Jagat

So part of my upcoming things to do is to learn India's two national songs, Rabindranath Tagore's national anthem, Bhārata bhāgya vidhātā. Like with most national anthems people only know the first verse. Rabindra's song has six verses. Same thing for Bankim Chandra bande mātaram. I have finally applied for Indian citizenship and so it seems to me that I should do this. In actual fact, I get tears in my eyes when I listen to these two songs. The patriotism in these videos with the waving flage and armies standing in the snow somewhere on the Pakistan border and all the rest of it don't mean all that much to me, nevertheless,I identify with India and feel I belong here. So I will stand for the national anthem and learn them both. As national anthems go, I like them much better than the militaristic jingoistic stuff that most (European) countries have. Once I have learned I will make a video. Bankim's song appears to be a mixture of Sanskrit and Bengali. There ...

I just finished going through the revision of the translation of Sva-likhita-jīvanī and am trying to write my introduction, but that is also leading me into various back alleyways. Quite a bit of research has been done since Shukavak came out with his book, A Hindu Encounter with Modernity . One of the questions that I have asked myself for some time is how did Bhaktivinoda Thakur, who was such a devoted Anglophile, such an avid consumer of European knowledge through the English medium, then later a devoted servant of the Raj -- putting down rebellious sannyasis in Orissa, and defending the British rule to his Vaishnava audience -- become such a committed follower of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, "the Eastern Saviour"? In America, there is a disparaging expression, "Oreo," meant to describe African Americans who have internally totally assimilated to white culture. Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay ’s famous “ Minute on Education ,” emphasized this purpose in the most not...

I have been in Birnagar for a couple of months now, acclimatizing myself to the environment, which has been quite edifying. This is the first time since 1982 or something that I have stayed in my guru's ashram, and this is the longest time that I have ever lived here. In general, I find that my spiritual life is always progressing, but being in the presence of my Guru's spirit has been especially beneficial. I am not only getting the opportunity to give classes on Bhakti Sandarbha every day, but have also been getting calls from people in the area to come to speak. On Janmashtami I will be giving talks to devotees in Badkulla, which lies about halfway between Birnagar and Krishnanagar, and in Aramghata, a small village east of here where there is a private ashram associated with one of the Gaudiya Math's many branches. Harigopal Dasji, as I have mentioned, is putting a lot of energy into fixing up Dwadash Mandir. Although I have some nostalgia for the old world, p...

In an earlier post, Bankim Chandra and Sri Krishna Charitra , I started a discussion on a rather good book on Bankim by Sudipta Kaviraj, T he Unhappy Consciousness . Kaviraj is a historian and political scientist who teaches and writes mostly on Indian and Bengali politics. He is an excellent writer--dense in ideas and insight, and eloquent in expression. I hardly expect to do justice to his work and will have to be selective in what I quote and what I discuss. Kaviraj's primary interest is understandably Bankim Chandra's political thinking, but since Bankim was not actually a political actor, but a novelist and essayist, Kaviraj has done a great deal of thinking about literary theory, both Western and Eastern, in order to better understand his subject. The main theme is Bankim's imagining of history in the name of creating a vision of India. What is primarily interesting to me, and us, in all likelihood, dear readers, is Bankim's reshaping of the character of Kri...

(Reprint. Originally posted on Gaudiya Discussions) We have become rather accustomed to seeing much quibbling about who genuinely represents Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. There are many points of contention, but the great symbolic distinction is found in the differing concepts of disciplic succession. It is my personal feeling that human experience is multi-faceted. Different historical situations give rise to different interpretations; different contexts to different responses. Is it not then possible that there is more than one way of looking at Chaitanya Vaishnavism? Furthermore, will not a more complete and nuanced view of Gaudiya Vaishnava history and doctrine not make those who hold Chaitanya Mahaprabhu dear more capable of adjusting to circumstances as they change? Gaudiya Vaishnavism evolved over 350 years after the disappearance of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. As with every human phenomenon, it was born, grew and developed in response to the social situation in which it found itself. Without...

I have been reading a very interesting book, The Unhappy Consciousness by Sudipta Kaviraj , an Indian political historian from Bengal.(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995). In fact, I have only been reading and rereading the book's third chapter which is called "The Myth of Praxis: Construction of the Figure of Krishna in the Krishna-charitra ." Now I know that I have mentioned Bankim Chandra and his reevaluation of Krishna's life before. Bankim was Bhaktivinoda Thakur's slightly younger contemporary and though he became far more influential in India than the Thakur, they shared one common interest: the direction of religion in Bengal and India and Krishna's place in it. Bhaktivinoda wrote Krishna-samhita in 1880 and Bankim wrote Krishna-charitra in 1886. It is hard to imagine that there was not some common link between these two books, though again, Bankim's influence was more widespread, with Aurobindo and Vivekananda being at least two major figur...

I am just reading a book by a Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Maharaj disciple I had heard of, but did not know very well. His name is Janardan Chakravarti and he is (or was) a professor in Bengali literature at the University of Calcutta (Jadavpur?). He wrote a book in English called Bengal Vaisnavism and Sri Chaitanya (1975)* (See below for details). Chakravarti shows signs of that Bengali syncretism that most of us Western Vaishnavas are so suspicious of: he speaks of Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Aurobindo, Rabindranath and all the other Bengali cultural heroes in a favorable way. This kind of Bengali nationalism is something that we feel averse to, although I recently wrote on my blog that, as a consequence, we (I mean Western KC in general) have lost contact with Bengali culture per se and are participating in the creation of a neo-pan-Indian culture that mirrors the diminishing influence of Bengal in that world, but which ignores the fact that Bengali culture has been interacting with and in...