Jagat

I have been writing about the folk and classical versions of the dāna-keli-līlā , in particular with reference to its classicization in the DKK. My point has been that the difference between the folk tradition and the classical is similar to most low-brow and high-brow culture. In one of my last posts , I gave the analogy of folk music to a symphony, or folk stories to an opera as being the kind of distinction that could be made. There will always be people who favor one or the other, but I think it can be said without too much exaggeration that the latter does require and expect a greater amount of education, or saṁskāra , on the part of the audience. This will, as we have been discussing in the comments on some articles on culture, always be a point of contention: how to popularize something while at the same time making its full power and richenss available; the whole question is one of throwing pearls before swine. I have been reading a couple of nice books that go into many of...

Image taken from www.mythicalmatters.com. Three recent letters, all from women, have provoked a great deal of thought in me and made me realize it was time for some meta-analysis of the material that we have been looking at of late. Some preliminary thoughts have appeared in response to the comment made to the Bana-khanda post and it is probably from there that we should commence. But that anonymous letter is the third in the series. And there have been posts since then, so I really should ignore them all ! The first (Letter A) was posted a little earlier: About the Gosvamis "representing the ideals of our tradition," in this vein I had questioned elsewhere in this blog the fact that the lila might be too Indian for it to be an universal mode of meditation. Especially considering the misogynistic and racist aspects of Indian culture. In modern times, if anything, these traits are anti-ideals. Any comment/reply? The other (B), which was a private correspondence, goes li...

In keeping with classical Sanskrit dramatic forms, Dāna-keli-kaumudī (DKK) begins with a nāndī of two verses, the equivalent of a maṅgalācaraṇa in other Sanskrit texts. Both of these verses are quoted in Caitanya-caritāmṛta , which will give us some clues as to their significance and in turn help us to determine which elements make Rupa Goswami's vision of the dāna-līlā differ from that of Chandidas (SKK) and Devakinandan Singh in Gopala-vijaya (GoVi). Some of these differences will appear completely predictable to many readers, others not. At any rate, let us carry on with this exercise with the goal of enriching our reading of DKK and increasing our devotion to our Prema Thakurani, Srimati Radharani. What is immediately noticeable in the first verse is how Rupa Goswami unabashedly indicates his has adapted a longstanding description of the dramaticians. In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta , when Mahaprabhu and his associates are appreciating Rupa's plays, Ramananda Raya (who h...

(2) vibhur api kalayan sadābhivṛddhiṁ gurur api gaurava-caryayā vihīnaḥ muhur upacita-vakrimāpi śuddho jayati muradviṣi rādhikānurāgaḥ Though all-pervading, it increases at every moment; Nothing as serious, yet always lighthearted; Full of twists and turns, yet always straight and pure: Ever glorious is Radha’s love for the enemy of Mura. The second verse of the nāndī shares several common features with the first. First of all, both differ from the usual invocatory prayers in no particular god is being addressed, invoked or supplicated. Here, as in the first verse, where Radha’s anubhāva known as kilakiñcita was seen as the source of blessings, the sthāyi-bhāva of anurāga has been singled out for a declaration of victory. The basic definition of anurāga , which will be discussed in greater detail below, is given in the Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi as follows: sadānubhūtam api yaḥ kuryān nava-navaṁ priyam rāgo bhavan nava-navaḥ so’nurāga itīryate When Rāga becomes ever newer and...

I was sent by a link on Facebook to a live lecture by Niranjana Swami in Russia. The main theme was a retelling of the Prabhupada story. It was an embellishment of the Prabhupada myth: Old man goes to foreign land and in the face of multiple obstacles spreads God's message. His story shows how mythology works and grows: A man in a temple saw an old sannyasi crying in front of deities of Gaura Nitai and asked him why he was crying. The old sannyasi answered, "I have been ordered by my guru maharaj to preach the yuga dharma of Harinam sankirtan in the Western countries. This is an impossible task and so I am crying, praying to Gaura Nitai to bless me and allow me to fulfill this mission. I am leaving tomorrow." Many years later, the devotees were selling Back to Godheads in India, and this man inquired from them what they were doing. They showed him the picture of Prabhupad on the cover and this man immediately recognized him as the saint who was crying in the temple on th...

Divine Madness The reference to mahā-bhāva made by Kaviraja Goswami is particularly worth noting (quoted in Part I ). The principal characteristic, I believe, is the idea of a particular eternal moment or snapshot, containing all these different conflicting reactions to one particularly confusing situation. In the mahā-bhāva , as described in UN 14, Radha experiences both the ecstasies of union and separation simultaneously. Here, something similar is happening. As we go through the sthāyi-bhāvas described in Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi , what becomes evident to the observer is that we are watching a progression of madness in love--a disorientation that progresses to the point of a complete loss of touch with reality: e.g., attributing properties to lifeless objects and even being angry and envious of them, hallucinations, seeing the beloved where he is not, etc. If, as the Gītā (2.69) says, the sage sees day where the materialistic person sees night, and vice versa, it follows that what is...

Some work is being done on the house and that has made it necessary to go into town each day for the last few days. Honestly, I don't know why I haven't done it before. I have been enjoying it a great deal and it has snapped me out of the doldrums. Riding in on the Metro, as you take the Green Line from Lionel-Groulx, you pass Guy-Concordia, Peel and McGill stations, all of which are stops for university students and staff. You can almost immediately sense a heightening of I.Q. in the train, as compared to the suburban buses full of high school students and service industry workers. At McGill, I feel as though I have been given a shot of intellectual adrenaline. It is like a cup of coffee after six months without. I have been coming back to this campus every few years since the 60's when I was a teenager. It is here that I first saw devotees chanting by the Leacock Building in 1967. Every time I come to the university I feel as though I am in a time warp; at the same t...

Art by Shyam Nadh You try to explain or retain the symbolism of Radha Krishna Lila by Jungian archetype theory which does not make any link between the material world and the transcendental world as BVT's theory does. I agree that it has some explanatory power. However, this view requires a different view of rasa theory from that of the Goswamis. First of all, as I already stated previously, there seems to be a little bit of confusion about the "dustbin of Maya" comment, which is indeed Mayavada. I do not hold that view myself. I am a Vaishnava and I believe strongly that the material world is real, though temporary. Maya means taking temporary phenomena as having ultimate value. They have only reflected value. I am in perfect accord with Bhaktivinoda Thakur here. Nevertheless, we do have a problem, and I don't see how it can be resolved by taking a purely literalist approach. That may be what Bhaktivinoda Thakur did; it is quite possible, but I do not find ...

(1) antaḥ-smeratayojjvalā jala-kaṇa-vyākīrṇa-pakṣmāṅkurā kiñcit pāṭalitāñcalā rasikatotsiktā puraḥ kuñcatī ruddhāyāḥ pathi mādhavena madhura-vyābhugna-tārottarā rādhāyāḥ kilakiñcita-stavakinī dṛṣṭiḥ śriyaṁ vaḥ kriyāt Radha’s eyes are a kilakiñcita bouquet of flowers: brightened by a repressed smile, with teardrops clinging like dew to the base of her eyelash petals; reddened slightly around the edges; overflowing with juices of amusement, or contracting like buds. Ah, such are Radha’s eyes, made more beautiful by their flashing sweet pupils as she is blocked on the path by Madhava, May they bring you all good fortune. ________________________________________ This is the first of the two nāndī verses. It contains elements both of the āśīrvāda or benediction and the vastu-nirdeśa indication of the subject matter to follow in the play itself. Āśīrvāda Blessings in this form are quite common in poetry related to the gods and are often found in the invocations of...