
places and which is opposed to chaos and death. Religion, following Berger, establishes a “sacred cosmos,”
which provides the “ultimate shield against the terror of anomy” (Berger, 1990:26). I am also influenced
here by Clifford Geertz’ definition of religion as that which “tunes human actions to an envisaged cosmic
order and projects images of cosmic order on to the plane of human experience” (Geertz, 1993:90).

This sense of sacred power is of vital importance to the experience of men and women throughout the
history of religions. In Hinduism a sense of the sacred might be experienced as the sense of a greater being
outside of the self, a “numinous” experience (to use the term coined by the German theologian Rudolf
Otto) characterised by a feeling of awe, fascination, and mystery (Otto, 1982). Or the sense of the sacred
might occur as an inner or contemplative experience within the self, what might be called a “mystical”
experience (Smart, 1958; Smart, 1989:13-14).

There has been a tendency in recent studies to reduce the “religious” to the “political” (Dirks, 1993:106-
107). While it is important to recognise that the religious exists only within specific cultural contexts, as
does the political, the concept of the sacred is distinctive to a religious discourse within cultures. The sacred
is regarded as divine power manifested in a variety of contexts: temples, locations, images, and people.
While this power is not divorced from political power, it can nevertheless exist independently, as is seen in
popular religious festivals and personal devotional and ascetic practices which result in states of inner
ecstasy.

The sacred exists entirely within culture. The categories of the sacred and the everyday are not substantive,
as Jonathan Smith, the eminent scholar of religion, has observed, but relational; they change according to
circumstance and situation. There is nothing in Hinduism which is inherently sacred. The sacredness of
time, objects, or persons depends upon context, and the boundaries between the sacred and the everyday are
fluid. A temple image or icon prior to consecration is merely stone, metal, or wood; but once consecrated it
is empowered and becomes the focus of mediation: “it becomes sacred by having our attention directed to it
in a special way” (Smith, J. Z., 1982:55). I have used the term “icon” in preference to “image” to indicate
the physical manifestation of a deity. My use of the term has been influenced by Charles Pierce’s
understanding of the icon as “a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters
of its own, and which it possesses just the same, whether any such object actually exists or not” (Pierce,
1932:247). There are also parallels between the Hindu murti and the Christian Orthodox “icon” as a
material centre which, according to Vladamir Lossky, contains an energy and divine truth (Miguel,
1971:1236). On this account a person can be an icon as well as an “object” of stone or wood

General Features of Hinduism

Many Hindus believe in a transcendent God, beyond the universe, who is yet within all living beings and
who can be approached in a variety of ways. Such a Hindu might say that this supreme being can be
worshipped in innumerable forms—as a handsome young man (such as Krsna in the Bhagavata Purana),
as a majestic king (such as Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita), as a beautiful young girl, as an old woman, or
even as a featureless stone. The transcendent being is mediated through icons in temples, through natural
phenomena, or through living teachers and saints. This sacred in Hinduism is mediated through
innumerable, changing forms which bear witness to a deeply rich, religious imagination, centred on
mediation and transformation.

Hinduism is often characterised as being polytheistic, and while it is true that innumerable deities are the
objects of worship, many Hindus will regard these as an aspect or manifestation of sacred power. Devotion
(bhakti) to deities mediated through icons and holy persons provides refuge in times of crisis, and even
final liberation (moksa) from action (karma) and the cycle of reincarnation (samsara). The transcendent is
also revealed in sacred literature, called the Veda, and in codes of ritual, social, and ethical behaviour,
called dharma, which that literature reveals. The two terms veda and dharma are of central importance in
what might be called Hindu self-understanding.
Veda and Dharma

The Veda is a large body of literature composed in Sanskrit, a sacred language of Hinduism, revered as
revelation (sruti) and as the source of dharma. The term veda means “knowledge,” originally revealed to
the ancient sages (rsi), conveyed to the community by them, and passed through the generations initially as
an oral tradition. There is also a large body of Sanskrit literature, inspired but nevertheless regarded as
being of human authorship, comprising rules of conduct (the Dharma literature), and stories about people
and gods (the Epics and mythological texts called Puranas). These texts might be regarded as a secondary
or indirect revelation (smrti).4 There are also texts in vernacular Indian languages, particularly Tamil,
which are revered as equal to the Veda by some Hindus.

The Veda as revelation is of vital importance in understanding Hinduism, though its acceptance is not
universal among Hindus and there are forms of Hinduism which have rejected the Veda and its legitimising
authority to sanction a hierarchical social order. However, all Hindu traditions make some reference to the
Veda, whether in its acceptance or rejection; and some scholars have regarded reference to its legitimising
authority as a criterion of being Hindu.5 (Because of ISKCON’s acceptance of the Veda, it falls clearly
within the realm of Hinduism.) While revelation as an abstract, or even notional entity, is important, the
actual contents of the Veda has often been neglected by Hindu traditions. It has acted rather as a reference
point for the construction of Hindu identity and self-understanding (Halbfass, 1991:1-22).

Dharma is revealed by the Veda. It is the nearest semantic equivalent in Sanskrit to the English term
“religion,” but has a wider connotation than this, incorporating the ideas of “truth,” “duty,” “ethics,” “law,”
and even “natural law.” It is that power which upholds or supports society and the cosmos, that power
which constrains phenomena into their particularity, which makes things what they are. Zaehner relates
dharma to the Sanskrit root dhr which means to “hold, have or maintain.” He defines dharma as “the
‘form’ of things as they are and the power that keeps them as they are and not otherwise” (Zaehner,
1966:2).

The nineteenth-century Hindu reformers speak of Hinduism as the eternal religion or law (sanatana
dharma), a common idea among modern Hindus today as well as in ISKCON, in their self-description.
More specifically, dharma refers to the duty of high-caste Hindus with regard to their social position, caste,
or class (varna), and the stage of life they are at (asrama). All this is incorporated by the term varnasrama-
dharma.

One striking feature of Hinduism is that generally practice takes precedence over belief. What a Hindu does
is more important than what a Hindu believes. Hinduism is not creedal. Adherence to dharma is therefore
not an acceptance of certain beliefs, but the practice or performance of certain duties, which are defined in
accordance with dharmic social stratification.

