The Glorious Disappearance of Vaishnavas

ISKCON’s Vision of Exemplary Death

Authors

  • Anna King University of Winchester Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v6i1.103

Keywords:

bereavement, death, dying, hospice, internet, ISKCON, Krishna, Prabhupada, Samadhi

Abstract

This article examines accounts of the deaths of notable ISKCON devotees, beginning with that of the founder, and shows how these are presented as examples to other devotees. Death is understood as merely a transition, and the glorious death as the culmination of a process of conscious dying which takes place within the communion of devotees. Recollecting these glorious deaths, devotees learn how to die and how to mourn. From this perspective, pain and suffering are trials given by Krishna to purify his devotees. They are therefore never beyond the capacity of the individual bhakta (devotee) to endure, and can be welcomed and transcended. The final goal is an auspicious and joyful death, which may be far from the kind of instant death for which many now hope. This article argues that ISKCON’s understandings of dying, death and mourning are shaped by the Hindu/ Chaitanyite Vaishnava tradition, but are also being transformed in turn by the new globalized media, particularly the worldwide web, by biomedical models and by ‘Western’ approaches epitomized by the hospice movement. The glorious disappearance now therefore exhibits traditional, modern and postmodern features.

Author Biography

  • Anna King, University of Winchester

    Anna S. King is Reader in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Winchester, and attached to the University of Winchester Centre of Religions for Reconciliation and Peace. She trained as a social anthropologist at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford. She is the contributing editor with Professor John Brockington of The Intimate Other: Love Divine in Indic Religions (Delhi: OrientLongman, 2004), and contributing editor of Indian Religions: Renaissance and Renewal (London: Equinox, 2006). Anna has published in the areas of contemporary spirituality(ies), and global Hinduism and Islam. She has a long standing interest in Vaishnavism and ISKCON and has two articles, ‘For Love of Krishna’, and ‘Thealogising Radha’, in The Hare Krishna Movement: Forty Years of Chant and Change, edited by Graham Dwyer and Richard J. Cole (London and New York: I. B. Tauris: 134–67; 193–29). Recent articles on ISKCON include Vedic Science and Modern Science; Krishna’s Cows: ISKCON’s Animal Theology and Practice, and Krishna’s Prasadam: ‘Eating our Way back to Godhead’. Anna was consultant to the 2012 ethnographic film LEAP directed by the Finnish director, Jouko Aaltonen. She is Convenor of the annual Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, and founder and joint editor of Religions of South Asia (RoSA).

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Published

2012-11-23

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 1 (2012)

Section

Articles

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© Equinox Publishing Ltd.

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How to Cite

King, A. (2012). The Glorious Disappearance of Vaishnavas: ISKCON’s Vision of Exemplary Death. Religions of South Asia, 6(1), 103-128. https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v6i1.103