Burt, Angela. 2024. Leading the Hare Krishna Movement: The Crisis of Succession in The International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Routledge.

Burt, Angela. 2023. Hare Krishna in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press.

Burt, Angela. 2025. ISKCON, Religious Minorities Online, De Gruyter. 

Burt, Angela. 2024. Hare Krishna in the Twenty-First Century, ISKCON Communications Journal, 15.

Burt, Angela. 2024. Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), World Religions and Spirituality Project (WRSP), https://wrldrels.org/2024/09/29/bochasanwasi-akshar-purushottam-swaminarayan-sanstha-baps/.

Burt, Angela. 2020. An Uncertain Future: The Crisis of Succession in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. In K. Knott, M. Francis, eds. Innovation, Violence and Paralysis: How do Minority Religions Cope with Uncertainty? Farnham: Ashgate.  

Burt, Angela. 2016. The History of a Movement, ISKCON Communications Global.

Burt, Angela. 2015. Transcendent Being or Fallible Human? In Search of the Authentic Guru in the Gaudiya Vaishnava Tradition. Sufi Journal, Summer. 

024. Review of Bringing Krishna Back to India: Global and Local Networks in a Hare Krishna Temple in  Mumbai by Claire C. Robison, Journal of Vaishnava Studies, 33(1).

Burt, Angela. 2024. Krishnamacharya on Kundalini: The Origins and Coherence of His Position, by Simon Atkinson. International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 12(2), 269-271. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.28838

Burt, Angela. 2019. Review of Seven Days of Nectar: Contemporary Oral Performance of the Bhagavatapurana by McComas Taylor. Numen, 66 (1). 

Burt, Angela. 2018. Review of The Head Beneath the Altar: Hindu Mythology and the Critique of Sacrifice by Brian Collins. Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review, 9 (1).

Burt, Angela. 2016. Review of Jainism: A Guide for the Perplexed by Sherry Fohr. Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review, 7 (1), pp. 337-338.

Burt, Angela. 2016. Review of Hinduism and the 1960s: The Rise of a Counter-culture by Paul Oliver. Journal of Religious History, 4 (1), pp. 135-137.

The Elements in New Religious Movements (NRMs) series published by Cambridge

University Press are useful for researchers and students alike, as they are compact,

well-researched and clearly written, and have a contemporary focus. Angela Burt’s

study of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) has five

chapters (including an Introduction and Conclusion); this review will address each

chapter in turn.

“Introduction and Historical Origins of the Hare Krishna Movement” opens the

book with a historical sketch of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition from Chaitanya in the

early sixteenth century to A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (1896-1977), who brought

devotion to Krishna to the United States in 1965. The issue of whether to classify

ISKCON as a NRM, as opposed to a part of “Hinduism” (a problematic Western-

originated term that nevertheless designates a “world religion” in the twenty-first

century) and the essentially transnational nature of its development, are briefly

touched upon. Burt also provides a short review of scholarship on the group and

methodological lenses that may be applied fruitfully, including Rodney Stark on

conditions required for a religious movement to succeed, and David Bromley and

Gordon Melton’s ideas about alignment processes.

Chapter 2, “Beliefs and Practices” covers living in temple environs, taking guidance

from a guru, studying Srila Praphupada’s books, mission, diet, marriage and family,

pilgrimage, retreats, and festivals. Chapter 3, “Institutional and Community Dynamics,”

discusses the structure of ISKCON, with its Governing Body Commission (GBC), the

Bhaktivedanta Book Trust which issues ISKCON publications, and temple presidents

at each temple. The ebb and flow of devotees between the West and India is noted and

temples in Vrindavan and Mayapura remain focal points for ISKCON in India, and

international pilgrims. ISKCON was initially Western in membership, but has over the

decades increasingly acquired Indian members and come closer to mainstream

Hinduism in orientation. Burt is careful to explain that ISKCON membership is a

formal status and a larger community that identifies as Gaudiya Vaishnava exists, withthe assemblage of all being “the Hare Krishna movement” (p. 30). This section also

discusses of the exit of members from the mid-1980s onwards to other Gaudiya

Vaishnava groups, mostly, and the scandals concerning Kirtanananda Swami (b. Keith

Ham 1937-2011) or Bhaktipāda, who was expelled from ISKCON in 1987 and avoided

a conspiracy to murder charge, but “was convicted of racketeering and mail fraud

violations in 1993” (p. 31). Schisms are covered, and the fascinating ISKCON Revival

Movement, which aims to replace ISKCON’s management with a new structure that

acknowledges only Srila Prabhupada as initiating guru, is especially interesting.

