Hare Krishna (ISKCON): Who Are They and What Do They Believe?

Many people first meet the Hare Krishna movement on a city street: devotees in saffron and white with drums and cymbals, singing a short chant over and over. Fewer know what the chant means, who started the movement, or what it teaches about God, the soul and Jesus Christ.

This article sets out what the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) believes, in its own words, tells its history honestly, and gives the Orthodox Christian answer, courteous to the people involved and clear in substance: Krishna is not God, the chant does not save, and the Lord whom ISKCON calls "our guru" is the only Saviour of the world.

In brief

ISKCON belongs to Gaudiya (Bengali) Vaishnavism, the devotional tradition spread by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486-1534), whom his followers revere as Krishna himself. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977) founded ISKCON in New York in July 1966. It teaches that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, that the eternal soul passes from body to body until it returns to Krishna in love, and that the surest path is chanting the "maha-mantra" while avoiding meat, intoxication, gambling and illicit sex. The movement grew fast, then failed gravely: a leader was expelled in 1987 and later imprisoned, and children were abused in its boarding schools, as ISKCON's own journal documented in 1998. ISKCON honours Jesus as a teacher and "representative of God." The Orthodox Church answers that Jesus is the eternal Son of God made flesh once in history, who truly died and rose, and that salvation is union with God through Him, not the release of the soul through devotion to Krishna.

Thesis: ISKCON is a sincere and disciplined devotional movement, but its teaching about God, the soul and salvation is false, and the Christ it honours as a guru is the incarnate Lord who calls Hare Krishna devotees, like everyone, to faith and baptism.

Where the movement comes from

Chaitanya and Gaudiya Vaishnavism

ISKCON describes itself as belonging to "the Gaudiya-Vaishnava sampradāya, a monotheistic tradition within the Vedic or Hindu culture," based on the Bhagavad-gita and the Bhagavata Purana (the Srimad-Bhagavatam).¹ Within Vaishnavism, the worship of Vishnu and his forms, the Gaudiya school traces itself to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486-1534), a Bengali ascetic who spread ecstatic devotion to Krishna and congregational chanting of his names.² ISKCON calls him a "16th century saint and avatar."³

The Gaudiya claim goes further than "avatar." The opening of the Chaitanya-charitamrita, the chief biography of Chaitanya, says that Radha and Krishna, "one in Their identity," had separated, and "Now these two transcendental identities have again united, in the form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya."⁴ For devotees, Chaitanya is Krishna himself in the mood of Radha.

Prabhupada and New York, 1966

ISKCON's founder was born Abhay Charan De in Calcutta on 1 September 1896. At their first meeting in 1922 the Gaudiya teacher Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati asked him to take Krishna's teaching to the English-speaking world, and in 1933 he became his disciple. In 1965, nearly seventy, he sailed for America on the cargo ship Jaladuta, began teaching in New York, and in July 1966 established ISKCON from a storefront on the Lower East Side. He died in Vrindavana, India, on 14 November 1977.⁵ {{very-strong: ISKCON was founded in New York in July 1966 by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, a Bengali Vaishnava teacher who had arrived in America in 1965.}}

ISKCON says that its Governing Body Commission (GBC) was set up in 1970, that Prabhupada had an estimated 5,000 initiated disciples at his death, and that it now has an estimated one million members.⁶

What ISKCON teaches

Krishna, "the Supreme Personality of Godhead"

Against Hindu schools that treat ultimate reality as formless, Prabhupada insisted that God is a person. In his translation Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Krishna says, "there is no truth superior to Me," and the purport explains that "the Absolute Truth is the Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa."⁷ The Gaudiya reading also reverses a common Vaishnava order. Many Hindus regard Krishna as an avatar of Vishnu; for ISKCON, Krishna is the source of every avatar. A favourite Bhagavatam verse, in Prabhupada's translation, says the other incarnations "are either plenary portions or portions of the plenary portions of the Lord, but Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the original Personality of Godhead."⁸ The site's article on whether Hinduism is polytheistic gives the wider background.