The boundaries of what a Hindu can and cannot do has been largely determined by his or her particular
endogamous social group, or caste, stratified in a hierarchical order, and, of course, by gender. This social
hierarchy is governed by the distinction between purity and pollution, with the higher, purer castes at the
top of the structure, and the lower, polluted and polluting castes at the bottom. Behaviour takes precedence
over belief—orthopraxy over orthodoxy. As Fritz Staal says, a Hindu “may be a theist, pantheist, atheist,
communist and believe whatever he likes, but what makes him into a Hindu are the ritual practices he
performs and the rules to which he adheres, in short, what he does” (Staal, 1989:389).

This sociological characterisation of Hinduism is very compelling. A Hindu is someone born within an
Indian social group, a caste, who adheres to its rules with regard to purity and marriage, and who performs
its prescribed rituals which usually focus on one of the many Hindu deities such as Siva or Visnu. One
might add that these rituals and social rules are derived from the Hindu primary revelation, the Veda, and
from the secondary revelation, the inspired texts of human authorship. The Veda and its ritual reciters, the
highest caste or Brahmans, are the closest Hinduism gets to a legitimising authority, for the Brahman class
has been extremely important in the dissemination and maintenance of Hindu culture. It is generally the
Brahman class that has attempted to coherently structure the multiple expressions of Hinduism, whose self-
understanding any account of Hinduism needs to take seriously.

There have, however, been certain sects within Hinduism, particularly devotional sects, which have
rejected caste and maintained that salvation is open to all. ISKCON needs to be understood in the context
of such caste-transcending groups.

Hindu Traditions

The idea of tradition inevitably stresses unity at the cost of difference and divergence. In pre-Islamic India
there would have been a number of distinct sects and regional religious identities, perhaps united by
common cultural symbols, but no notion of “Hinduism” as a comprehensive entity. Yet there are
nevertheless striking continuities in Hindu traditions.

There are essentially two models of tradition: the arboreal model and the river model. The arboreal model
claims that various sub-traditions branch off from a central, original tradition, often founded by a specific
person. The river model, the exact inverse of the arboreal model, claims that a tradition comprises multiple
streams which merge into a single mainstream (Faure, pp.13-14). Contemporary Hinduism cannot be
traced to a common origin, so the discussion is directed towards whether Hinduism fits the river model or,
to extend the metaphor, whether the term “Hinduism” simply refers to a number of quite distinct rivers.
While these models have restricted use in that they suggest a teleological direction or intention, the river
model would seem to be more appropriate in that it emphasises the multiple origins of Hinduism.

The many traditions which feed in to contemporary Hinduism can be subsumed under three broad
headings: the traditions of brahmanical orthopraxy, the renouncer traditions, and popular or local traditions.
The tradition of brahmanical orthopraxy has played the role of a “master narrative,” transmitting a body of
knowledge and behaviour through time, and defining the conditions of orthopraxy, such as adherence to
varnasrama-dharma. From the medieval period a number of traditions (sampradaya) or systems of guru-
disciple transmission (parampara) developed within the broadly brahmanical world. These traditions,
which developed significantly during the first millennium CE, are focused upon a particular deity or group
of deities.

Among these broadly brahmanical systems, three are particularly important in Hindu self-representation:
Vaisnava traditions, focused on the deity Visnu and His incarnations; Saiva traditions, focused on Siva; and
Sakta traditions, focused on the Goddess or Devi. The Vaisnava tradition reveres the Veda as revelation
and also other texts, notably the Bhagavad Gita, Visnu Purana, and Bhagavata Purana.

Unlike the concept of “Hinduism,” the boundaries of these traditions, or rather the sub-traditions within
them, are more clearly defined, often demanding initiation and adherence to a set of principles and
practices. ISKCON has been within this general characterisation, with fairly clearly defined boundaries
marked by patterns of thought and behaviour which distinguish the ISKCON devotee from others. Today,
however, the picture is less clear, with many lay devotees attending temples who are not clearly identified
by their style of dress or other distinguishing behavioural features (such as chanting in the streets and so
on) (Shaunaka Rishi, 1995).

Cutting across these religious traditions is the theology of Vedanta, the unfolding of a sophisticated
discourse about the nature and content of sacred scriptures which explores questions of existence and
knowledge. The Vedanta is the theological articulation of the Vedic traditions, a discourse which
penetrated Vaisnava and, to a lesser extent, Saiva and Sakta thinking. The Vedanta tradition is the
theological basis of Vaisnava tradition, including ISKCON, and was important in the nineteenth and
twentieth century Hindu renaissance.
Vaisnavism

The terms “sect,” “order,” or “tradition” are rough equivalents of the Sanskrit term sampradaya, which
refers to a tradition focused on a deity, often regional in character, into which a disciple is initiated by a
guru. Furthermore, each guru is seen to be within a line of gurus, a santana or parampara, originating with
the founding father.

The idea of pupilliary succession is extremely important in all forms of Hinduism, as this authenticates the
tradition and teachings; disputes over succession, which have sometimes been vehement, can be of deep
religious concern, particularly in traditions which see the guru as the embodiment of the divine, possessing
the power to bestow the Lord’s grace on his devotees. With initiation (diksa) into the sampradaya (and this
is highly pertinent to ISKCON) the disciple undertakes to abide by the values of the tradition and
community, and he or she receives a new name and a mantra particularly sacred to that tradition. A
sampradaya might demand celibacy and comprise only world renouncers, or it might have a much wider
social base, accepting householders of both genders and, possibly, all castes including untouchables.

The most important Vaisnava orders and cults are:

The Gaudiya or Bengali Vaisnavas located mainly in Bengal, Orissa, and Vrndavana. They revere the
teachings of the Saint Caitanya and focus their devotion on Krsna and Radha. The Hare Krishna movement
is a development or branch of this tradition.

The Cult of Vithobha in Maharashtra, particularly in the pilgrimage centre of Pandarpur. Their teachings
are derived from the saints (sant) Jñanesvara, Namdev, Janabai, etc.

The Cult of Rama located mainly in the northeast at Ayodhya and Janakpur and associated with an annual
festival of Ramlila in which the Ramayana is performed. The ascetic Ramanandi order are devoted to Rama
and Sita.