Multiple shifts from monastic to congregational life and from Western to Indian

congregants, the development of an online presence and from street proselytization

to varied modes of outreach, through restaurants, retreats, yoga centres, and festivals

are canvassed. Today, there is less emphasis on wearing robes and having shaven heads,

yet some things are constants: literature “remains a core proselytization practice” (p.

42) and a range of teaching and research institutions contribute to members’

education.

Chapter 4, “Issues, Controversies, and Challenges,” is a study of various things that

have made ISKCON controversial since its inception in the 1960s, such as the ‘cult

controversy’ accusations of brainwashing and mind control in the 1970s, especially in

America, and state persecution in the Soviet Union from around 1980. The

contemporary Russian Federation is determinedly against ISKCON, too, claiming that

members are religious extremists and that the group itself is a “demonically oriented

religion” and a “totalitarian cult” (p. 50). Burt discusses a range of legal disputes, from

cases restricting book distribution as an activity in the United States, through the

successful United Kingdom campaign to keep Bhaktivedanta Manor open as a worship

space, to cases concerning child abuse in ISKCON. These are outward-facing disputes

with host societies. There are also internal disputes, importantly about succession and

“institutionalized child abuse,” which she terms “one of [ISKCON’s] darkest secrets”

(p. 55). Attention is also devoted to the theological question of the origin of the soul;

in 1995 the GBC pronounced in favour of Prabhupada’s expressed view that the soul

“falls down into the material world” after rejecting a personal relationship with Krishna

in the spiritual realm (p. 56). A controversial book, In Vaikuntha Not Even the Leaves

Fall (2019) was banned and one of its authors, Satyanarayana Dasa, left ISKCON to

found the Jiva Institute in Vrindavan. This controversy feeds a current of thought that

Prabhupada often expressed views that were “offensive to various groups including

women, people of various nations and races, members of the LGBTQI community,

scholars, scientists, and other Gaudiya Vaishnava groups” (p. 57). Controversy still

exists over the editing of Prabhupada’s books and the moves since the 1990s to allow

women to take prominent roles in ISKCON are similarly polarising. ISKCON in India

is usually the strongest conservative voice, so a new group, Krishna West, was established in 2014 by Hridayananda das Goswami; this group operates within

ISKCON and strongly pushes a Western identity for the movement, opposing the

Hinduisatn and Indianisation of the religion. Burt covers debates about LGBTQ+

members, the rise of veganism, and the Covid-19 pandemic, contrasting the

conservatism of early ISKCON with attempts to be more inclusive and in line with

changes in host societies.

Chapter 5 provides a short conclusion to the book, which has a summary of

contents, a reiteration of the value of frame alignment and resource mobilization

theory as lenses through which to analyse ISKCON, and stresses again Burke

Rochford’s view that the success of ISKCON depends on the path it commits to in “a

rapidly changing world” (p. 69). There is a comprehensive list of references at the end,

which will be of great use to students studying the history and sociology of Krishna

Consciousness. Angela Burt has produced a pithy, wide-ranging, and relevant book on

ISKCON for this series, and is to be congratulated. I recommend it to all interested in

NRMs, Indian religion, transnational movements, and the sociology of the

contemporary world. It is a must for the libraries of educational institutions.

The Cambridge Elements series aims to present relatively short but

comprehensive overviews of specific topics across academia. They are

available both print and online, and intended for the reference and

student market. The late scholar James R. Lewis led the initial efforts to create208

Journal of Vaishnava Studies

a new religious movements booklist within the Elements, and this series-with-

in-a-series is now edited by Rebecca Moore, book reviews editor and former

co-general editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions.

The new religious movements series of Cambridge Elements, now numbering

approximately twelve titles, is a well-respected but relatively new entry into

the genre of slim comprehensive reference books, alongside such other series

as Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introductions and Routledge’s Basics.

Angela R. Burt’s Hare Krishna in the Twenty-First Century is one of these new

Elements books, and from the outset it should be contextualized within the

series: the book is intended as both an introduction and as well as a com-

prehensive treatment of the Hare Krishna movement, and is written for

students, researchers who are new to the topic, and other reference readers.

