Jagat

Steve Rosen asked the following question on the RISA (Religions in South Asia, part of AAR) discussion group: It is clear from the Bhagavad-gita (4.13) and from Hindu texts more generally that, in the varnasrama system, "quality and work" are given pride of place above birth status. However, this is not always the case, and in Hindu society today we see that the family into which one is born plays a crucial role in terms of caste (jati). I am particularly interested in how this plays out in sruti and smrti texts. To begin with a famous Mahabharata story: the young warrior Ekalavya is a sudra, and yet he wants to train as a ksatriya under Drona. Though the young warrior is clearly qualified, Drona rejects him because of his birth status and, more, cuts off his thumb so that he cannot pursue his dream. Here we have an emphasis on birth in relation to varnasrama. This is contrasted in the Chandogya Upanisad (and elsewhere as well) with the story of Satyakama Jabala, where, to ma...

This week's subject was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as seen by Krishnadas Kaviraj. The readings included CC Madhya 2 (a collection of Mahaprabhu's favorite verses), Madhya 13 (Mahaprabhu dancing before the Ratha, with the  yaḥ kaumāra-haraḥ  verse, and Antya 14 (more of Chaitanya's ecstatic utterances). All these chapters were meant to show how Krishnadas Kaviraj enriched the Lord Chaitanya myth. This was followed by Rabindra Svarupa's article on Chaitanya as Radha Krishna milita-tanu in JVS, and then by June McDaniel's article in the same issue, which describes the raganuga yogapitha meditation on Mahaprabhu in Nitya Nabadwip. The purpose was to show a development in the ways that Chaitanya was envisioned by his followers. The discussion went in a number of directions, and it was necessary to explain various elements of the Radha-Krishna story, the Rathayatra, and some aspects of Mahaprabhu's Puri lila. What I want to write about here, though, is Chaitanya Mahapr...

Since my son has had to read The Life of Pi as a high school assignment, I thought that I would finally buckle down and go through this magical realist novel, which won so many hearts in Canada a few years back. It also won a number of awards, including the extremely prestigious Booker Prize. The author, Yann Martel, is a Montreal resident with Spanish roots, but he did most of the work of writing in India, and there is a uniquely Indian flavor to the book. What attracted attention to the novel was its novel premise: Pi, a lad of sixteen, survives 227 days on the Pacific Ocean in a lifeboat, while sharing the space with a 200 kg. Bengal tiger. It is not often that a novel's hero is a vegetarian, but Pi is forced by circumstance to overcome his non-violent predisposition, not only to survive himself, but to keep his carnivorous companion alive. Over the course of the ordeal, he even comes to the point of cannibalism as he descends into a state of despair and delirium. However, thou...

Sitting here behind a desk, doing rather ordinary work on the computer for a tool and equipment rental company, I listen to the radio. Mostly I listen to either CBC or Radio-Canada. CBC has the advantage of being broadcast in four different time zones, so I can catch programs I miss, or even listen to them a second time. Today, I heard an interview with Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress . I heard the Massey Lectures he gave a couple of years ago and was pretty impressed by his thesis. Now that the environmental drumbeat has become audible and even the most recalcitrant deniers of global climate change seem suddenly to have found out that there is truth to these rumours, his voice is one of those that is well worth paying attention to. Wright is a historian whose first area of study was the Mayan civilizations in Central America. Although he started out by analyzing the downfall of the pre-Columbian civilizations to imperialist forces, over the course of time, he came...

