Jayadvaita Swami

The open letter of 30 September 2026 (vi-2026-09) says the request for the review “was filed by Jayadvaita Swami, Mayapur Shasi das (a disciple of KB), and Gita-Govinda dasi … on KB’s behalf”.

The email by Kesava Bharati’s disciple (vi-2026-10), written to celebrate the outcome, says that after a first draft, “Jayadvaita Maharaja then graciously and generously spent considerable time applying his wonderful expertise and writing skills to the draft, which we then submitted under the names of the three of us.” When the committee left the restrictions to three other bodies, “Jayadvaita Swami wrote to each of these committees in turn, explaining the situation”, and all three “agreed that as they had not been responsible for imposing any restrictions, and as the case verdict had now been over-turned, they had no objections whatsoever in any and all restrictions being lifted.” The email adds: “We should all be extremely grateful to Jayadvaita Swami and to Gita Govinda Devi Dasi.”

According to the open letter, the committee worked from the petitioners’ exhibits and the two written decisions, was not given the CPO’s case file, did not contact the original panel or the victim, and did not re-examine whether the abuse happened. A 20 September 2026 addendum left no institutional restriction on Kesava Bharati’s leadership, teaching, public worship or initiating; two lifetime restrictions remain (no service involving children; no presence where the complainant or her family are present). See Kesava Bharati’s record.

No statement by Jayadvaita Swami on the review has been found.

The 1997 letter (chakra-1997). Replying to Prithu, who had sent him a message about Dhanurdhara Swami, he wrote that “What little I know of the issue comes from having read Nirmal Candra’s web pages, having spent some time with Dhanurdhara Swami and having spoken briefly about the matter with some GBC friends.” He argued that “For the better part of two decades, Dhanurdhara Swami was among a small handful of devotees who kept pleading with the GBC for men and money for the Gurukula”, asked whether parents who had not paid the school’s fees were “now among the noble leaders demanding that Dhanurdhara Swami dissolve into virtual nonexistence for the sake of ISKCON’s integrity”, and concluded against a process in which “for the sake of ‘protecting ISKCON’ we make one man the scapegoat and skin his hide, while carefully protecting our own.” He credited Dhanurdhara with insisting, in 1986, that a teacher accused of abuse be removed from the padayatra, and described the party’s own attitude at the time: “In keeping with the ethos of the day, those of us on the padayatra thought: … even if he might have buggered a kid or two, there weren’t any kids on padayatra … so why not let him stay?” The letter was published in June 2006, as the GBC acted on Dhanurdhara’s case.

The child-protection office (dg-2018). Dhira Govinda dasa, the office’s first director, whose panel decided Dhanurdhara’s case in 1999, wrote in 2018: “Definitely I remember, though, that Jayadvaita Swami and I had lots of communication regarding the case of Dhanurdhara Maharaja. I remember at least one phone conversation of well over an hour … Jayadvaita Swami had some messages he wanted to express, and that he wanted me and everyone involved in the case, to clearly understand.” He added that Jayadvaita Swami was coming from “‘Dhanurdhara Swami is a potent preacher with much to contribute to Srila Prabhupada mission, and that ought to be seriously considered’”, and that he “appreciated all aspects of these exchanges”.

2006 blog posts (js-2006-07). In July 2006, while the GBC Executive Committee was deciding restrictions on Dhanurdhara, he wrote on his own website that “brutal abuse of Vaishnava children constitutes a Vaishnava aparadha”, but that “These days the term ‘child abuse’ seems to cover a broad territory, encompassing everything from punishing a kid with a smack to forcing children into repeated acts of sodomy”, and that he was not “ready to insist on punishing devotees for acting in the context of the times in which they acted”. These posts do not name Dhanurdhara.

Later. He has continued to support Dhanurdhara publicly, including a 2025 guest article on Dhanurdhara’s blog defending him in a dispute with the website Dandavats (wod-2025). In 1987 the two of them and Bhurijana Dasa co-founded the Vrindaban Institute for Higher Education.

No response from Jayadvaita Swami on his role in the case has been found.