BVT 1-2 : Invocation and Introduction to Bhaktivinoda Thakur's Autobiography
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| Photo of Bhaktivinoda Thakur and signed by him dated January 14, 1896, on completion of the Jivani. |
I will update the table of links as these short articles go up.
It took longer for me than projected -- unsurprisingly I would say -- because such projects tend to have implications far beyond the simple academic work of studying Bhaktivinoda Thakur's life as he himself presents it. The more important Usually on some level of why is it important to me? What relevance does it have for me, or indeed for anyone else?
Most of us feel a need to keep our archetypal projections unblemished, and that is the essence of hagiography, and indeed you might say it is the inescapable essence of religion itself. That may be a bit inconvenient an admission for me to make in a time when to most realists, it is a dangerous obstacle. .Whatever, the fantasists are the ones who look for meaning and sometimes find it.
At any rate, the story of Bhaktivinoda Thakur's biography is that of a human being becoming convinced of the cogency and power of Vaishnava teachings and personalities. He makes no claims for greatness, but accepts the basic principle of humility again and again in his songs. We don't often think that modernity is tied in with humility, but modernity calls on us to distrust our unfiltered sensory data and powers of reason in the same way that Vaishnava doctrine does. And that is what makes him such a special figure.
At any rate, I lay my cards on the table in this and the next file. This series of articles are the introduction to the Jivani.
Invocation
nama oṁ viṣṇupādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhūtale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namas te sārasvata-deva gauravāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
vrajendra-suta-preyasī-caraṇa-padma-sevāgraho
muhur hi harināma yo rata-dhiyā gṛṇāti priyam
tam eva kila darśakaṁ madhura-rāga-bhakty-adhvano
namāmi karuṇā-mayaṁ hi lalitā-prasādaṁ prabhum
who enthusiastically serves the lotus feet
of the beloved of Vrajendranandan, Sri Krishna,
who constantly utters the Holy Name with loving concentration,
and who has revealed to me the sweet path of rāgānugā bhakti.
janaka-guru-samakṣam ānugatye'tidakṣa
vidita-vihita-dīkṣa labdha-vātsalya-śikṣa
bhajana-gata-manaska sādhu-caryātitīkṣṇa
vigata-jagad-apekṣa rakṣa māṁ siddha-kakṣa
Most skillful in following your father and guru!
From him you understood the principles of proper initiation
and you also received his instruction mixed with fatherly love.
You gave your mind over to bhajan,
razor sharp in keeping to the path of saintly conduct
abandoning all consideration of worldly opinion,
a siddha purusha, please protect me.
nityānanda-kṛpā-jalārdrita-tanuḥ śrī-jāhnavā-dhārayā
premṇā gaura-gadādhareti yugalaṁ yas tattva-vit sevate
taṁ tvāṁ godruma-vāsināṁ mukuṭagaṁ rūpānugānāṁ varaṁ
he śrī-bhaktivinoda deva paramaṁ bhaktyā namāmo vayam
O worshipable Bhaktivinoda Thakur!
Your body drenched in the waters of Nityananda Prabhu's mercy,
through the channel of Srimati Jahnava Devi.
You serve the Divine Couple in their form as Gaura and Gadadhara,
knowing their true identities in all aspects.
You are the topmost resident of Godrumdwip
and the best of the followers of Rupa Goswami.
With deepest devotion, I bow down to you.
2. Introduction
Kedarnath Dutt, known to the world as Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur, will likely not require much introduction to those taking an interest in this book. Those who have come to know his name have usually done so through the evangelical work of his son Bimala Prasad Dutt (aka Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur), the founder of the Gaudiya Math, and his disciples, most prominent of whom is Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, through whom I myself first became acquainted with the name and work of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur.
Through the preaching activities of these great teachers, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur has become an central figure in the story of how Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's name and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, the yuga-dharma that Chaitanya taught, came to be spread throughout the world, "to every town and village," fulfilling the prediction made by Vrindavan Das in the Caitanya Bhāgavata. [Antya 4.28] Prabhupada often said, "Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur was the origin of the Krishna Consciousness Movement in its pure form."
In a period when Indian traditions and ideas were under attack from British critics, both secular and religious, Bhaktivinoda was able to make bhakti intellectually acceptable to members of the anglicized elite Bengali society. He made the world-wide preaching of the bhakti tradition possible through his great faith in the teachings of Sri Chaitanya and his conviction that they were applicable universally, even in a world being transformed by empirical science and agnosticism. He wrote, most memorably, the following prayer in a Sajjana-toṣaṇī editorial in 1885:
"When will that day come when all greatly fortunate souls in countries such as England, France, Russia, Prussia and America will take up banners, kettle drums, mridangas and karatals and thus cause the ecstatic waves of Hari Nama kirtana and the singing of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Holy Name to rise in the streets of their towns and cities? O when will that day come when pure and transcendental Krishna prema will be the only religion of all souls and all tiny sectarian religions will meet in the unlimited and universal religion of devotional service to Krishna, just as rivers merge into the great ocean? O when will that day come?" (Sajjana-toṣaṇī 4.3, 1885)
Though written in the form of a hope, those who follow in his wake, the bhaktivinoda-dhārā, take it as a prediction that has come to be fulfilled. The fact that Kedarnath Dutt could envision such an eventuality is all the more amazing when one considers the world in which he lived, a world centered in Calcutta, the capital city of the British Raj, where the Bengali bhadraloka community to which he belonged was busily adapting itself to the Europeanizing influence of the British imperial overlords.
Bhaktivinoda Thakur first embraced and then defied the currents of the 19th century, which was pulling the colonized Bengal and India into the modern world of the Enlightenment, empiricism, the scientific method and technology. But as he matured, he returned to his Bengali cultural roots and found faith in Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, “the Saviour of the East” as he called him, to the point of believing that he was not simply a religious teacher and reformer for a limited geographical area and people, but for the entire world.
Other articles from the introduction
BVT 1-2 : Invocation and Introduction to the Autobiography
BVT 3 :: Modern Scholarship on Bhaktivinoda Thakur
BVT 4 :: Bhaktivinoda Thaku and his thirst for knowledge.
BVT 5 :: Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Christianity
BVT 6 :: Bhaktivinoda Thakur in Jagannath Puri
BVT 7 :: Bhaktivinoda and the Meat-eating issue
BVT 8 :: Initiation from Bipin Bihari Goswami
BVT 9 :: Bipin Bihari Goswami in the Thakur's Writings
BVT 10 :: Lalita Prasad Thakur
BVT 11 :: Bhaktivinoda Thakur and Sampradaya
BVT 12 :: The Authenticity of the Autobiography
Other articles inspired by the Autobiography:
A Bengali Zamindar's education in the 1840's
Bipin Bihari's testimonial to his best disciple Kedarnath Datta
Longfellow and Bhaktivinoda Thakur's poems
And also,
Hari-nama-cintamani related posts
Siddhi-lalasa
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