The northern Sant tradition, while not being strictly Vaisnava as it worships a transcendent Lord beyond
qualities, nevertheless derives much of its teachings and names of God from Vaisnavism. Especially
venerated are Kabir and Nanak, the founder of Sikhism. The Sri Vaisnavas are located in Tamil Nadu,
whose centre is the temple at Srirangam, and for whom the theology of Ramanuja is particularly important.

These sampradayas developed within the wider mainstream of brahmanical worship based on texts,
especially the Puranas. The Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition is squarely within the Vedic, Puranic tradition.

Within these sampradayas, a number of devotional attitudes to the personal absolute developed. The
relationship between the disciple and the Lord could be one of servant to master, of parent to child, friend
to friend, or lover to beloved. Some sampradayas adopted one of these modes. The Bengali Vaisnavas, for
example, regarded the attitude of the lover to the beloved as the highest expression of devotion, not
dissimilar to the braut-mystik tradition in western mystical theology; while the sect of Tukaram viewed the
devotional relationship as one of servant to master. But what is significant here is that the relationship
between the devotee and the Lord is modelled on human relationships, and that the Lord can be perceived
and approached in a variety of ways: the love of God takes many forms.

Gaudiya Vaisnavism

Devotional traditions focused on Krsna the Cowherd developed in northern India, and found articulation in
Sanskrit devotional and poetic literature as well as in more popular devotional movements, particularly
around Vrindavan and in Bengal. The form of Vaisnavism which grew in Bengal (Gaudiya) developed a
theology which laid great emphasis on devotion and the love relationship between the devotee and Krsna. It
was this form of Hinduism which Srila Prabhupada brought to the West in 1965.

The 1960s saw many Hindu (as well as Buddhist and Chinese) ideas and practices come to the West which
had a large impact upon the counter-culture then developing. Dominant figures in popular culture, pop stars
such as the Beatles and poets such as Alan Ginsberg, promoted Hindu ideas and gurus. During this period,
after the lifting of immigration restrictions in the U.S.A. in 1965, there was a flow of Indian gurus to the
West, such as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement, and
Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada. Upon the demise of Prabhupada, eleven western gurus were chosen to succeed
as spiritual heads of the Hare Krishna movement. But many notorious problems followed upon their
appointment, and the movement has since veered away from investing absolute authority in a few, fallible
human teachers.

Concluding Remarks

After our description of some of the phenomena associated with the terms “Hinduism,” “Vaisnavism,” and
“ISKCON,” we can summarise by saying that ISKCON certainly perceives itself to be an authentic Vedic
tradition; though many Indian Brahmans do not recognise its authenticity because ISKCON devotees tend
to be “foreign.” For example, ISKCON devotees have not been allowed into the Jagannatha temple at Puri,
though this may change in the future. But if the idea of pupilliary succession is regarded as a criterion of
authenticity, then ISKCON is certainly authentic in so far as it has developed in a clear line of succession
from Prabhupada, who was himself an initiate of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Maharaja. He in
turn was a disciple of Srila Gaurakisora dasa Babaji Maharaja, a disciple of Srila Thakura Bhaktivinoda.
Indeed Bengali Vaisnavism, from which ISKCON clearly develops historically, is a more clearly defined
entity than “Hinduism”.

Inevitably, when a tradition changes geographical location and culture there are bound to be changes.
ISKCON followers are predominantly Westerners who have been born and brought up in Western cultures;
they have Western presuppositions and deep forms of perception and conditioning which will inevitably
influence the tradition they have adopted. Indeed the Central Governing Body (CGB) is a western
development, although initiated by Srila Prabhupada.

So far ISKCON seems to have been fairly successful in the need to adapt to the modern world, while at the
same time, maintaining a continuity of tradition from India. But ISKCON will need to continually adapt
and face contemporary challenges and issues, which, indeed, it appears to be doing. Three important issues,
for example, which ISKCON will need to engage with are:

the issue of gender (ISKCON has been accused of occluding women’s rights in terms of significant
positions within the organisation and relegating women to a minor role.);

the degree to which ISKCON continues to articulate a literal understanding of Vaisnava narrative traditions
—or put crudely, a “fundamentalist” interpretation of mythology—in the face of its own Vedic tradition’s
hermeneutics and in the face of Western science and, indeed, textual scholarship; and

the way in which it responds to global issues such as concern for the environment. (On the one hand
ISKCON articulates an environment-friendly attitude, yet there are tensions within the tradition and a
strong idea that the material world is a trap, the web of maya, and is degenerating as the dark age
continues.)

So, one might conclude with the words of Mahatma Gandhi that “to swim in the waters of tradition is good,
but to drown in them is suicide.”
Notes

1. The March, 1991 census of India estimated the population to be 843,930,861.

2. My thanks to Harold Keller for drawing my attention to Ferro-Luzzi.

3. For an interesting, brief survey of the idea of “Hinduism” and the development of recent scholarship about it, see Hardy,
1990:145-155.

4. The terms “secondary” and “indirect revelation” to refer to this literature of human authorship, are used by Alexis
Sanderson. (Sanderson, 1988: 662)

5. Brian Smith has defined Hinduism as “the religion of those humans who create, perpetuate, and transform traditions with
legitimising reference to the authority of the Veda”. (Smith, B. K., 1987:40)

References

Berger, P. 1990. The Sacred Canopy, Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Anchor Books.

Dirks, N.B. 1993. The Hollow Crown. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Durkheim, E. 1964. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. London: Allen and Unwin.

Fauré, B. The Rhetoric of Immediacy.

Ferro-Luzzi, G. E. 1991. “The Polythetic-Prototype Approach to Hinduism” in G. D. Sontheimer and H. Kulke (eds.) Hinduism
Reconsidered. Delhi: Manohar.

Frykenberg, R. 1991. “The Emergence of Modern ‘Hinduism’” in Günther S. Sontheimer and Hermann Kulke Hinduism
Reconsidered. Delhi: Manohar.

Geertz. C. 1993. The Interpretation of Cultures. London: Fontana.

Halbfass, W. 1991. Tradition and Reflection. Albany: SUNY Press.

Hardy, F. 1990. “Hinduism” in Ursula King (ed.), Turning Points in Religious Studies. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark.

Inden, R. 1990. Imagining India. Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwells.

