Prabhupada presented Krishna consciousness sensitively, then why did he use the word cult not culture to refer to his movement?
From Karuna Sindhu P
Transcript
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Yes. Question from Karunasandhu Krishnadevopad was sensitive in presenting Krishna consciousness according to his circumstances. Did we see that he used the word kind to talk about Krishna consciousness movement the cult of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and even during Prabhupada’s time the anti-cult movement had started.
So why should Prabhupada not use the word culture instead of cult because it could have avoided much of the criticism. Answer English is a English like all other languages is a fluent language and words acquire certain connotations which change over time. For example 20-30 years ago the word gay just meant cheerful.
Somebody said I went to a gay party that just meant I was going to a cheerful party but now the word has a different connotation. The primary meaning itself is how gay is a person who has a particular sexual orientation and the cheerful aspect is something which is quite secondary. For example nowadays the word wicked even a few decades ago wicked was used in a negative sense but now wicked is used quite often in a positive sense.
That’s wicked wicked means it’s good, very good so words their meanings change and in fact this itself is a whole subject of study in semantics and language studies. So now at the time of Prabhupada the word cult did not have such a negative connotation and Prabhupada himself has studied in the Scottish Church College that was in the 1910 and 1920 and he learned his English at that time. So if we look at Prabhupada’s English in and of itself those devotees who have been familiar with western literature they can clearly see that Prabhupada wrote in the 1960s and 70s but his English was not of 1960s and 70s his English was actually from 1920s to 30s what he had learnt at that time and certainly in 1920s and 30s the cult word had no negative connotation.
We find the word cult used by Dr. Nothakur also by Dr. Zanthakur also and cult just meant a group of people so who had a particular faith and who had a particular set of shared interests and especially in the 1970s there was one group among many, among several the one group had some teacher who claimed to be, some spiritual leader who claimed to be God and then they were living in a very secluded place as a community together and they had all sorts of all men and women would unite with each other and the children that were born were considered community property and it was very scandalous what happened and eventually this leader said that the world is going to end and the protest of your faith in me is that all of you should commit mass suicide and if you commit mass suicide it will be worse and hundreds of people committed mass suicide at that time so especially from that time onwards the word cult so cult became something which was feared and the word cult also started acquiring negative connotation so during Shila Prabhupada time the anti-cult movement was there but the word cult itself had not acquired such a irredeemably negative connotation that happened afterwards, especially from the 1980s onwards when when there were anti-anti-cult movements those groups which were not actually cults when they started vigorously countering the propaganda and they started countering not only the label cult but also the misconceptions that were associated ISKCON was also one of the groups at that time so they started explaining things more systematically but the word cult by that time had both in the public public memory as well as in the in the academic circles acquired a irredeemably negative connotation that’s why we see ISKCON both Prabhupada disciples and Prabhupada grand disciples they practically never used the word cult they used the word culture or tradition or some similar words like that which don’t have such a negative connotation now Shila Prabhupada as far as his editing of his books is concerned Prabhupada wanted editing to make it grammatically sound but changing a word like that is something which many devotees are apprehensive about they think that once you start changes where will it end so that’s why devotees have not changed it and in one sense the readers who read