Specialists in the study of ISKCON and certainly devotees themselves are not

the primary audience of the book, but they will still find it to be a helpful one,

especially in terms of how the author theorizes the topic. Although the book

does not draw from new empirical research in the sense that a full-length

monograph does, it is informed by the author’s ethnographic experience and

involvement in the global ISKCON Oral History Project. Burt also offers a the-

oretical model of the growth and transformation of ISKCON. The book should

be read as a scholarly contribution, and not simply a reference book.

Hare Krishna in the Twenty-First Century is organized into five chapters: an

introduction, which also includes the history of the origin of ISKCON; beliefs

& practices; social dynamics; controversies & challenges; and a brief conclu-

sion. Burt employs several theoretical models to understand the movement.

First, she argues that ISKCON can be situated within sociologist of religion

Rodney Stark’s model of conditions for religious movement success.1 Stark’s

approach calls for attention to the degree of tension in the relationship

between a religion and broader society, in keeping with the rational choice

model of the sociology of religion that Stark championed, alongside Roger

Finke, William Sims Bainbridge, and others.2 As Burt argues, “the challenge

for the Hare Krishna movement is to adapt to a rapidly changing world while

remaining true to the core values unique to its religious tradition: in Stark’s

words, to offer a religious culture that sets it apart from the general, secular

culture, to be distinctive, and impose relatively strict moral standards while

maintaining a medium level of tension.”3 Successful religious movements

position themselves as unique, but not so unique that the social cost of mem-

bership is prohibitive.Book Reviews 209 209

Burt’s second theoretical approach, frame alignment theory, examines

how adherents align themselves within ISKCON, and by extension how

ISKCON aligns itself with surrounding culture, i.e., what frame alignment

regards as “host societies.” Under this model, the Hare Krishna movement

offers a specific set of “frames” by which a devotee or potential devotee can

understand the world, “to identify and label occurrences they encounter

and thereby render them meaningful,” as Burt explains.4 Frames are essen-

tially social-spiritual worldviews or ideologies. The process of becoming a

devotee involves aligning oneself within these frames, but the Hare Krishna

movement itself can also be studied by considering how its central operative

frames align (or not) with its host societies. Both Rochford and Zeller have

previously used frame alignment to study ISKCON, but Burt extends it here.5

She shows how the movement’s earlier alignment with the global countercul-

ture, and lack of continuity with the majority culture, gave way to attempts to

realignment. Burt also considers the fraught and contentious nature of such

realignment.

The book also draws on resource mobilization theory — which seeks

to understand how the Hare Krishna movement and ISKCON as a formal

institution utilize human and non-human assets. Burt’s history of ISKCON,

for example, highlights institutionalization efforts such as the origin of the

Governing Body Commission (GBC), temple presidencies, the Bhaktivedanta

Book Trust (BBT), and other management institutions. In keeping with Tra-

vis Vande Berg and Fred Kniss’s work on ISKCON and immigration,6 Burt

emphasizes transnational flow as central to the mobilization of the human

resources of ISKCON, which she identifies both in the travels of Prabhupada

and the early ISKCON missionaries as well as today. These three theoretical

lenses provide the foundation for the book’s introduction to the Hare Krishna

movement.

The first chapter provides an overview of the movement’s history, rooting

ISKCON in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, and the lineage of Bhaktivinoda

Thakura (1838–1914) and Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura (1874–1937) to

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977), and the legal and institu-

tional formation of ISKCON in 1966. The first chapter also includes a literature

review of previous studies of Krishna Consciousness. Finally, it considers the

classification question of ISKCON, noting that some adherents eschew iden-

tification with the category of Hinduism and some embrace it. Burt does not

take a position. She does situate ISKCON within the category of “new religious210

Journal of Vaishnava Studies

movement,” concurring with Kim Knott, J. Gordon Melton, and Malcolm Had-

don that the movement must be situated in mid-twentieth century cultural

and social developments.7 “A key theme running throughout this Element is

the idea that the Hare Krishna movement can be simultaneously thought of

as the continuation of a 500-year-old religious tradition and a new religious

movement, although, as the movement ages, the label becomes less appli-

cable,” argues Burt.8

The second chapter of the book, on beliefs and practices, provides a good

overview of bhakti yoga for those outside the tradition. In addition to detailing

