Jagat

Plus ça change, plus ça reste pareil. One thing I did not mention in speaking of the June McDaniel book, because it was not relevant then, is that I am quoted in it. The reason I mention it now is because now it has become relevant. June McDaniel interviewed me in Nabadwip back in 1984. Nitai introduced us, as she was a fellow student of his at the University of Chicago. Evidently, she did not find speaking with me particularly fruitful as she only quoted the one statement, in which I say, "In the Western system, people try to invent things for themselves. In India, we try to follow previous people, to do what they did and get it down properly, the way that it was done before." (Page 19) Maybe I was thinking of this verse: etāṁ sa āsthāya parātma-niṣṭhām adhyāsitāṁ pūrvatamair mahadbhiḥ ahaṁ tariṣyāmi duranta-pāraṁ tamo mukundāṅghri-niṣevayaiva “Fixed in faith in the Supreme Soul in whom dwelt the great souls of yore, I shall cross over the boundless ocean of darkne...

The second seminar was centered on Mahaprabhu's life. The readings were (1) Bhaktivedanta Swami's introduction to the Srimad Bhagavatam, (2) Adi 17 and Madhya 1 of Chaitanya Bhagavata, based on a version I found on the web and revised. (3) Then I found a version of the Jagai Madhai story from CBh translated by Tony Stewart ( Religions of India in Practice , ed. Donald S. Lopez). I also gave an article by Joseph O'Connell in which he traces a particular incident from Chaitanya's life through the different biographies ("Historicity in the Biographies of Chaitanya", JVS 1.2), and finally the first chapter of June McDaniel's The Madness of the Saints . In preparing for the course, I found that June McDaniel's introduction gave some very useful insights into the Chaitanya phenomenon. Her book is not really about Mahaprabhu, as such, but rather about ecstatic religion in Bengal, and though she begins with Mahaprabhu as the paradigmatic ecstatic, she gives...