The participants of the scientific conference “The Bhagavad-Gita“ in history and modern society” which was held in Tomsk, Russia on 24-25th February,2012, suggested to create an independent board of scholars to evaluate various texts for signs of extremism.

As a result of the conference, a resolution was adopted, which stated: ”The conference has indicated the permanent historical acknowledgement of “Bhagavad Gita”, which carries on the commentatorial tradition of the religious authority, and has shown its spiritual influence on the cultural development not only in India, but also in other countries. Nowadays, this influence is carried by the Vaishnavism movement, where A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s commentary is the most authoritative. The participants of the Conference are firmly convinced that the notion of extremism can’t be applied to such a religious text as “Bhagavad Gita as it is”.

The first Russian Bhagavad-gita in 1788

The scholars expressed “deep satisfaction in regards to Tomsk court’s decision to reject the prosecutor’s plea for recognizing the “Bhagavad Gita As It Is” as extremist literature.”

The resolution was signed by Doctor of Historic Sciences, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Leading Researcher of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences I.Glushkova, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of Siberian State Medicine University N.Karpitskiy, Candidate of Historic Sciences, head of chair in Ancient History, Middle Ages and Methology of History of the National Research Tomsk University, associate professor O.Hazanov. 65 scientists from all over Russia took part in the conference.

It was also mentioned that they were concerned with the low level of the general culture of officers of the law enforcement agencies and the state authorities. “We would like to draw the government’s and society’s attention to the urgent problem of the enforcement practice of the Federal Statute “On counteraction against extremism activity”, which permits nowadays such abuse towards religious organizations”, – the resolution stated.

Some of the scholars participating at the conference

The scholars also expressed their distrust to A.Dvorkin as the president of the Expert commission at the Ministry of Justice of Russian Federation.

The text of the resolution was sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia and to the Indian embassy in Moscow.

Madana-mohana Das (Maksim Osipov), who represented ISKCON Russia at the conference