the major theological positions (monotheism, devotion, etc.), Burt emphasiz-

es the role of the guru and the parampara lineage of gurus, and their relation

to the Vaishnava textual tradition. Burt’s explanation of “the centrality of the

guru within ISKCON” will be helpful to readers unfamiliar with either ISKCON

or broader South Asian traditions, and who understand the concept of guru

only from a commodified and secularized perspective.9 Burt also provides an

overview of temple service, major holidays, pilgrimage sites, and other reli-

gious practices. Although Burt identifies her approach as following the lived

religion school of emphasizing the lives of adherents rather than the formal

institutions to which they belong, much of the chapter focuses on institu-

tional ISKCON, which is both a strength (for readers unfamiliar with ISKCON),

and a weakness (for specialists hoping to see greater attention to lived expe-

riences drawing on the author’s ethnographic and oral history data). Still, I

appreciated Burt’s treatment of new developments such as spiritual retreats,

which as Burt argues have become increasingly popular in tandem with the

increase in congregational membership.

Chapter three covers the transition in ISKCON from a primarily monastic

and temple-oriented movement to a householder-based and congregational

one, as well as the involvement of Indian-Hindus and mobilization of trans-

national Hindus as resources for movement success. This will be familiar to

readers of E. Burke Rochford’s scholarship.10 Burt argues that frame align-

ment theory shows how the movement shifted from a world-transforming,

ashram-based, and countercultural one to one affirming foundational tenets

of Western society. Burt cites Nicole Karapanagiotis’s recent study of “Krish-

na branders” and Krishna West as an example of such frame realignment.11

The fourth chapter, on controversies and challenges, covers familiar

ground to both devotees and longtime observers of ISKCON. Burt summarizes

accusations of brainwashing that accompanied the “cult scare” period of theBook Reviews 211 211

American counterculture, as well as legal disputes involving fundraising. The

chapter also details state-sponsored persecution of ISKCON, especially in the

former Soviet Union and Soviet Bloc. It also describes internal challenges,

notably the question of succession (the zonal acharya system, the ritvik con-

troversy, etc.), the guru reform movement, and accusations of child abuse in

the gurukulas. The chapter also includes a treatment of the changing role of

women in ISKCON and controversies over female leadership, including the

debates over the permissibility of female diksha gurus.

The Element concludes with a consideration of ISKCON within the theo-

retical models that Burt uses, especially frame alignment and Stark’s reli-

gious movement success model. Although, as is often noted, historians make

poor prognosticators, Burt does deploy these models to argue that ISKCON’s

future success depends very much on questions of frame alignment. “The

Hare Krishna movement’s future trajectory as a religious movement in the

twenty-first century is largely dependent on decisions about what frames its

members want to align it with. The perception that the movement is evolving

from its original mission of being a global preaching organization to a Hindu

movement will need to be resolved, along with addressing whether both

aspects can be maintained within the same movement.”12

Several sections of the book are worth drawing attention to. Chapter four

includes a treatment of Krishna Consciousness outside of ISKCON, which Burt

subsumes under the sociological category of “believing without belonging.”

This includes splinter movements, lapsed members, ritvik proponents, as

well as reform-minded individuals who have disaffiliated from ISKCON. The

fifth chapter’s treatment of contemporary issues both links to this as well

as expands it, as Burt explores tensions within Krishna Consciousness over

the Krishna West movement, same-sex relationships, women’s leadership,

and political and nationalist disputes between devotees. All this combines

to demonstrate to readers that Krishna Consciousness — like other religious

traditions—exists in diverse ways, and beyond a single institution. As much as

devotee readers may not enjoy reading these sections, they make an impor-

tant sociological point for non-devotee readers. Such readers are aware of

the broad range of religious identities, practices, and beliefs among Jews and

Catholics, for example, and Burt suggests the same is true among Vaishnavas

as well. “The underlying assumption here is that ISKCON is equivalent to its

temples. This assumption does not acknowledge the broader Hare Krishna

movement, which is comprised of a complex network of relationships amongJournal of Vaishnava Studies

212

devotees, many of which take place beyond the purview of its temples and

official ISKCON events and activities,” she argues.13

Another strength of the book is the author’s consideration of contem-

porary issues, such as Hare Krishna institutional and devotee response

to the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of global right-wing politics, and the

Russian-Ukrainian war. In addition to subsections on each of these, Burt

notes throughout the book how the pandemic and contemporary affairs

have impacted the movement, for example describing “the world’s first digi-

tal Ratha-Yatra across six continents,” but also the rise of conspiricism and

online radicalism within ISKCON internet forums.14 Burt’s excellent history

of the expansion of ISKCON in the former Soviet Bloc leads also to her consid-

eration of how the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has introduced

tensions among some Hare Krishna devotees and communities.

