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4 Mothers and Masters
1998 by Jyotirmayī Devī Dāsī in her paper “Women in ISKCON
in Prabhupāda’s Times,” which provided a manifesto for a
1
brand of af f irmative-action feminism within ISKCON. Therein
she wrote:
Authenticity of the Proposed Arguments
Our subject here deals with the social application of Kṛṣṇa
conscious principles, not with philosophical knowledge.
Therefore many of the arguments given here do not come
from Prabhupāda’s books but from conversations between
Śrīla Prabhupāda and his disciples in daily encounters, most
of which of course did not get recorded. Many devotees do not
trust these “Prabhupāda said,” but Prabhupāda himself gave
his opinion about these “Prabhupāda said.” In a reunion in
Māyāpur in 1975, the GBC told Prabhupāda: “There are so many
‘Prabhupāda said’; better only accept what is in the books and
tapes.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda answered: “No, what I say in talks also,
many things I say are not in my books.” (From Himāvatī.)* My
information is coming from a notebook in which, all along the
years, I noted the anecdotes related to me by devotees who
lived closely with Prabhupāda or by devotees who received
these stories from these f irst disciples. My other stories, which
are irrefutable, are from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s letters.
There are many dif f iculties with the above-stated argument,
but I will briefly discuss two of the most problematic. F irst,
the social vision articulated by Jyotirmayī Mātā is not based
on statements from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books. Although she
sometimes does cite Śrīla Prabhupāda, she emphasizes that her
main argument depends primarily on anecdotes about Śrīla
Prabhupāda recounted by other devotees; and she states that
* Another “Prabhupāda said”!
1. www.dandavats.com/?p=14535 (retrieved 25 Dec 2014).