The soul and rebirth

Each living being is an eternal soul, distinct from the body: "As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones" (Gita 2.22, ISKCON's translation).⁹ Suffering comes from forgetting our relationship with Krishna. By chanting God's names, ISKCON says, "the soul can reawaken his original spiritual knowledge" and at death "return to the spiritual realm."³ The article on karma, reincarnation and moksha covers the wider Hindu views.

The maha-mantra and the four principles

The heart of practice is the "great mantra":

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

ISKCON explains that "Hare refers to God's energy," while Krishna and Rama name God "as the all-attractive and all-powerful one." It is chanted softly on beads (japa) or sung aloud with instruments (kirtan).¹⁰ Prabhupada set the standard for disciples: they reject "four prohibited items" ("illicit sex life, intoxication, gambling and flesh-eating") while "accepting the daily chanting of at least sixteen rounds of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra."¹¹ Temples hold daily worship (arati) before the images on the altar, Sunday programmes with kirtan, a talk on the Gita and a vegetarian meal, and Ratha-yatra processions.¹² Food is first offered to Krishna and eaten as prasada, which Prabhupada glossed as "the remnants of food offered to Kṛṣṇa"; ISKCON teaches that whoever "lovingly offers his food to God" in this way "becomes freed from sinful reactions, or karma."¹³

Salvation comes by surrender. ISKCON's translation of the Gita's closing promise reads: "Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear" (18.66). The purport adds that "simply by the process of surrendering to Śrī Kṛṣṇa" one is "automatically freed."¹⁴ Other Hindu commentators read the verse differently; see the article on what the Bhagavad Gita actually teaches.

Growth, controversy and failure

The religion scholar J. Gordon Melton notes that by the early 1970s the movement had been "branded as a 'cult,'" and that in the 1980s it faced forced "deprogrammings" and a multimillion-dollar brainwashing judgment that was later overturned on appeal.²

Other failures came from within. Kirtanananda Swami, leader of the New Vrindaban community in West Virginia, was excommunicated by the GBC in 1987 "for serious legal and moral transgressions," in ISKCON's own words.¹⁵ Convicted of racketeering in 1991, he pleaded guilty at a retrial in 1996 and was sentenced to twenty years, reduced to twelve in 1997 because of ill health.¹⁶

The gravest failure was the abuse of children. In 1998 the ISKCON Communications Journal published a study by the sociologist E. Burke Rochford, with Jennifer Heinlein, of the movement's boarding schools (gurukulas) from 1972 to the mid-1980s. It describes children "abused physically, psychologically and sexually by people responsible for their care," traces this to leaders who treated family life as spiritual weakness and left parents powerless, and admits that "no one knows how many of ISKCON's children were abused."¹⁷ Former pupils sued for $400 million; ISKCON's spokesman said it had formed a Child Protection Office in 1998, and temples filed for bankruptcy protection in February 2002.¹⁸ In May 2005 a federal bankruptcy court approved a plan for six California temples that included $9.5 million for people who said they had been abused (a similar plan was approved in West Virginia), and the society said it had found more than 350 further claimants worldwide.¹⁹ {{very-strong: Children in ISKCON's boarding schools were abused in the 1970s and 1980s; ISKCON's own journal published the evidence in 1998, and $9.5 million was set aside for abuse claimants under a court-approved plan in 2005.}}

ISKCON deserves credit for publishing the study. Christians have no ground for complacency: churches, the Orthodox not excepted, have had their own abuse scandals.