Klostermaier, K. 1994. A Survey of Hinduism. Albany: SUNY Press.

Knott, K. and R. Toon 1982. “Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus in the U.K.: Problems in the estimation of religious statistics”, Religious
Research Paper 6. Leeds: Theology and Religious Studies Department, University of Leeds.

Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago and London: University of
Chicago Press.

Miguel, P. 1971. “Théologie de l’Icone” in M. Viller et. al. Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. vol. 7b. Paris: Beauchesme.

O’Connell, J. T. 1973. “The Word ‘Hindu’ in Gaudiya Vaisnava Texts,” Journal of the American Oriental Society. 93.3.

Otto, R. 1982. The Idea of the Holy, second edition. Oxford, London and New York: Oxford University Press.

Piatigorsky, A. 1985. “Some Phenomenological Observations on the Study of Indian Religion”, in R. Burghardt and A. Cantille (eds.)
 Indian Religion. (London: Curzon).

Pierce, C. 1932. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Pierce, vol.2. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Shaunaka Rishi das (ed.) 1995. ISKCON Communications Journal, no.5.

Sanderson, A. 1988. “Saivism and the Tantric Traditions” in S. Sutherland et. al. (eds.),

The World’s Religions. London: Routledge.

Smart, N. 1958. Reasons and Faiths. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Smart, N. 1989. The World’s Religions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Smart, N. 1993. “The Formation Rather than the Origin of a Tradition,” in DISKUS: A Disembodied Journal of Religious Studies, vol.
1, no. 1.

Smith, B. K. 1987. “Exorcising the Transcendent: Strategies for Redefining Hinduism and Religion”, History of Religions. Aug.

Smith, J. Z. 1982. Imagining Religion, From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Smith, W. C. 1962. The Meaning and End of Religion. San Francisco: Harper and Row.

Sontheimer, G. S. and H. Kulke 1991. Hinduism Reconsidered. Delhi: Manohar.

Staal, F. 1989. Rules Without Meaning, Ritual, Mantras and the Human Sciences. New York: Peter Lang.

Stietencron, H. von, “Hinduism: On the Proper Use of A Deceptive Term”, in Günther D.

Sontheimer and Hermann Kulke, Hinduism Reconsidered, pp.11-27.

Sutherland, S. et. al. (eds.) 1988. The World’s Religions. London: Routledge.

Thapar, R. 1993. Interpreting Early India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Zaehner, R.C. 1966. Hinduism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

This paper was originally delivered at a conference entitled, "Sekten," Politik und Wissenschaft, held in
Humboldt University, Berlin, July, 1995. It is also a version of a chapter that is to be published in
Introduction to Hinduism to be published by Cambridge University Press in 1996.

This article is reprinted with permission from ISKCON Communications Journal, Volume 3, Number 2, 1995, pages 5-15. The
journal's address is: 63 Divinity Rd, Oxford, OX4 1LH, UK (E-mail: icj@bbt.se; Web site: http://www.icj.iskcon.net).

Cults and Society, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2001

http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_articles/flood_gavin_hinduismvaisismandiskcon.htm

Hinduism, Vaisnavism, and ISKCON: Authentic Traditions or

Scholarly Constructions?
 Gavin Flood

This paper will examine some problems in understanding the terms “Hinduism,” “Vaisnavism,” and
“ISKCON,” and enquire into the usefulness of these terms in understanding Indian religions, with
particular reference to ISKCON. Two broad scholarly opinions have been developed with regard to
“Hinduism.” One, an essentialist view, regards Hinduism as a single, great tradition of many interrelated
parts stemming from the revelation (sruti) of the Veda. The other view regards Hinduism as a nineteenth-
century construction to which no social or religious entity refers.

In discussing some of the issues relevant to this, I will herein argue that “Hinduism” is an important
concept, especially in regard to Hindu self-perception. Within this loose designation, the Vaisnava tradition
is one current; and ISKCON must be understood in the context of that tradition. Inevitably when a tradition
moves from one cultural and geographical location to another, transformations of the tradition occur and
questions of identity and authenticity are raised. This paper concludes with some thoughts on the issues
facing ISKCON in the contemporary world.

What is Hinduism?

A simple answer to this question might be that Hinduism is a term used to denote the religions of the
majority of people in India and Nepal (and of some communities in other continents) who refer to
themselves as “Hindus.” However, difficulties arise when we try to understand precisely what this means,
for the diversity of Hinduism is truly vast, and its history long and complex. Some (from both within the
tradition and from outside of it) might claim that because of this diversity there is no such thing as
Hinduism, while others claim that in spite of its diversity there is an “essence” which structures its
appearances. The truth probably lies somewhere between these claims. Most Hindus will be certain that
their identity as “Hindu” contrasts with that of Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist. Yet the kinds of Hindus
each Hindu is may vary as much as differences between Hindus, Buddhists, or Christians.

In India’s population of approximately nine hundred million people, seven hundred million are Hindus,1
the remainder are Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Parsees, Jews, and followers of “tribal”
religions. There are 120 million Muslims, 45 million tribal peoples or adivasis, 14 million Sikhs, and an
estimated 14 million Christians. (Klostermaier, 1994) This is a wide mix of religions and cultural groups,
all of which interact with Hinduism in a number of ways.

There are also sizeable Hindu communities beyond the South Asian boundaries in South Africa, East
Africa, South America, the West Indies, the U.S.A., Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Bali, and
Java. The 1981 U.S.A. census estimated the population of Indian communities as 387,223, most of whom
would classify themselves as Hindu. The number of Hindus in the U.K. for the same year is estimated at
300,000. (Knott and Toon, 1982) There are also many Westerners from Europe and America who would
claim to follow Hinduism or religions deriving from it, and ISKCON is an example here. Ideas such as
karma, yoga, and vegetarianism are now commonplace in the West.

The actual term “Hindu” first occurs as a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the
River Indus (from the Sanskrit word sindhu). In Arabic texts Al-Hind is a term for the people of modern
day India. (Thapar, 1993:77) “Hindu” or “Hindoo,” was used towards the end of the eighteenth century by
the British to refer to the people of “Hindustan,” the area of northwest India. Eventually “Hindu” became
virtually equivalent to any “Indian” who was not a Moslem, Sikh, Jain, or Christian, thereby encompassing
a range of religious beliefs and practices.