There is very little to critique about this book. It accomplishes the goal of

the Element series, namely to offer a comprehensive and concise overview

of the Hare Krishna movement. Burt also, by use of the theoretical lensing of

Stark’s religious success model, frame alignment, and resource mobilization,

offers a new take on ISKCON that marks this book as not only a reference

volume, but offering a scholarly assessment of the movement’s development

and transformation.

Timothy Miller,  University of Kansas

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, often known

as the Hare Krishnas, burst onto the American scene in the mid-1960s

with the arrival of Swami Bhaktivedanta, known to his followers as

Prabhupada. The movement has been extensively studied by scholars,

but after half a century in this country it has slipped away from the con-

troversies it once experienced. Burt, whose scholarship is deep and thor-

ough, recounts the earlier days of the movement, when the members

typically lived communally in temples, and then brings the story up to

date. How did the movement deal with covid-19? What of the child

abuse that several of its leaders committed? How does it deal with its

founder’s writings that today sometimes seem to have distasteful ele-

ments of sexism, racism, and more? Burt also notes that ISKCON itself

has suffered schisms, leading to several new versions of this faith rooted

in ancient India. An excellent book, and a good update for those who

haven’t followed ISKCON’s recent story.

Tilak Sinha-Gröger, University of Sydney

There is a general understanding that of the many New Religious Move-

ments (NRM) emergent from the 1960s milieu, it is only a handful that

have sustained to the current day. Angela R. Burt’s volume in the Ele-

ments in New Religious Movements series published by Cambridge

University Press, provides an insight into the present condition of one

such NRM, the Hare Krishna movement, particularly the International

Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), as it adapts not only into

the twenty-first century, but into a rapidly shifting new identity in its

endeavour to maintain longevity. Aiming to address “the multitude of

issues facing the movement,” taking “into account major social and cul-

tural upheavals that have taken place since the scholarly analyses of the

early 2000s,” and “[drawing] on recent scholarship” (p. 6), Burt further

addresses several issues in the study of the Hare Krishna movement, not

least of which being the over fixation of American ISKCON members,

neglecting the truly global presence of the movement.

Burt achieves this goal over five chapters: the introductory chap-

ter which situates the founding of ISKCON by Bhaktivedānta Swāmī

Prabhupāda (hereby Prabhupāda) within a brief history of Gauḍīya

Vaiṣṇavism, and also defining Burt’s methodological approach; Chap-

ter 2 giving a concise and engaging insight into the lifestyle and beliefs

experienced by ISKCON members, and how they vary according to

adherent’s demographics; Chapter 3 exploring ISKCON’s sociological

structure; Chapter 4 exploring controversy both externally in terms of

ISKCON within broader society, and internally amongst ISKCON devo-

tees themselves; and the concluding chapter’s compelling prognostica-

tion of ISKCON’s future directions—preceded by a brief book summary

—which will likely be found far-sighted in the coming decades.

Though Burt emphasizes an emic perspective (p. 9)—Chapter 2 looks

at a day in the life of an ISKCON member is vivid and engaging for it

(p. 15–25)—this does not prevent a pithy and compelling methodological

apparatus: her deployment of frame alignment to explore the shifting

Keywords ISKCON, Hare Krishna, Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, New Religious Movements

(NRMs), bhakti, neo-Hinduism contextual pressures which ISKCON inflects to align with proves to be

an incredibly effective extension of Rochford’s (2007) use. Her emphasis

on this shifting nature accounts for why ISKCON has chosen the histori-

cal avenues of permutation that result in its contemporary form; ISK-

CON’s “religious transplant” (Bryant and Ekstrand, 2007) is not only the

initial transplant from India to a global presence, but now also from a

counter-cultural movement to an Indian-Hindu immigrant community

(p. 69). The tensions that these transitions introduce are manoeuvred

elegantly, focusing on them while careful not to over-estimate their

divisive potential (p. 41), and providing concrete instances, such as the

humorous contrast of an ISKCON property divided into an eco-village

and a fracking project (p. 40). Also important is Burt’s noting the role

of Hindutva in these shifting frames (p. 36)—an area that pertinently

requires more attention.