What ISKCON says about Jesus

ISKCON does not reject Jesus. In The Science of Self-Realization, Prabhupada calls him "the son of God, the representative of God" and says, "He is our guru," while adding that "the message that Christ preached was just according to his particular time, place, and country."²⁰ In a 1974 conversation, a Benedictine monk explained that Christ comes from the Greek Christos, "the anointed one." Prabhupada replied: "Christos is the Greek version of the word Kṛṣṇa." Whether one says Krishna or Christ, he concluded, "the name is the same."²¹ The same book allows that "Christ can take the sufferings for the previous sins of his devotees," but condemns Christians who reason, "If there is any sin, Christ will suffer for us," as "a most abominable conclusion." Picturing a murderer who asks for his father to be hanged in his place, it says that "when you commit sinful activities, you must suffer," and adds, "This is God's law." Of the crucifixion it says, "they could not actually kill him."²⁰

ISKCON's 2004 interfaith statement adds that "ISKCON recognises that no one religion holds a monopoly on the truth, the revelation of God, or our relationship with God."²²

The Orthodox answer

"Christ" and "Krishna" are not the same name

The monk had already given the right answer. Christos comes from the Greek verb chrio, "to anoint," and the Greek Old Testament uses it for the Hebrew mashiach, Messiah.²³ St John's Gospel says so: "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated, the Christ) (John 1:41).²⁴ "Christ" is the title of the anointed King promised to Israel; it has no connection with the Sanskrit name of a Hindu deity. {{very-strong: "Christ" is the Greek translation of the Hebrew "Messiah," meaning "anointed"; it is unrelated to the Sanskrit name Krishna.}} The name that saves is not a sound that works the same in any language. It is the name of a Person: God "has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow" (Philippians 2:9-10).²⁵

One Incarnation, in history

Krishna in the Gita says he appears "millennium after millennium" whenever religion declines (4.7-8).²⁶ The Gospel says something different in kind. The Word, who is God, "became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14), once, "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea" (Luke 3:1). He appeared "once at the end of the ages" to "put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Hebrews 9:26), and in Him "dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9).²⁷ The Creed confesses that the only-begotten Son, "of one essence with the Father," "for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man."²⁸ He united human nature to Himself for ever and will come again "to judge the living and the dead." The Incarnation cannot be fitted into a series of avatars. Jesus is not a representative sent by Krishna; He is the Lord.

He truly died, and truly rose

The claim that "they could not actually kill him" contradicts the apostolic faith. St Paul handed on, "first of all," that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day" (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).²⁹ The Orthodox Church does not present the Cross as a father hanged in place of a guilty son who means to go on sinning, the picture Prabhupada attacked. It confesses that the sinless Son of God freely entered death and destroyed it from within: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life."³⁰ Prabhupada was right that Christians must stop sinning rather than presume on grace. He was wrong that sin is cancelled by surrender to Krishna or paid off by our own suffering under karma. Even Christian fasting is not read that way: Christians do not fast thinking their hunger "can somehow serve as a 'reparation' for their sins," for there is no reparation "but the crucifixion of Christ."³¹ Healing comes from the risen Christ, given in baptism, the Eucharist and repentance.

Resurrection, not transmigration

The Christian hope is the resurrection of the body, not the soul's escape from bodies. "It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).³² St Irenaeus of Lyons, in the second century, answered transmigration directly: souls remember nothing of earlier lives; rather, "as each one of us receives his body through the skilful working of God, so does he also possess his soul," and all will "rise again, having their own bodies, and having also their own souls."³³ The anathemas against Origenism associated with the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) condemn anyone who "asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls."³⁴ A person is not an eternal spark wearing a series of bodies but one created person, body and soul (see What Is a Human Being? and the soul after death).

Union with God by grace, not release by devotion

The goal ISKCON offers, an eternal soul restored to loving service of Krishna in his realm, is not the goal Christ gives. St Athanasius summed up the Gospel: "He was made man that we might be made God."³⁵ The Orthodox call this theosis: by grace, not by nature, human beings come to share the life of the Holy Trinity through union with the incarnate Son, in His Church and her Mysteries (see What Is Theosis?). That gift has one door: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6); "there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).³⁶ ISKCON's statement that no religion holds "a monopoly on the truth" sounds humble, but it quietly denies what Jesus said about Himself. If He is who He said, He is not one guru among many.

