Jagat

I received the following query on Facebook from Gaura Das: Haribol Jagadananda prabhu, I have a book called Vrndavana Krishna, by a Gopinatham. It is published by the Gaudiya Matha. Do you know of it, and consider it to be in line with siddhanta? I seem to remember Srila Prabhupada criticising some author who made a distinction between a Mathura Krishna, Vrndavana Krishna, and Dwarka Krishna, and these diferent "Krsnas" are mentioned in this book, so I was wondering if this was the book he was thinking to not be bonafide. I don't know what Prabhupada's intention was, but the Gaudiya siddhanta is that Vrindavan Krishna is the highest form of Godhead, superior to Krishna even in Mathura or Dwarka. This is a very significant siddhanta, because it highlights the superiority of parakiya madhura rasa. You cannot really say that they are "different" Krishnas, either. Any more than you can say Allah is different from Krishna. And yet in a very real sense they a...

It really is time to get this beast shaking again. Over the past few months I have not been doing much original writing. I had a few translation jobs that preoccupied me, and it would have been quite possible to comment publicly on that work. In fact, two different projects were directly connected with Ishopanishad, and I lectured on the Ishopanishad for a month at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama. There was definitely material that would have been of interest to my readers in that and now I am rather sorry that I did not take the trouble to publish my notes. Perhaps we can do it later. (He said with a sigh.) One of the reasons I did not of course is that this blog has a somewhat specialized purpose, unclear as that may seem, and I would like to stick to that, rather than enter into an arcane discussion of the meaning of an ancient Upanishad. Though, since part of my work involved reading A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami's totally idiosyncratic interpretation of that work, it might have been wor...

Dear friends, On the way back from Vrinda Kunj, my computer was lost. Not sure how it happened, but it is something of a disaster considering that I use the computer so much for so many things. And of course, there was a lot not backed up... The computer has become so essential to my life that it is almost like a second self, or at least a second mind or brain. A lot of services will be affected, in particular the work on the Braj Vrindavan Heritage Alliance and Prema Prayojan blogs. So I am sending out an appeal to all those friends who over the years have enjoyed or benefited from my websites like Gaudiya Grantha Mandir, or from writings in blogs like Jagat, or from my translations, to donate for a new computer. I am sorry I have to do this, but I am afraid I have no other resources, so I am humbly asking for your assistance. Please write to jankbrz {at} yahoo dot com. Thanks. Jagadananda Das.

Whenever we say something like, “Krishna is rasarāja ; Radha is mahābhāva .” We are speaking symbolically. The word pratīka , usually translated as symbol, sign or representation, is discussed in VS 4.1.4. Baladeva Vidyabhushan says in his Govinda-bhāṣya that this is a reference to Vedānta statements that speak of the mind, etc. ( mana-ādi ) as symbols of God. Baladeva says pratīke īśvaro na bhavati . "God is not in the symbol," i.e., he is not limited by it. The sentence goes on, kintu tasyādhiṣṭhānam eveti "but is its ground or basis". He then quotes BhP 11.2.41: khaṁ vāyum agniṁ salilaṁ mahīṁ ca jyotīṁṣi sattvāni diśo drumādīn | sarit-samudrāṁś ca hareḥ śarīraṁ yat kiṁ ca bhūtaṁ praṇamed ananyaḥ || The unalloyed devotee bows down to all existent things – the ether, air, fire, water and earth, the heavenly bodies, living creatures, the directions, the trees, the rivers and oceans, seeing them all as the body of the Lord. (11.2.41) It seems to me t...

I like this verse so much, I am just about adopting it as my new motto: प्रेमा योऽसौ राधिकाकृष्णयुग्मं स्वानन्देन प्लावयित्वा सखीश्च । शश्वद्विश्वं प्लावयन् सुप्रसिद्धः सोऽयं बुद्धिं नः समिद्धां करोतु ॥ premā yo'sau rādhikā-kṛṣṇa-yugmaṁ svānandena plāvayitvā sakhīś ca | śaśvad viśvaṁ plāvayan suprasiddhaḥ so'yaṁ buddhiṁ naḥ samiddhāṁ karotu || This love, which after inundating the pair of lovers, Radha and Krishna, with its own bliss, and their girlfriends too, constantly engulfs the entire universe, as is well known. May that love enflame our intelligence. (Gopala-champu 15.4) Interesting mixed metaphor. Inundates, engulfs... enflame. Love inundates with joy. The essence of Vaishnavism is the recognition that love and joy are intimately connected. The receipt of joy... when you love, the object of love is a source of joy. When you love all, then all is a source of joy. At the same time, when you love, you seek to give joy. This requires practical intelligence, of...

brahmānanda-rasād ananta-guṇito ramyo raso vaiṣṇavas tasmāt koṭi-guṇojjvalaś ca madhuraḥ śrī-gokulendro rasaḥ | tac cānanta-camatkṛtiṁ pratimuhur varṣad rasānāṁ param śrī-rādhā-pada-padmam eva madhuraṁ sarvasva-bhūtaṁ mama || Countless times more relishable than the flavor of Brahmananda is that connected to Vishnu. Millions of times brighter than that is the sweet rasa related to the Lord of Gokula. Raining down infinite astonishment are the topmost of all rasas, the sweet lotus feet of Srimati Radharani. They alone are my life and soul. Following on from the previous posting . Check the label " hierarchies of prema " for more on this general subject.  By the way, the word "raining down" is appropriate, as today was the first day of the real monsoon here in Rishikesh. We had plenty of pre-monsoon rain, but the sky today is grey, the atmosphere is almost clammy with humidity, and the mountains will be covered in mist for the next fe...

Sorry for the long silence here. I have been busy over on the bvhalliance.blogspot.com blog, and also added something to the Jagat Jindagi blog. Check them out. Besides this, I am also busy currently in Vrindavan, working with Satya Narayanji on completing the final draft of the Bhagavat-sandarbha.

Srutakirti Das, Jayapataka Swami, Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, Tamal Krishna Goswami, Bhavananda Swami (photo from ca. 1976) Jayadharma Prabhu revived this Facebook note from March 2010, but as the intro makes clear, these were written in 2002. Please bear that in mind. I could not find any of this on the blog, so I just repost it here without further comment. It seems strangely relevant. Anyway, I am backposting to March 2010, but sharing it today. (9/6/2019) Some friends have asked me about recent statements I made to Isa Das in response to his claim that Iskcon had no bhakti and no sat-sanga, etc. In case people make the improbable claim that I favour Iskcon over Narayan Maharaj or indeed have any favouritism towards any branch of the Gaudiya Math, I am posting a number of articles written many years ago on various forums. Bear in mind that they were written eight years ago and I may have a slightly different point of view now, or the people named ha...

This is the paper I presented in New Delhi on March 10, 2010, at the Jawarhalal Nehru University Centre for Historical Studies conference named "Devotion and Dissent in Indian History." Introduction: Symbol as Dissent Generally speaking, when talking about the relationship of religion to revolution, we are talking about some relationship of the ideal values inculcated in religious movements and their relationship to social justice. In this paper, I would rather like to discuss the relationship between such values as represented by the religious symbol of Radha and Krishna and what it can tell us of sexuality and sexual relationships, including the status of women. I am adopting a Jungian view of religious symbols as products of the collective unconscious, by which I mean that they spring from a non-verbal fountain of ideas, and have sustained power to provide meaning and a sense of the sacred. As such, they may produce a huge theological and hermeneutical superstructure aroun...