The discussion of controversies in Chapter 4 achieves the goal of shift-

ing away from an overly American focus by providing fascinating dis-

cussion of the ways in which the current Russian invasion of Ukraine has

revealed deep fault-lines in ISKCON’s rapidly growing eastern European

communities (p. 65). Other controversies and schisms, such as accusations

of current ISKCON leader past participation in Kīrtanānanda Swāmī’s

criminal activities, and the various schisms of the Bhaktivedānta Insti-

tute, were understandably not included within the scope of this book.

What is peculiar is the exception of the recent controversies over child

abuse cases against two prominent ISKCON gurus. Supporters and critics

of both men arose, and the ensuing contention resulted in the formal

censure and defrocking of one sannyāsin; the other, after heavy protest

from ISKCON India leadership, was not investigated. This terminated

investigation resulted in a member of ISKCON’s highest level of manage-

ment resigning in protest, and local ISKCON leadership in Europe and

North America banning the accused sannyāsin. Such severe controversy,

undergone in recent history and revealing ISKCON’s international ten-

sions, appears odd to not have been discussed beyond two brief passing

references (p. 55, 72).

Burt’s engagement with the question of ISKCON as a NRM is balanced

and demonstrates the issues with characterizing the Hare Krishna

movement as “new” when contextualized in its Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava roots

(p. 4–5). At times however, the focus on ISKCON—justified by ISKCON

being the largest Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava institution (p. 5)—is still narrow

enough to imply rupture where there is none. Prabhupāda is said to have instructed only a small canon in contrast to the Gauḍīya tradition (13),

and while Prabhupāda did emphasise only requiring study of a small

set of books, Prabhupāda also, in his Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.1.1 commen-

tary, encourages reading well beyond even the broad Gauḍīya canon

(1972, p. 50). Further Rūpa Gosvāmin, Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism’s intellectual

founder, in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.1.13 lists “reading too many books”

as a spiritual fault. Attributed to Prabhupāda then is an established

Gauḍīya skepticism towards scholasticism. Furthermore, characteriza-

tion of Prabhupāda’s institutional drive being present “earliest days of

his mission in the United States” (p. 26), while technically correct, does

not reflect Prabhupāda’s prior involvement in founding multiple insti-

tutions in India, with at least one, Gauḍīya Vedānta Samiti, continuing

to today. Prabhupāda’s requesting his preaching to be done within one

schism from his guru’s institution, the Gauḍīya Maṭh, for his original

America trip, and his later requesting the Gauḍīya Maṭh emblem painted

on an ISKCON temple, reflect that Prabhupāda’s institutional drive was

driven significantly from a feeling of continuity with his guru, and not as

a solitary pragmatic event.

These peculiar ISKCON-centric framings extended elsewhere in the

book, as in the discussion of the “Jīva Origin” debate, whose narrative

was based entirely on the writing of Tamal Krishna Goswami: certainly

an academic, but also a highly influential ISKCON manager and guru. The

section presents a version of the debate conducive to official ISKCON

narratives, with the debate becoming between those who base their

views on the writings of earlier Gauḍīya thinkers, and those who draw

their ideas from Prabhupāda, a framing that elides the many ISKCON

individuals (including the controversial and highly charismatic guru

Gour Govinda Swami) who found in Prabhupāda’s books their founda-

tion in rejecting the view finally adopted by the ISKCON institutional

leadership.

Even in light of the critique raised in this review, Burt still stands as

having provided in this book not only a fantastic introduction to the Hare

Krishna movement in the twenty-first century, but also, in her effective

and comprehensive synthesis of the prominent work in the field, a great

entry point for any reader wishing to enter into the broader study of ISK-

CON (The references alone supply a great list for prospective sociologi-

cal study of ISKCON). Its exceptionally accessible style, reflected in even

terms like “Sanskrit” being given explanatory footnotes (p. 2), makes

it appropriate for both under-graduate and post-graduate readers who are interested in ISKCON, NRMs, and Eastern Religions in a modern and

globalised world. Its content would equally be of interest to contempo-

rary Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava practitioners who would value an academically

reasoned insight into the current condition of ISKCON, the tradition’s

largest formal institution.

Angela R. Burt’s book is the first comprehensive academic study of ISKCON

that focuses on events during that critical period. The big questions that have

informed her enquiry are: What form did religious leadership in ISKCON

assume after the passing away of the founder, and what were the key features

and effects of that leadership within the institution? The book constitutes a

qualitative study of religious leadership in ISKCON in the period following the

death of its founder—the period that marks a crisis of succession.