In 1994 the Russian Orthodox Church's Council of Bishops declared the "new religious movements" that look for a worldview "in reformed Eastern religions" "incompatible with Christianity," while forbidding "an intolerant attitude toward the bearers" of these teachings and telling the faithful to pray for them (the article's translation from the Russian).³⁷

The chant and the Jesus Prayer

Orthodox monks also pray with a prayer rope, but the likeness is outward. The Jesus Prayer is not a technique that works by sound; it is a cry of repentance to the incarnate Son, prayed within the Church by the baptised (see the guide to prayer, fasting and the Jesus Prayer). The maha-mantra calls on Krishna and his divine energy, not on the Holy Trinity. An Orthodox Christian therefore should not join in kirtan as worship, or knowingly eat food as Krishna's prasada. St Paul says that if someone tells you, "This was offered to idols," then "do not eat it for the sake of the one who told you, and for conscience' sake" (1 Corinthians 10:28).³⁸ Friendship and conversation with devotees are another matter, and Christians should be generous with both.

Objections and replies

"ISKCON is monotheistic, so it worships the same God."

ISKCON does call itself monotheistic and rejects an impersonal Absolute. But a personal God is not automatically the true God. The Christian God is the Father who eternally begets the Son and from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds, one God in three Persons. Krishna, as ISKCON describes him, is the source of many avatars, joined in love with Radha, and come again as Chaitanya. These are not two descriptions of the same Person.

"ISKCON honours Jesus more than many Christians do."

Honour that makes Jesus a guru whose message fitted "his particular time, place, and country" is not the honour He asked for. He accepted Thomas's confession, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). To call Him a teacher while denying His divinity, saving death and resurrection is to honour someone other than the Jesus of the Gospels.

"Christians break 'Thou shalt not kill' by eating meat."

The commandment forbids murder ("You shall not murder," Exodus 20:13), and after the Flood God told Noah, "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you" (Genesis 9:3).³⁹ The Church does call her children to long seasons without meat (in Great Lent "No meat is allowed after Meatfare Sunday"), but as a fast of repentance, not because animals are souls passing through rebirth.

What we can say confidently

• ISKCON belongs to Gaudiya Vaishnavism, which reveres Chaitanya (1486-1534) as Krishna himself; Prabhupada founded it in New York in July 1966.
• It teaches that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and source of all avatars, that souls transmigrate, and that the maha-mantra, sixteen daily rounds and the four regulative principles lead the soul back to Krishna.
• Children were abused in ISKCON's boarding schools in the 1970s and 1980s; ISKCON's own journal published the evidence in 1998, and a 2005 court-approved plan set aside $9.5 million for abuse claimants.
• Prabhupada honoured Jesus as a guru, claimed that "Christ" and "Krishna" are one name, insisted that the sinner "must suffer" under "God's law," and said of the crucifixion that "they could not actually kill him."
• "Christ" translates "Messiah," "anointed"; it has no common origin with "Krishna."

What remains disputed

• {{debated: How many children were abused in ISKCON's schools; Rochford's study says no one knows, and further claimants came forward after the 2002 filings.}}
• ISKCON's present size: its own estimate is about one million members, with no independent census.
• How far the 1970s and 1980s "cult" charges reflected real coercion rather than parental fear; the brainwashing judgment Melton mentions was overturned on appeal.
• The dating of the Krishna traditions in the Mahabharata and the Puranas, and their relation to any historical figure, are debated by scholars.

