successor gurus and geographical zoned in 1977 - questions

In 1977 the ISKCON successor gurus were represented as follows. However this chart is incomplete.

Can anybody remember any of the guru names and/or orther geographical initiating zone I have not listed below

Suryaz.



Initiated Name ----- Initiating Geographical Zone --- Guru Name


Bhagavan-dasa ---- Western Europe ? ---- Guru-deva

Bhavananda Goswami ---- Australia, NZ, Mayapur ---- Vishnupada

Hamsadutta Swami ---- Germany, San Francisco ? ---- ?

Harikesha Swami ---- Northern and Eastern Europe ---- Vishnupada

Hrdayananda Goswami ---- Central and South America ? ---- ?

Jayapataka Swami ---- USA, India ? ---- ?

Jayathirta-däsa ---- UK ? ----- Tirthapada

Kirtanananda Swami ---- New Vrndavana USA ---- Bhaktipada

Rameshvara Swami ---- Los Angeles, Hawaii ----- ?

Satsvarupa-däsa Goswami ---- USA, Ireland ---- ?

Tamal Krsna Goswami ---- USA, Fiji ---- ?

Initiated Name ----- Initiating Geographical Zone --- Guru Name

Bhagavan-dasa ---- Western Europe ? ---- Guru-deva

In reality France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Italy, Protugal, Luxenburgh
Later he took over Jayatirtha's zone after he blooped in 1982.

Bhavananda Goswami ---- Australia, NZ, Mayapur ---- Vishnupada
Initially Tamal Krsna was going to take Australia and N.Z along with Fiji but he considered the people to be too stupid.

Hamsadutta Swami ---- Germany, San Francisco ? ---- ?
Sri Lanka (was in South India before Jayapataka)
Later Harikesa took over Germany, etc

Harikesha Swami ---- Northern and Eastern Europe ---- Vishnupada


Hrdayananda Goswami ---- Central and South America ? ---- Acharyadeva
Mexico, Florida

Jayapataka Swami ---- USA, India ? ---- Acharyapada
Bengal, Orrisa, South India
Later he considered the whole world to be his guruship zone.

Jayathirta-däsa ---- UK ? ----- Tirthapada
plus South Africa, Mauritius

Kirtanananda Swami ---- New Vrndavana USA ---- Bhaktipada
Pittsburgh, etc

Rameshvara Swami ---- Los Angeles, Hawaii, New York ----- ?

Satsvarupa-däsa Goswami ---- USA, Ireland ---- Gurupada
Gita Nagari, Philadelphia, etc

Tamal Krsna Goswami ---- USA, Fiji ---- Goswami Maharaj
Texas, China, Hong Kong etc

N.B. Initially Vrndavan was a sort of guru-free zone.

Thank's Keshava.


Humm [chuckle] what?


"Initially Tamal Krsna was going to take Australia and N.Z along with Fiji but he considered the people to be too stupid."

Too stupid?


What was this about?

During a class in the Melbourne temple back in 1996 or so (by Kurma, if I remember correctly), a story was told about a class Bhaktivedanta had given in Australia (in Melbourne or Sydney, I forget where). After the class, there were no questions, and afterwards Bhaktivedanta remarked that Australians are stupid people. Maybe this is the source of Tamal Krishna's opinion about Australians?

Regarding the stupidity of us residents of the Southern Hemishpere.

When I attended lectures by Srila Prabhupada in Australia I noticed that the classes were always very long, at least and hour sometimes and hour and a half. The classes were always about very simple subjects like "you are not this body, etc". During one of thses lectures or maybe during question time in Melborne I distinctly remember Srila Prabhupada saying that we had "meat for brains". Meaning that we were all "meat-heads". In Mayapur it was another story. He used to give very short classes and on much higher subject matters. So I concluded that the dumbing down of the lectures was for us Aussies.

Tamal had some unfortune things happen to him in Australia and NZ. He came to visit to scope out the place, and possibly become the Zonal Guru pretty much right away in early 1978. At that time I was in Auckland Temple. It's a little cold in New Zealand and so when he arrived the first thing that we did was bring him into the temple room to see the deities and offer some ritual greeting to him. I was in charge of the foot bathing which was done with pancamrta. However the ghee has to be heated to make it liquid. I believe that I must have heated it too much as I pretty much burned his feet a little. Anyway later we had asked the local press to come for a press conference. So Tamal wanted to get freshly shaved up for that. I shaved his head because Mandapa was a little squeemish and hesitated to do it. He was really frightened of cutting him and the big birthmark on the head thing. Anyway after I finished shaving him up he showered and then was making his way up stairs with a freshly shaved head when a Bhakta coming down the stairs with a big pot of boiling Dhal slipped and dumped the lot over his head. I was standing right next to him on the stairs and I got only slightly splashed with the hot liquid but it made me jump. Well Tamal didn't say anything he just went on up to his room and called for the TP. He yelled a lot at the TP (Yasomatinandana).