The broad methodological approach is historical, and documentary sourc-

es form the backbone of the research. They include ISKCON’s annual GBC

meeting minutes and resolutions, other ISKCON managerial meeting minutes,

GBC position papers, papers written by gurus and the GBC on the position of

the guru in ISKCON, letters by the GBC and individuals, and transcripts of the

final conversations with Prabhupada. The research also involved conducting

semi-structured oral history interviews with people who were members of

ISKCON in the period under study, and also with scholars who had studied

ISKCON in that time. The material also includes newspaper coverage of ISK-

CON leaders who took the position of religious leaders in the institution after

the death of Prabhupada.

The book can be divided into two parts. The first part, chapters 2–5, is

historical and descriptive, and focus on narrating the events in ISKCON from

1977 to 1987 that are at the heart of the succession crisis. They describe reli-

gious leadership in ISKCON, the crisis of succession, the guru reform move-

ment and the experiences of disciples of the successor gurus. Special atten-

tion has been given to women’s experiences since the gurus were all male

and most of the leadership positions were dominated by men. The second

part, chapters 6–8, constitute analytical chapters which discuss the major

issues from thematic and theoretical perspectives.

The essence ISKCON’s difficulties centered on the legitimacy of the spiri-

tual and institutional authority of the eleven disciples of Prabhupada, who

were thought to have been appointed by him to succeed him as gurus. When

the same gurus were assigned geographical areas where they operated as the

sole initiating gurus, there arose an arrangement called the zonal acharya sys-

tem, which implied that the same gurus were also administrative heads of their

respective zones. However, Prabhupada had also set up a governing board, the

Governing Body Commission (GBC) to oversee the management of the entire

organisation. The inevitable question was: what is the relationship of the zonal

acharyas to the GBC? The crisis was precipitated by the increasingly question-

able behavior of some of the gurus. When some of them evidently deviated

from standards expected within the tradition, their authority was seriously

compromised, which brought the entire organization into a deep crisis.230

Journal of Vaishnava Studies

It comes as no surprise that events that took place during this period have

also engendered intense self-scrutiny within the movement that still lingers

on to some extent. Quite a lot has been written on these events, especially

within the movement itself, and Burt’s book doesn’t provide any special rev-

elations in terms of historical detail. It is nevertheless important that the

sequence of events is narrated in detail, looked at from different viewpoints

and carefully documented with multiple sources of reliable information. Burt

has done an admirable job in putting the story together by attending to dif-

ferent voices and viewpoints both within and outside ISKCON. The overall

picture of the various developments is coherent and hard to challenge in

terms of factual information.

But there is a deeper question: what does it all mean? It is especially the

second, analytical part of the book that breaks some new ground and pro-

vides some fresh insights into the broader meaning of the crisis. Unlike many

scholars who have studied ISKCON, Burt does not view ISKCON as a new reli-

gious movement, but rather a new institution that is part of an older tradition. The

change in viewpoint may seem small, but in the case of ISKCON, it helps to

frame the problem in a particularly accurate and fruitful way: the leadership

challenges that beset ISKCON after the death of the founder can be analyzed

as part of the tension produced when a very traditional religious culture is

institutionalised in a modern, global context, especially with the help of mod-

ern institutional structures. In other words, at issue is not just power—and its

possible misuse by unscrupulous individuals, as the “cult” stereotype would

have it—but broader issues such as Indian vs. Western conceptions of author-

ity, sacred vs. secular authority, traditional vs. modern institutions, individual

charisma vs. institutional authority, and so on. While one may doubt some of

Burt’s assessments, the way she frames the questions helps to bring new light

to some very important and real issues.

One could easily make a mistake of imagining ISKCON as simply represent-

ing the traditional, Indian, sacred and charismatic side of these dichotomies.

Burt’s study shows that the reality is much more complicated and nuanced,

and that many of the issues that were to be resolved in the crisis stem pre-

cisely from the fact that Prabhupada himself (and some of his predecessors)

had envisioned an organization that incorporated modern institutions such

as a governing board (the GBC) with democratic decision-making procedures.