Conclusion

The Hare Krishna movement draws people who want God to be personal, beautiful and near. That desire is good, but only the true God fulfils it. The Orthodox Church, the one Church of the Creed, proclaims that the eternal Son became a man once, in Judea, under Pontius Pilate; that He truly died and rose bodily, trampling down death by death; and that He gives Himself in baptism and the Holy Eucharist so that we may share His life. Krishna devotees honour the name of Christ without yet knowing Him as Lord. The Church's invitation to them is the apostles' own: come and see the risen Lord, be baptised, and find in Him the love you have been seeking.

Notes

1. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, "What is ISKCON?" https://iskcon.org/what-is-iskcon/.
2. J. Gordon Melton, "International Society for Krishna Consciousness," Contemporary American Religion, via Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/legal-and-political-magazines/international-society-krishna-consciousness (Chaitanya dated 1486-1534).
3. ISKCON, "What is Krishna Consciousness?" https://iskcon.org/what-is-krishna-consciousness/.
4. Krishnadasa Kaviraja, Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila 1.5, trans. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Bhaktivedanta VedaBase, https://vedabase.io/en/library/cc/adi/1/5/.
5. ISKCON, "His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada," https://iskcon.org/srila-prabhupada/.
6. ISKCON, "History," https://iskcon.org/history/ (the page misprints Prabhupada's death year as 1967; ISKCON's founder page gives 14 November 1977); ISKCON, "Governance," https://iskcon.org/governance/.
7. Bhagavad-gita As It Is 7.7 with purport, Bhaktivedanta VedaBase, https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/7/7/.
8. Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.3.28 with purport, trans. Prabhupada, Bhaktivedanta VedaBase, https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/1/3/28/.
9. Bhagavad-gita As It Is 2.22 (compare 2.13), Bhaktivedanta VedaBase, https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/2/22/.
10. ISKCON, "Hare Krishna Maha-Mantra," https://iskcon.org/meditation/.
11. Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.21.42, purport, Bhaktivedanta VedaBase, https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/4/21/42/.
12. ISKCON, "FAQ," questions 9-10, https://iskcon.org/faq/; ISKCON, "History" (Rathayatra), https://iskcon.org/history/.
13. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The Science of Self-Realization, chapter 4, Bhaktivedanta VedaBase, https://vedabase.io/en/library/ssr/4/; ISKCON, "Vegetarianism," https://iskcon.org/vegetarianism/.
14. Bhagavad-gita As It Is 18.66 with purport, Bhaktivedanta VedaBase, https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/18/66/.
15. ISKCON News Staff, "Kirtanananda Swami, Expelled ISKCON Leader, Passes Away In India," ISKCON News, 25 October 2011, https://iskconnews.org/kirtanananda-swami-expelled-iskcon-leader-passes-away-in-india/.
16. Associated Press, "Former US Hare Krishna leader dies in India at 74," NBC News, October 2011, https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna45021242.
17. E. Burke Rochford Jr. with Jennifer Heinlein, "Child Abuse in the Hare Krishna Movement: 1971-1986," ISKCON Communications Journal 6, no. 1 (June 1998), https://www.iskconcommunications.org/iskcon-journal/vol-6/child-abuse-in-the-hare-krishna-movement-1971-1986.
18. Associated Press, "Hare Krishna's Bankruptcy Plans," CBS News, 7 February 2002, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hare-krishnas-bankruptcy-plans; the 2000 suit and the February 2002 filing are also reported in the 2005 AP report in the next note.
19. Associated Press, "Hare Krishna plan OK'd by U.S. court," 24 May 2005, reproduced by World-Wide Religious News, https://wwrn.org/articles/16956.
20. Prabhupada, The Science of Self-Realization, chapter 4, section "Christ, Christians, and Kṛṣṇa," Bhaktivedanta VedaBase, https://vedabase.io/en/library/ssr/4/.
21. Prabhupada, The Science of Self-Realization, chapter 4, "Kṛṣṇa or Christ: The Name Is the Same" (conversation with Fr Emmanuel Jungclaussen, Frankfurt, 1974), https://vedabase.io/en/library/ssr/4/.
22. ISKCON, ISKCON in Relation to People of Faith in God (ISKCON and Interfaith statement), part one, ISKCON Communications, https://www.iskconcommunications.org/statements/interfaith-statement; dated 2004 in ISKCON, "FAQ," question 13, https://iskcon.org/faq/.
23. Thayer's Greek Lexicon and Strong's G5547, "Christos," Blue Letter Bible, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g5547/kjv/tr/0-1/.
24. John 1:41 (NKJV).
25. Philippians 2:9-10 (NKJV).
26. Bhagavad-gita As It Is 4.7-8, Bhaktivedanta VedaBase, https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/4/8/.
27. John 1:14; Luke 3:1; Hebrews 9:26; Colossians 2:9 (NKJV).
28. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, Orthodox Church in America, "The Creed: The Symbol of Faith," https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/prayers/symbol-of-faith.
29. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (NKJV).
30. Paschal troparion, as given in Thomas Hopko, "Easter Sunday: The Holy Pascha," Orthodox Church in America, https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/easter-sunday-the-holy-pascha.
31. Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, vol. 4, "Fasting," Orthodox Church in America, https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/fasting.
32. Hebrews 9:27 (NKJV).
33. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2.33.1, 5, trans. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut, ANF 1, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103233.htm.
34. "The Anathemas Against Origen," anathema 1, trans. Henry Percival, NPNF2 14, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3812.htm.
35. Athanasius, On the Incarnation 54.3, trans. Archibald Robertson, NPNF2 4, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2802.htm.
36. John 14:6; Acts 4:12 (NKJV).
37. Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, "On pseudo-Christian sects, neo-paganism and occultism" (2 December 1994), extract in Russian at Azbuka very, https://azbyka.ru/aktualnaya-praktika-chinov-prisoedineniya (the article's translation).
38. 1 Corinthians 10:28 (NKJV).
39. Exodus 20:13; Genesis 9:3 (NKJV); Thomas Hopko, "Lenten Fasting," Orthodox Church in America, https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/lenten-fasting.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
• Irenaeus. Against Heresies. Trans. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885.
• Athanasius. On the Incarnation of the Word. Trans. Archibald Robertson. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 4. 1892.
• "The Anathemas Against Origen." Trans. Henry Percival. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 14. 1900.

