Page 39 - SBV (English)

Editorial Notes

Often recent events are reported differently by individual witnesses and
thus only well-organized and expert investigation can verify the actual details of
such recollections. So what to speak of matters that occurred over seventy years
before, especially if received second- or third-hand or even further removed?
Even the best-researched historical portrayals are necessarily simplifications and
approximations of complex events and exchanges and hence are liable to contain
errors. “The empiric historical method always apprehends (sic) the possibility of
erroneous observation of an occurrence even on the part of an actual and careful
observer.” It is the bane of hagiology, and perhaps of all historiography, that
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exaggeration, interpolation, myth, personal angles, prejudices, confabulations,
and calculated distortions tend to merge with or supplant facts. This is particularly
so regarding some of Çréla Bhaktisiddhänta Sarasvaté’s disciples, about whom
various controversies have led to widely differing reportage of their activities—
which I became obligated to attempt to reconcile. Then again, it is not unusual
that in people’s memories, and thus also in biographical accounts, particulars of
discrete individuals become intermixed, whereby similarities in certain sadhus’
lives lead to anecdotes of one being ascribed to another. Several times disciples
of Çréla Sarasvaté Öhäkura guilelessly narrated to me anecdotes about him that
they stated to have personally witnessed but that I later discovered to be about
various of his sannyasi disciples.
Similarly, dates of several incidents involving Çréla Sarasvaté Öhäkura,
especially those from his early life, are recorded variously, sometimes with
considerable disparity. Hence, in preparing this book I was sometimes faced
with tangles of contradictions and chronological impossibilities, and therefore
was obliged to exercise discretion in choosing what to include or to reject as
improbable, retaining only that which seemed most authorized, appropriate, and
in consonance with the character of this extraordinary guru. *

* Common myths regarding Çréla Sarasvaté Öhäkura:
(a) When denied initiation by Çréla Gaura Kiçora däsa Bäbäjé, he threatened to commit
suicide. It is recorded that in that circumstance Çré Siddhänta Sarasvaté quoted Çréla
Bhaktivinoda Öhäkura, karuëä nä haile käìdiyä käìdiyä präëa nä räkhibo ära: “Without
your mercy, I, weeping and weeping, will no longer sustain my life” (see vol. 1, p. 29). Yet
there is no indication that he actually planned to kill himself.
(b) Upon meeting any Mäyävädé on the street, Çréla Sarasvaté Öhäkura would publicly
berate or even physically assault him.
These two myths apparently have wide currency only within ISKCON.
The unauthorized circulation of my initial research notes for this book also increased the

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