The “ism” was added to “Hindu” around 1830 to denote the culture and religion of the high-caste
Brahmans in contrast to other religions. The term was soon appropriated by Indians themselves as they
tried to establish a national identity opposed to colonialism.
While a Hindu identity (as we might understand it today) developed during the nineteenth century, the term
“Hindu” does occur in earlier Sanskrit and Bengali hagiographic texts (such as the Caitanya-caritamrta)
from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In these Bengali Vaisnava texts (one of which ISKCON
reveres), the term “Hindu” is used to indicate a class of people as distinct from the Yavanas, and is used
along with the term dharma (law, duty, socio-cosmic order). Thus the term “Hindu dharma” indicates ritual
practices of “Hindus” in contrast to those of the “foreigners,” the Yavanas or Mlecchas, which referred to
the Muslims (O’Connell, 1973:340-344). So there would seem to be some indication of Hindu self-
perception as Hindu in contrast to Moslem as early as the sixteenth century.

Defining Hinduism

There is a problem arriving at a definition of the term “Hindu” because of the wide range of traditions and
ideas incorporated by it. Most Hindu traditions revere a body of sacred literature, the Veda, as revelation,
though some do not; some traditions regard certain rituals as essential for salvation, while others do not;
some Hindu philosophies postulate a theistic reality who creates, maintains, and destroys the universe, yet
others reject this claim. Hinduism is often characterized as belief in reincarnation (samsara) determined by
the law that all actions have effects (karma), and that salvation is freedom from this cycle. Yet other South
Asian religions, such as Buddhism and Jainism, also believe in this.

Part of the problem of definition is due to the fact that Hinduism does not have a single historical founder,
as do so many other world religions; it does not have a unified system of belief encoded in a creed or
declaration of faith; it does not have a single system of soteriology; and it does not have a centralized
authority or bureaucratic structure. It is therefore a very different kind of religion in these respects to the
monotheistic, Western traditions of Christianity and Islam, though there are arguably stronger affinities
with Judaism.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, said that Hinduism is “all things to all
men” (Smith, B. K., 1987:36), certainly an inclusive definition, but so inclusive as to be of little use for our
purposes.

Yet while it might not be possible to arrive at a watertight definition of Hinduism, this does not mean that
the term is empty. There are clearly some kinds of practices, texts, and beliefs which are central to the
concept of being a “Hindu,” and there are others which are on the edges of Hinduism. I take the view that
while “Hinduism” is not a category in the classical sense of an essence defined by certain properties, there
are nevertheless prototypical forms of Hindu practice and belief. The beliefs and practices of a high-caste
devotee of the Hindu god Visnu, living in Tamil Nadu in South India, fall clearly within the category
“Hindu” and are prototypical of that category. The beliefs and practices of a Radhasoami devotee in the
Punjab, who worships a God without attributes, who does not accept the Veda as revelation, and even
rejects many Hindu teachings, are not prototypically Hindu, yet are still within the sphere and category of
Hinduism. In other words, “Hinduism” is not a category in the classical sense to which something either
belongs or doesn’t.

George Lakoff (Lakoff, 1987) maintains that categories do not have rigid boundaries, but rather that there
are degrees of category membership in which some members of a category are more prototypical than
others. He calls this Prototype Theory. These degrees of category membership may be related through
family resemblance; “members of a category may be related to one another without all members having
any properties in common that define the category” (Lakoff, 1987:12). In this sense Hinduism can be seen
as a category with fuzzy edges. Some forms of religion are central to Hinduism, while others are less
clearly central but still within the category. And Ferro-Luzzi has developed a Protoype Theory approach to
Hinduism2 (Ferro-Luzzi, 1991:187-95).

To say what is or isn’t central to the category of Hinduism is, of course, to make judgements about the
degree of prototypicality. The question arises as to what the basis of such judgements is. Here we must turn
to Hindu self-understandings, for Hinduism has developed categories for its own self-description
(Piatigorsky, 1985:208-224), as well as looking at the scholars’ understandings of common features or
structuring principles seen from outside the tradition.

Although I have some sympathy with Jonathan Z. Smith’s remark that religion is the creation of the
scholar’s imagination (Smith, J. Z., 1982:xi), in so far as the act of scholarship involves a reduction, a
selection, a highlighting of some discourses and texts, and a backgrounding of others, there is nevertheless
a wide body of ritual practices, forms of behaviour, doctrines, stories, texts, and deeply felt personal
experiences and testimonies, which the term Hinduism refers to.

In the contemporary world the term “Hindu” certainly does refer to the dominant religion of South Asia,
albeit a religion which embraces a wide variety within it. But it is important to bear in mind that the
formation of Hinduism as the world religion we know today has only occurred since the nineteenth century,
when the term started being used by Hindu reformers and Western orientalists. However, its origins and the
“streams” which feed in to it are very ancient, extending back to the Indus Valley civilisation (Smart,
1993:1).

I take the view that Hinduism is not purely the construction of Western orientalists to make sense of the
plurality of religious phenomena within the vast geographical area of South Asia, as some scholars have
maintained3 (Smith, W. C., 1962:65; Stietencron, pp.1-22; Halbfass, 1991:1-22), but that Hinduism is also
a development of Hindu self-understanding, a transformation in the modern world of themes already
present.

Religion and the Sacred

What we understand by Hinduism as a religion partly depends upon what we mean by “religion.” Our
understanding of Hinduism has been mediated by Western notions of what religion is and the projection of
Hinduism as an “other” to the West’s Christianity (Inden, 1990). While this is not the place for an
elaborate discussion of the meaning of religion, it is nevertheless important to make some remarks about it,
and to indicate some parameters of its use. The category “religion” has developed out of a Christian, largely
Protestant, understanding, which defines it in terms of belief. This is indicated by the frequent use of the
term “faith” as a synonym for “religion.” If “religion” is to contribute to our understanding of human views
and practices, its characterisation purely in terms of belief is clearly inadequate and would need to be
modified to include a variety of human practices.