Orthodox sources

• Orthodox Church in America. "The Creed: The Symbol of Faith."
• Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. "On pseudo-Christian sects, neo-paganism and occultism." Moscow, 2 December 1994 (extract).

Other scholarship and reference

• Melton, J. Gordon. "International Society for Krishna Consciousness." In Contemporary American Religion. Via Encyclopedia.com.
• Rochford, E. Burke, Jr., with Jennifer Heinlein. "Child Abuse in the Hare Krishna Movement: 1971-1986." ISKCON Communications Journal 6, no. 1 (1998).
• Associated Press reports: "Hare Krishna's Bankruptcy Plans" (2002); "Hare Krishna plan OK'd by U.S. court" (2005); "Former US Hare Krishna leader dies in India at 74" (2011).
• Thayer, Joseph Henry. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. "Christos." Via Blue Letter Bible.

Sources from ISKCON and the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition

• A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, trans. Bhagavad-gita As It Is; Srimad-Bhagavatam; Krishnadasa Kaviraja, Sri Caitanya-caritamrta. Bhaktivedanta Book Trust; Bhaktivedanta VedaBase online.
• Prabhupada, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. The Science of Self-Realization. Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.
• International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Official website pages: "What is ISKCON?", "What is Krishna Consciousness?", "History", "Governance", "Hare Krishna Maha-Mantra", "FAQ", and the founder's biography.
• ISKCON. ISKCON in Relation to People of Faith in God. ISKCON Communications, 2004.
• ISKCON News. "Kirtanananda Swami, Expelled ISKCON Leader, Passes Away In India." 2011.