Jagat

Another article from Gadadhar Pran Das Thakur, the foremost defender and promoter of Gauranga Mahaprabhu's nāgara-bhāva upāsanā in the English-speaking world to this day. In this article, he illustrates the authenticity of Gaura-kāntā bhāva on the authority of Advaita Acharya's Stavarāja, which glorifies Gauranga's every limb and the mood underlying it. There could be no higher authority than Advaita Acharya. Gadadhar concludes by defending the legitimacy of Gaura-nāgara bhāva in Ṭhākur Bhaktivinoda's line, that of Rāmacandra Goswami and Vamshivadanananda Thakur. 

I am trying to gather up Gadadhar's writings and put them all in one place so that we can see what can be done about making them available. The above picture was painted by Gadadhar himself and is on the cover of his translation of Gauranga pratyanga stava raja . The title means, "The topmost prayer, which describes each and every one of Sri Gauranga's beautiful limbs." It is the prayer he sings three times a day as the cornerstone of his worship for several years now. This picture is the meditation that accompanies this prayer. Gadadhar tells me he is tired of painting, and indeed I have watched him. He is tireless. The whole time I was there he was retouching the hem of Nityananda's shawl. He complains about and I can understand why. He likes the excitement of meditating directly on Gaura, indeed of being with Gaura. If you like, it is a kind of prema-vaicittya. He has Gaura right in front of him and he is complaining that he doesn't get to serve G...

Part Two: Sri Advaita Prabhu’s Madhura Upāsanā Part I. Vaishnavas wishing to learn about Gauranga’s original worship in Nabadwip are likely to be astonished at everything that Advaita Acharya’s Śrī Śrī Gaurāṅga-pratyaṅga-varṇanākhya-stava-rāja reveals about it. It is still quite surprising, however, that when Mahaprabhu’s preaching headquarters shifted from Nabadwip to Nilachala and then to Vrindavan after His departure, Advaita’s original mood of Gauranga worship was gradually forgotten. Another perspective on Gaura līlā, which came from Vrindavan, began to dominate. It was during this period that Krishnadāsa Kavirāja wrote Caitanya-caritāmrta on the basis of the siksha he received from Sanatan, Rupa, Raghunath Das, and his diksha guru, Raghunath Bhatta Goswami – all of whom had witnessed Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s astonishing Radha bhāva līlās at Nilachala. We should also mention that it was a full 100 years after Nabadwip’s most spectacular events secretly unfolded that th...

I spent a week in September with my godbrother Gadadhar Pran Das at Gadai Gauranga Kunj, doing a small vrata with him and observing his bhajan pranali, I am sharing this article written by him. It has two parts. At the present time, Gadadhar Pran spends the entire day in the service of Gadadhar and Gauranga, and is working on restoring a painting of his Nadia Yugal. For three days up to Purnima, however, we spent almost the entire day in japa and meditation, chanting three lakhs together in the beautiful environment of the Kunj, overlooking the Ganges, bathing three times in the holy river, doing kirtan and honoring Gadai Gauranga’s delicious prasadam prepared by Rai Kishori Devi. The centerpiece of Gadadhar’s nitya bhajan paddhati these days is the recital of Śrī Śrī Gaurāṅga-pratyaṅga-varṇanākhya-stava-rāja , attributed to Advaita Acharya Prabhu and found in a book from the Srikhanda tradition called Bhakti-candrikā . Gadadhar Pran has gone to a lot of trouble researching ...