Definitions of religion provoke much debate and disagreement, but to use the term, we have to have some
idea of what we mean by it. Religion needs to be located squarely within human society and culture; there
is no privileged discourse of religion outside of particular cultures and societies. The famous sociologist
Emile Durkheim in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, first published in 1915, defined religion as
“a unified set of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things” which creates a social bond between people
(Durkheim, 1964:37). This unified set of beliefs and practices is a system of symbols which acts, to use
Peter Berger’s phrase, as a “sacred canopy,” imbuing individual and social life with meaning. The “sacred”
refers to a quality of mysterious power which is believed to dwell within certain objects, persons, and
places and which is opposed to chaos and death. Religion, following Berger, establishes a “sacred cosmos,”
which provides the “ultimate shield against the terror of anomy” (Berger, 1990:26). I am also influenced
here by Clifford Geertz’ definition of religion as that which “tunes human actions to an envisaged cosmic
order and projects images of cosmic order on to the plane of human experience” (Geertz, 1993:90).

This sense of sacred power is of vital importance to the experience of men and women throughout the
history of religions. In Hinduism a sense of the sacred might be experienced as the sense of a greater being
outside of the self, a “numinous” experience (to use the term coined by the German theologian Rudolf
Otto) characterised by a feeling of awe, fascination, and mystery (Otto, 1982). Or the sense of the sacred
might occur as an inner or contemplative experience within the self, what might be called a “mystical”
experience (Smart, 1958; Smart, 1989:13-14).
There has been a tendency in recent studies to reduce the “religious” to the “political” (Dirks, 1993:106-
107). While it is important to recognise that the religious exists only within specific cultural contexts, as
does the political, the concept of the sacred is distinctive to a religious discourse within cultures. The sacred
is regarded as divine power manifested in a variety of contexts: temples, locations, images, and people.
While this power is not divorced from political power, it can nevertheless exist independently, as is seen in
popular religious festivals and personal devotional and ascetic practices which result in states of inner
ecstasy.

The sacred exists entirely within culture. The categories of the sacred and the everyday are not substantive,
as Jonathan Smith, the eminent scholar of religion, has observed, but relational; they change according to
circumstance and situation. There is nothing in Hinduism which is inherently sacred. The sacredness of
time, objects, or persons depends upon context, and the boundaries between the sacred and the everyday are
fluid. A temple image or icon prior to consecration is merely stone, metal, or wood; but once consecrated it
is empowered and becomes the focus of mediation: “it becomes sacred by having our attention directed to it
in a special way” (Smith, J. Z., 1982:55). I have used the term “icon” in preference to “image” to indicate
the physical manifestation of a deity. My use of the term has been influenced by Charles Pierce’s
understanding of the icon as “a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters
of its own, and which it possesses just the same, whether any such object actually exists or not” (Pierce,
1932:247). There are also parallels between the Hindu murti and the Christian Orthodox “icon” as a
material centre which, according to Vladamir Lossky, contains an energy and divine truth (Miguel,
1971:1236). On this account a person can be an icon as well as an “object” of stone or wood

General Features of Hinduism

Many Hindus believe in a transcendent God, beyond the universe, who is yet within all living beings and
who can be approached in a variety of ways. Such a Hindu might say that this supreme being can be
worshipped in innumerable forms—as a handsome young man (such as Krsna in the Bhagavata Purana),
as a majestic king (such as Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita), as a beautiful young girl, as an old woman, or
even as a featureless stone. The transcendent being is mediated through icons in temples, through natural
phenomena, or through living teachers and saints. This sacred in Hinduism is mediated through
innumerable, changing forms which bear witness to a deeply rich, religious imagination, centred on
mediation and transformation.

Hinduism is often characterised as being polytheistic, and while it is true that innumerable deities are the
objects of worship, many Hindus will regard these as an aspect or manifestation of sacred power. Devotion
(bhakti) to deities mediated through icons and holy persons provides refuge in times of crisis, and even
final liberation (moksa) from action (karma) and the cycle of reincarnation (samsara). The transcendent is
also revealed in sacred literature, called the Veda, and in codes of ritual, social, and ethical behaviour,
called dharma, which that literature reveals. The two terms veda and dharma are of central importance in
what might be called Hindu self-understanding.

Veda and Dharma

The Veda is a large body of literature composed in Sanskrit, a sacred language of Hinduism, revered as
revelation (sruti) and as the source of dharma. The term veda means “knowledge,” originally revealed to
the ancient sages (rsi), conveyed to the community by them, and passed through the generations initially as
an oral tradition. There is also a large body of Sanskrit literature, inspired but nevertheless regarded as
being of human authorship, comprising rules of conduct (the Dharma literature), and stories about people
and gods (the Epics and mythological texts called Puranas). These texts might be regarded as a secondary
or indirect revelation (smrti).4 There are also texts in vernacular Indian languages, particularly Tamil,
which are revered as equal to the Veda by some Hindus.

The Veda as revelation is of vital importance in understanding Hinduism, though its acceptance is not
universal among Hindus and there are forms of Hinduism which have rejected the Veda and its legitimising
authority to sanction a hierarchical social order. However, all Hindu traditions make some reference to the
Veda, whether in its acceptance or rejection; and some scholars have regarded reference to its legitimising
authority as a criterion of being Hindu.5 (Because of ISKCON’s acceptance of the Veda, it falls clearly
within the realm of Hinduism.) While revelation as an abstract, or even notional entity, is important, the
actual contents of the Veda has often been neglected by Hindu traditions. It has acted rather as a reference
point for the construction of Hindu identity and self-understanding (Halbfass, 1991:1-22).

Dharma is revealed by the Veda. It is the nearest semantic equivalent in Sanskrit to the English term
“religion,” but has a wider connotation than this, incorporating the ideas of “truth,” “duty,” “ethics,” “law,”
and even “natural law.” It is that power which upholds or supports society and the cosmos, that power
which constrains phenomena into their particularity, which makes things what they are. Zaehner relates
dharma to the Sanskrit root dhr which means to “hold, have or maintain.” He defines dharma as “the
‘form’ of things as they are and the power that keeps them as they are and not otherwise” (Zaehner,
1966:2).

The nineteenth-century Hindu reformers speak of Hinduism as the eternal religion or law (sanatana
dharma), a common idea among modern Hindus today as well as in ISKCON, in their self-description.
More specifically, dharma refers to the duty of high-caste Hindus with regard to their social position, caste,
or class (varna), and the stage of life they are at (asrama). All this is incorporated by the term varnasrama-
dharma.

