Old, new, borrowed, blue : ISKCON's troubled history with Gaudiya Vaisnavism

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON, or the Hare Krishna movement) has generally been studied as a Western new religious movement (NRM) with a sociological genesis in the 1960s American counterculture. At the same time, ISKCON's claim to a genealogical heritage in the venerable Bengali Vaisnava tradition in India has been supported by many NRM scholars. The question concerning ISKCON's origins – Indian or American, old or new – has had political, legal and sectarian consequences throughout the life of the movement. This article revisits the question of ISKCON's cultural genesis by providing a brief overview of the movement's cross-cultural development from the 1960s to the present. It shows how the discovery of Gaudiya Vaisnavism by Western Krishna converts has been a gradual, often tense, yet highly productive process of cross-cultural encounter and theological exchange, ultimately leading to the sectarian affirmation of ISKCON's distinct religious identity over and against the claims of the Indian tradition.