In the previous post , the question I was basically trying to answer was this : What is the relationship between the symbolic superstructure of a religion, i.e., its theology, ritual, etc., which I called “content,” and the essential religious experience? I guess devotees may be a little surprised by my approach. Basically, my idea is this: By using an empirical approach to our own tradition, i.e., by looking at our tradition objectively, what meaningful interpretations can we find? I base this on the following item of faith: Since the very name of our doctrine is acintya-bhedābheda , a cornerstone of which is the reality of the world, we must be ready to extract meaningful conclusions from phenomena. This will have three benefits: (1) It will give us a more mature attitude towards our own doctrines; (2) It will enrich our appreciation of our symbols; (3) It will increase comprehension of our concepts in certain circles. =============

The third week’s readings were four in number, and shorter than the previous week. I have listed them at the end of this text. I have to admit that I was surprised and pleased by the direction my readings took me this week. In the seminar on the Holy Name, one of the questions that came up was about the difference between mantra and the Holy Name. My students have been somewhat influenced by Devesh Soneji, the bright young professor who currently teaches most of the courses on Hinduism in the department. He specializes in a number of fields, including Bharatanatyam and Tantra, especially Sri Vidya, so he has given them a good background in the Tantric theory of mantras, yantras and so on. The explanation I gave in class was based on the distinctions that I have admittedly acquired from Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati and Bhakti Rakshaka Sridhar Maharaj about the difference between the Bhagavata and Pancharatra approaches to spiritual practice. The former is far less ritualistic and more...

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...

Funny. The university environment is like another home to me. I was describing my feelings to the lecturer with whom I share this transitional office in terms similar to the ones I used when talking about my visit to the Iskcon temple not so long ago. I feel like I am bathing in something intellectual, spiritual, when I am here. I can feel the power of thousands of minds, which have been concentrated on the search for understanding, and since it is here in the department of religious studies, searching for understanding of God, or some aspect of God. You can feel it like a dose of strong coffee. It makes thinking and writing easier, in the way that movement is facilitated in space.

When I was born I was baptised Jan, And for seven years that carried on. I came to school where Jan was strange, so thenceforth I was known as John. Bhakta John at twenty, and shortly after, I became Hiranyagarbha Das. I was quite the “golden egghead” to some, but “Hiranya garbage” to the mass. I was “Brahmachari” for a while Then became an “Adhikari”; Then “Vanachari”, finally “Swami,” but not “Goswami”—someone was wary. Then Prabhupad left and so did I, taking shelter of gopi bhav', the Ras. Lalita Prasad gave the name I now use-- “Joy to the world,” Jagadananda Das. At first I was Babaji, even Maharaj, But that changed too, now I'm simply DAS. I'm "Jagat" too, but I'm not "the world"; You're the world, and I your DASANUDAS.

Geography Bengal is situated in the delta of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, which means that it is criss-crossed with wide rivers. It is probably the most humid part of the subcontinent, with the hilly Meghalaya region at the north being the wettest area in the entire world. This means that the delta was tropical rainforest until quite late in its history, filled with tigers, crocodiles and mosquitoes. The march of civilization is associated with deforestation, which has been ongoing even through to the present day. At present, only the peripheral areas, which are still hilly and less suitable for agriculture, remain wooded. The implications of this historically are that Aryan civilization was slow in implanting itself in this area, leaving tribal and non-Aryan belief systems strong until relatively late, in comparison even to areas not so far to the West. The region to the north of Orissa and west of the Ganges plain, the present day provinces of Jharkhand and Chattisgarh, is ...

I responded to a posting on Advaitaji's Madan Gopal site , where I made reference to a Bengali verse from Kunja Bihari Das Babaji Maharaj's  Mañjarī-svarūpa-nirūpaṇa . Advaitaji, always wary of Jagat's every word, stated that this was sahajiyā-vāda . Of course, I have a hard time seeing any difference between orthodoxy and sahajiyaism, so maybe he was right. At any rate, I made a further comment which Advaita decided not to post. We had a little followup discussion on email, which Advaita thought of posting as a separate blog, but later had second thoughts about. Anyway, here is the brief posting that did not make it. For an advanced sādhaka, as I said, even trivial phenomena are inducements to ecstatic feelings and experiences of rasa. Less advanced sādhakas are indeed asked to observe restrictions on their hearing and chanting, i.e., put a Radha and Krishna label on everything. This is the meaning of the verse Kunja Bihari Dasji quotes near the end of  Mañjarī-svarūpa-ni...