One striking feature of Hinduism is that generally practice takes precedence over belief. What a Hindu does
is more important than what a Hindu believes. Hinduism is not creedal. Adherence to dharma is therefore
not an acceptance of certain beliefs, but the practice or performance of certain duties, which are defined in
accordance with dharmic social stratification.

The boundaries of what a Hindu can and cannot do has been largely determined by his or her particular
endogamous social group, or caste, stratified in a hierarchical order, and, of course, by gender. This social
hierarchy is governed by the distinction between purity and pollution, with the higher, purer castes at the
top of the structure, and the lower, polluted and polluting castes at the bottom. Behaviour takes precedence
over belief—orthopraxy over orthodoxy. As Fritz Staal says, a Hindu “may be a theist, pantheist, atheist,
communist and believe whatever he likes, but what makes him into a Hindu are the ritual practices he
performs and the rules to which he adheres, in short, what he does” (Staal, 1989:389).

This sociological characterisation of Hinduism is very compelling. A Hindu is someone born within an
Indian social group, a caste, who adheres to its rules with regard to purity and marriage, and who performs
its prescribed rituals which usually focus on one of the many Hindu deities such as Siva or Visnu. One
might add that these rituals and social rules are derived from the Hindu primary revelation, the Veda, and
from the secondary revelation, the inspired texts of human authorship. The Veda and its ritual reciters, the
highest caste or Brahmans, are the closest Hinduism gets to a legitimising authority, for the Brahman class
has been extremely important in the dissemination and maintenance of Hindu culture. It is generally the
Brahman class that has attempted to coherently structure the multiple expressions of Hinduism, whose self-
understanding any account of Hinduism needs to take seriously.

There have, however, been certain sects within Hinduism, particularly devotional sects, which have
rejected caste and maintained that salvation is open to all. ISKCON needs to be understood in the context
of such caste-transcending groups.

Hindu Traditions

The idea of tradition inevitably stresses unity at the cost of difference and divergence. In pre-Islamic India
there would have been a number of distinct sects and regional religious identities, perhaps united by
common cultural symbols, but no notion of “Hinduism” as a comprehensive entity. Yet there are
nevertheless striking continuities in Hindu traditions.
There are essentially two models of tradition: the arboreal model and the river model. The arboreal model
claims that various sub-traditions branch off from a central, original tradition, often founded by a specific
person. The river model, the exact inverse of the arboreal model, claims that a tradition comprises multiple
streams which merge into a single mainstream (Faure, pp.13-14). Contemporary Hinduism cannot be
traced to a common origin, so the discussion is directed towards whether Hinduism fits the river model or,
to extend the metaphor, whether the term “Hinduism” simply refers to a number of quite distinct rivers.
While these models have restricted use in that they suggest a teleological direction or intention, the river
model would seem to be more appropriate in that it emphasises the multiple origins of Hinduism.

The many traditions which feed in to contemporary Hinduism can be subsumed under three broad
headings: the traditions of brahmanical orthopraxy, the renouncer traditions, and popular or local traditions.
The tradition of brahmanical orthopraxy has played the role of a “master narrative,” transmitting a body of
knowledge and behaviour through time, and defining the conditions of orthopraxy, such as adherence to
varnasrama-dharma. From the medieval period a number of traditions (sampradaya) or systems of guru-
disciple transmission (parampara) developed within the broadly brahmanical world. These traditions,
which developed significantly during the first millennium CE, are focused upon a particular deity or group
of deities.

Among these broadly brahmanical systems, three are particularly important in Hindu self-representation:
Vaisnava traditions, focused on the deity Visnu and His incarnations; Saiva traditions, focused on Siva; and
Sakta traditions, focused on the Goddess or Devi. The Vaisnava tradition reveres the Veda as revelation
and also other texts, notably the Bhagavad Gita, Visnu Purana, and Bhagavata Purana.

Unlike the concept of “Hinduism,” the boundaries of these traditions, or rather the sub-traditions within
them, are more clearly defined, often demanding initiation and adherence to a set of principles and
practices. ISKCON has been within this general characterisation, with fairly clearly defined boundaries
marked by patterns of thought and behaviour which distinguish the ISKCON devotee from others. Today,
however, the picture is less clear, with many lay devotees attending temples who are not clearly identified
by their style of dress or other distinguishing behavioural features (such as chanting in the streets and so
on) (Shaunaka Rishi, 1995).

Cutting across these religious traditions is the theology of Vedanta, the unfolding of a sophisticated
discourse about the nature and content of sacred scriptures which explores questions of existence and
knowledge. The Vedanta is the theological articulation of the Vedic traditions, a discourse which
penetrated Vaisnava and, to a lesser extent, Saiva and Sakta thinking. The Vedanta tradition is the
theological basis of Vaisnava tradition, including ISKCON, and was important in the nineteenth and
twentieth century Hindu renaissance.

Vaisnavism

The terms “sect,” “order,” or “tradition” are rough equivalents of the Sanskrit term sampradaya, which
refers to a tradition focused on a deity, often regional in character, into which a disciple is initiated by a
guru. Furthermore, each guru is seen to be within a line of gurus, a santana or parampara, originating with
the founding father.

The idea of pupilliary succession is extremely important in all forms of Hinduism, as this authenticates the
tradition and teachings; disputes over succession, which have sometimes been vehement, can be of deep
religious concern, particularly in traditions which see the guru as the embodiment of the divine, possessing
the power to bestow the Lord’s grace on his devotees. With initiation (diksa) into the sampradaya (and this
is highly pertinent to ISKCON) the disciple undertakes to abide by the values of the tradition and
community, and he or she receives a new name and a mantra particularly sacred to that tradition. A
sampradaya might demand celibacy and comprise only world renouncers, or it might have a much wider
social base, accepting householders of both genders and, possibly, all castes including untouchables.
The most important Vaisnava orders and cults are:

The Gaudiya or Bengali Vaisnavas located mainly in Bengal, Orissa, and Vrndavana. They revere the
teachings of the Saint Caitanya and focus their devotion on Krsna and Radha. The Hare Krishna movement
is a development or branch of this tradition.