Later at the press conference. He was trying to make the point that people should become vegetarians to the reporters. One reporter asked "Do you know how many sheep there are in this country?" Tamal said "No". The guy replied that there were 1 million people and 20 million sheep. So he said if we stop eating the sheep they will over run us.

I think after this he pretty much realised the level of intelligence in NZ at least.

Hey--I resemble that remark!

Interesting that he was travelling with two Kiwis when he died. One died with him, one survived. In his later years he went to NZ quite often. Maybe as a "mental break"? Mukunda Maharaja has retired there also.

I've heard that Kirtananda visited NZ on his R&R during the Korean (?) war and liked it so much that he later sent his Interfaith people there to buy property. They put a deposit on a beautiful piece of land, a peninsula, but ISKCON campaigned against them, even distributing copies of Monkey on Stick! After that fell through, they were in Auckland with their robes...and then they were back in ISKCON.

One (US )sannyasi commenting after visiting Australia for the first time said "it's possible to convince them about anything."

I know that group and spend time with them in NZ. By then, of course, they were back in ISKCON.

ACBS' tactics looks very much like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me (re: someone saying that people's not asking questions after class may have been taken as a sign of stupidity). I would certainly refrain from asking any questions after an extremely long and very basic class, while a class like the one in Mayapur would inspire more questions than I would be allowed to ask.

Speaking generally from personal experience I have always found it difficult or discouraging to engage philosophically or poetically with Australian born devotees. Luckily there are many Australian devotees from the UK, Greece, Italy and Ireland and that has restored my faith in human discourse. I have also enjoyed the privilege of association with Scandinavian born devotees in the early 70's.

Australia is a dry land in more ways than one. As a generality Australian devotees tend to be anti-intellectual, hands on, action oriented types. Unfortunately this can lead to shooting from the hips and pragmatising. These are, of course, generalities.

Also, the ISKCON lecture circuit is hardly the appropriate gauge for the intelligence of a society. (Neither is my personal experience, I admit ).
I mean you have the incident in the Melbourne Town Hall in 1972 (if I recall correctly) when "the Wizard" challenged Prabhupad with some questions and Hanuman Swami took over the mike to admonish the whole audience (many of them devotees, fringe devotees, sadhakas from other paths, theosophists etc) telling us all that we were doomed to hell etc etc. He really got quite heavy. This sort of a climate did not encourage post lecture questioning.

Some Aussies I met in India would always joke about how Aussies are all descendents from the thieves and unsociables sent by England to the island back in the day. No offence intended, I wouldn't post that if I didn't hear it from Australians !

Best argument for being a carnivore ever!

I believe the Wizard was on the receiving end of a Prabhupada "not God but Dog" lines also. He was quite a funny chap, a former lecturer, I believe. His diatribes in Cathedral Square were always quite entertaining. He'd either launch into spiels about all manner of things or confront people in the crowd, the born again Christians being a favorite. On census day he would get into a small boat and sail beyond the 12 mile(?) limit as he was a law unto himself. He also had a small car that he drove backwards. I recall one occassion when the ISKCON devotees went past on harianam and he commented, "See. These are holy people. They are not following chasing the women."

Picture of him here.

Haha. Yeah, that was actually a common argument in NZ.
Although the ratio was off, I think, it's still a lot of animals per person:



By comparison: NZ had a human population of around 3 million from the early 70s, reaching 4 million in the early 90s, I think. And then there are 3.85 million dairy cows also.

Actually Australia's exclusive penal settlement past was quite short lived. However today people there do consider it exotic if one can actually trace one's ancestors to those origin convicts. Just as there are those who trace themselves to the founding pilgrims in the US. It is considered quite a noble ancestry today in Australia if you can trace yourself to a convict. And it does seem to me that the original settlers did make their mark on the society in general. Just as the US is at heart very conservative in regards to morals and religion, Australia is the opposite. The US founded by the religious refugees of Europe and Australia settled by it's criminals. Of course these are certainly only stereo-types and generalizations however to a certain extent they do hold true IMHO.

I ran into this, and after some of the discussion in this topic thought it might be amusing to other readers:

It was because of the Sydeny incident that Tamal did not stay here.