In Prabhupada’s vision the GBC would act as the ultimate managing authority

that would ensure that the movement would stay unified after his demise.Book Reviews 231 231

Yet, as Burt’s study shows, the sacred or spiritual authority is still very

much vested in gurus, which is to say, it is vested on tradition and on indi-

vidual charisma. The devotees tend to place their ultimate loyalty on the

gurus rather than an administrative organ, i.e., the GBC. It was thus inevi-

table that at some point these forms of authority came into tension with each

other. This is not to say that such tension is necessarily bad, or even likely to

cause trouble. In the best case, ISKCON may reap the benefits of both types of

authority—stay unified as an international organization under which indi-

vidual charismatic gurus may attract groups of followers. Whether ISKCON

fully succeeds in this, only the future will tell, but the structural issue needs to

be recognized and deeply reflected upon, for otherwise it may turn into a sort

of pathology.

Angela Burt’s book is not only an important addition to the scholarship on

ISKCON, but also a welcome contribution to the more general scholarship on

religious leadership and religious authority under modernity. Furthermore,

it is not only scholarly readership that are likely to find the book interest-

ing and insightful. It is written from a methodological perspective that is

likely to resonate with the experience of ISKCON members themselves. Burt

has delved deeply into the guru-issue within ISKCON and through interview

material she is also able to give voice to people who may not have been on

center stage in the organization’s many power struggles.

Leading the Hare Krishna Movement, based on Angela Burt’s doctoral

thesis, analyzes the succession crisis faced by ISKCON following the

death of its charismatic founder. The struggles will seem familiar to stu-

dents of new religious movements, though the particulars are unique.

As Burt explains, the ailing Prabhupada appointed 11 senior disciples

as gurus to continue initiating new members of ISKCON. Each guru

was responsible for a “zone” which often comprised several nations; the

whole planet was divvied up.

Prabhupada had previously created the GBC, a group of prominent

male disciples (currently 34), to be the major managerial body for all

of ISKCON. However, he failed to specify how the roles of the gurus

and the GBC were to mesh. In the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, gurus

have traditionally held absolute power. Only some of the GBC members

were gurus, and several of the most forceful gurus were not on the

GBC. Compounding matters, most senior disciples were neither GBC

members nor gurus.

Initially, the two partially overlapping groups managed the death of

the founder well, providing devotees with a clear sense of continuity.

However, struggles over authority, power, and legitimacy soon arose.

The 11 new initiating gurus began assuming the roles and abso-

lute status of the recently deceased and deeply revered Prabhupada,

much to the chagrin of other long-­ term devotees who had as much or

more experience and often better scholarly credentials. Some devotees

claimed that the new gurus should be worshipped. Others said they

were simply providing initiations as proxies for the late Prabhupada.

It seems that Prabhupada selected the gurus for their faithful service

and managerial abilities—­ not remarkable spiritual qualifications—­ yet

the young gurus were literally worshipped by their disciples. The adula-

tion was more than most could handle. Within a few years three had

“fallen down” (broken one or more of their vows). Burt treats the gurus’

transgressions discreetly. Readers unfamiliar with the lurid details will

want to consult the internet, which should clarify why reforms were es-

sential for the survival of ISKCON.

Meanwhile, the GBC was dominated by the gurus within it, while

also facing conflict with powerful gurus not on the GBC, as it attempted

to provide guidance to the whole movement. Burt describes the many

twists and turns of the succession struggles as they developed over the

following decades. It is a long, complex story with many ins and outs,

compounded by power struggles and turf wars over the “zonal acha-

rya system.” She presents the complex tale in a clear and intelligible

manner—­ no mean feat.

Steven J. Gelberg

"An extraordinary piece of scholarship" 

Loosely speaking, "Leading the Hare Krishna Movement" might qualify as an extended commentary on the notion that “Every religion begins in mysticism and ends in politics” (credited to American Catholic Benedictine monk, Br. David Steindl-Rast). More specifically, it is a masterfully executed, scholarly study of what happened to one of the best known Hindu religious transplants to the West, the Hare Krishna movement, when its founder/guru passed away in 1977, a mere 11 years after having established the group. The loss of the founder was a devastating blow to his disciples and followers, and was followed by several years of highly contentious debates and confrontations between different factions of disciples, mostly focused on the issue of “Who’s in charge now?” It was claimed by some that the founder had named eleven spiritual successors, an ostensive “appointment” that was called into serious question when one after another of the supposed appointees were found to have violated basic ethical vows (usually relating to sex and drugs). This internal discord presented acute challenges to the continuing cohesion of the organization, generated a few significant schisms, and led to thousands of followers leaving the group over the following years (including this reviewer).