"Jayadwaita
Means Parampara"
A recollection by Devamrta Swami
Srila Prabhupada was touring the BBT in 1975, to turn up the heat in the famous book
production marathon. He came into my office and I explained to him my service as copy
editor--doing the final checks on type-composed copy. Next he walked into Jayadwaita das
brahmachari's office. Sitting down on the chaddar of his chief English editor, he
declared, "Jayadwaita means parampara."
A year or so later I was the production manager of the BBT, as well as final copy editor.
One day I noticed a pile of manuscript pages on my desk. They turned out to be a mass of
Bhagavatam revisions, for a corrected version of the entire First Canto. Jayadwaita had
painstakingly gone through the whole Canto and carefully compiled many editing changes for
an upcoming reprint. Submitting the whole batch to Srila Prabhupada, he expected, as did
all of us, that Prabhupada would personally comb through all the suggested revisions and
accept or reject each one. After all, this was the Bhagavatam, the lawbook for thousands
of years to come.
But Prabhupada, after acknowledging the whole heap of revisions to his synonyms,
translations, and purports, merely returned the mass. Accompanying it was a letter from
him saying: "Whatever Jayadwaita does is all right with me."
We may note that either before or after Prabhupada's departure, there has never been any
philosophical controversy arising from any of the revisions themselves. Has there been
some little quibbling about the crucial import of the text? For those few who may feel
they cannot trust the English editions revised after Prabhupada's departure, the old
editions are still existing. They should be preserved and available somewhere, perhaps on
every continent, so that a meticulous or anxious devotee may journey to them, and be
satisfied that all is well in the vital issue of shastra fidelity. Also, present and
future scholars of religion can have their fun, scrutinizing the original manuscripts and
first editions. No waywardness indicating even a minute change in the philosophy will
emerge.
Meanwhile the conditioned souls and thirsty devotees can go on relishing the nectar of
reading and distributing Prabhupada's books. |