Death
On November 13, 1987, five years after Jayatirtna had left ISKCON, he was murdered by his disciple Antony Tiernan. Antony Tiernan was viewed by many of Jayatirtha’s serious minded students as a man on the edge with a fanatical and unpredictable streak, who proclaimed himself to be the topmost disciple. Although he was caught redhanded, he was not tried for murder and pleaded guilty to manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility. The trial date was changed at the last moment and although friends and family of Jayatirtha had flown from America to London to attend the trial, it went ahead unbeknown to them, his family in the U.K. and his students alike. Not a single person known to Jayatirtha was present in the court room other than the murderer, who had slashed a surface cut across his palms at the scene of the crime to solicit pity upon himself. The bereft community that had been working with and under the guidance of Jayatirtha, while waiting for the date the trial was to commence, where shocked to read of the outcome in the newspapers. A proposal by an editor to publish his obituary in ISKCON World Review was turned down by the editor-in-chief, Mukunda Goswami, in spite of the fact that Jayatirtha was one of the senior members of ISKCON and an early supporter of ISKCON World Review.
Read more about this topic: Jayatirtha Dasa
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“As for death one gets used to it, even if it’s only other people’s death you get used to.”
—Enid Bagnold (1889–1981)
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Know then the thing that swells thee is thy bane;
For the same beauty doth, in bloody leaves.
The sentence of thy early death contain.”
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