The Cult of Vithobha in Maharashtra, particularly in the pilgrimage centre of Pandarpur. Their teachings
are derived from the saints (sant) Jñanesvara, Namdev, Janabai, etc.

The Cult of Rama located mainly in the northeast at Ayodhya and Janakpur and associated with an annual
festival of Ramlila in which the Ramayana is performed. The ascetic Ramanandi order are devoted to Rama
and Sita.

The northern Sant tradition, while not being strictly Vaisnava as it worships a transcendent Lord beyond
qualities, nevertheless derives much of its teachings and names of God from Vaisnavism. Especially
venerated are Kabir and Nanak, the founder of Sikhism. The Sri Vaisnavas are located in Tamil Nadu,
whose centre is the temple at Srirangam, and for whom the theology of Ramanuja is particularly important.

These sampradayas developed within the wider mainstream of brahmanical worship based on texts,
especially the Puranas. The Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition is squarely within the Vedic, Puranic tradition.

Within these sampradayas, a number of devotional attitudes to the personal absolute developed. The
relationship between the disciple and the Lord could be one of servant to master, of parent to child, friend
to friend, or lover to beloved. Some sampradayas adopted one of these modes. The Bengali Vaisnavas, for
example, regarded the attitude of the lover to the beloved as the highest expression of devotion, not
dissimilar to the braut-mystik tradition in western mystical theology; while the sect of Tukaram viewed the
devotional relationship as one of servant to master. But what is significant here is that the relationship
between the devotee and the Lord is modelled on human relationships, and that the Lord can be perceived
and approached in a variety of ways: the love of God takes many forms.

Gaudiya Vaisnavism

Devotional traditions focused on Krsna the Cowherd developed in northern India, and found articulation in
Sanskrit devotional and poetic literature as well as in more popular devotional movements, particularly
around Vrindavan and in Bengal. The form of Vaisnavism which grew in Bengal (Gaudiya) developed a
theology which laid great emphasis on devotion and the love relationship between the devotee and Krsna. It
was this form of Hinduism which Srila Prabhupada brought to the West in 1965.

The 1960s saw many Hindu (as well as Buddhist and Chinese) ideas and practices come to the West which
had a large impact upon the counter-culture then developing. Dominant figures in popular culture, pop stars
such as the Beatles and poets such as Alan Ginsberg, promoted Hindu ideas and gurus. During this period,
after the lifting of immigration restrictions in the U.S.A. in 1965, there was a flow of Indian gurus to the
West, such as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement, and
Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada. Upon the demise of Prabhupada, eleven western gurus were chosen to succeed
as spiritual heads of the Hare Krishna movement. But many notorious problems followed upon their
appointment, and the movement has since veered away from investing absolute authority in a few, fallible
human teachers.

Concluding Remarks
After our description of some of the phenomena associated with the terms “Hinduism,” “Vaisnavism,” and
“ISKCON,” we can summarise by saying that ISKCON certainly perceives itself to be an authentic Vedic
tradition; though many Indian Brahmans do not recognise its authenticity because ISKCON devotees tend
to be “foreign.” For example, ISKCON devotees have not been allowed into the Jagannatha temple at Puri,
though this may change in the future. But if the idea of pupilliary succession is regarded as a criterion of
authenticity, then ISKCON is certainly authentic in so far as it has developed in a clear line of succession
from Prabhupada, who was himself an initiate of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Maharaja. He in
turn was a disciple of Srila Gaurakisora dasa Babaji Maharaja, a disciple of Srila Thakura Bhaktivinoda.
Indeed Bengali Vaisnavism, from which ISKCON clearly develops historically, is a more clearly defined
entity than “Hinduism”.

Inevitably, when a tradition changes geographical location and culture there are bound to be changes.
ISKCON followers are predominantly Westerners who have been born and brought up in Western cultures;
they have Western presuppositions and deep forms of perception and conditioning which will inevitably
influence the tradition they have adopted. Indeed the Central Governing Body (CGB) is a western
development, although initiated by Srila Prabhupada.

So far ISKCON seems to have been fairly successful in the need to adapt to the modern world, while at the
same time, maintaining a continuity of tradition from India. But ISKCON will need to continually adapt
and face contemporary challenges and issues, which, indeed, it appears to be doing. Three important issues,
for example, which ISKCON will need to engage with are:

the issue of gender (ISKCON has been accused of occluding women’s rights in terms of significant
positions within the organisation and relegating women to a minor role.);

the degree to which ISKCON continues to articulate a literal understanding of Vaisnava narrative traditions
—or put crudely, a “fundamentalist” interpretation of mythology—in the face of its own Vedic tradition’s
hermeneutics and in the face of Western science and, indeed, textual scholarship; and

the way in which it responds to global issues such as concern for the environment. (On the one hand
ISKCON articulates an environment-friendly attitude, yet there are tensions within the tradition and a
strong idea that the material world is a trap, the web of maya, and is degenerating as the dark age
continues.)

So, one might conclude with the words of Mahatma Gandhi that “to swim in the waters of tradition is good,
but to drown in them is suicide.”

Notes

1. The March, 1991 census of India estimated the population to be 843,930,861.

2. My thanks to Harold Keller for drawing my attention to Ferro-Luzzi.

3. For an interesting, brief survey of the idea of “Hinduism” and the development of recent scholarship about it, see Hardy,
1990:145-155.

4. The terms “secondary” and “indirect revelation” to refer to this literature of human authorship, are used by Alexis
Sanderson. (Sanderson, 1988: 662)

5. Brian Smith has defined Hinduism as “the religion of those humans who create, perpetuate, and transform traditions with
legitimising reference to the authority of the Veda”. (Smith, B. K., 1987:40)
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This paper was originally delivered at a conference entitled, "Sekten," Politik und Wissenschaft, held in
Humboldt University, Berlin, July, 1995. It is also a version of a chapter that is to be published in
Introduction to Hinduism to be published by Cambridge University Press in 1996.

This article is reprinted with permission from ISKCON Communications Journal, Volume 3, Number 2, 1995, pages 5-15. The
journal's address is: 63 Divinity Rd, Oxford, OX4 1LH, UK (E-mail: icj@bbt.se; Web site: http://www.icj.iskcon.net