The International Society for Krishna Consciousness

Movement·Founded 1966 CE·No single count. The society reports several hundred temples and a congregation in the hundreds of thousands, with a much smaller full-time monastic and brahmachari population.

Vedic Religion → Hinduism → Vaishnavism → The International Society for Krishna Consciousness

Branch
Precept of The International Society for Krishna Consciousness

The four regulative principles.

No meat, fish or eggs. No intoxicants, tea and coffee included. No gambling. No sex outside marriage for children. Vowed at initiation and enforced by the community.

What it asksNo meat, fish or eggs; no intoxicants including tea and coffee; no gambling; no sex outside marriage for procreation
Who it bindsInitiated devotees, who vow the four regulative principles at initiation
Where it bitesConstantly, and the movement is unusually public about members who fail it
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

The four regulative principles are vowed at initiation and are enforced by the community rather than by conscience alone. The dietary rule is the most visible: ISKCON temples run restaurants and a large food-relief programme, and everything served has been offered first. The intoxicant rule includes caffeine, which surprises people. The sexual rule — intercourse within marriage, for children, with prior chanting — is the one most often relaxed in practice and most often discussed. Devotees generally present the four as a package: the point is not each prohibition but the removal of the four things Prabhupada identified as reliably breaking the practice.

The same ground, other faiths

claims that share this one's ideas
The Manusmriti. Hinduism · scripture Open the book →
The kosher kitchen. Judaism · rite Go deeper →
Marriage, and what the churches ask of it. Christianity Go deeper →
Whether Sikhs should eat meat. Sikhism · core tenet Go deeper →
Kegare, and staying away. Shinto Go deeper →

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