Jagat

The appearance and disappearance days of Gadadhar Bhatta Goswami, the disciple and successor of Raghunath Bhatta Goswami, come on successive days, the dwadashi and trayodashi of the dark fortnight in Bhadrapada month. This year that fell on August 28th and 29th. Raghunath Bhatta (1505-1579) was especially noted for his sweet presentation of Srimad Bhagavatam and as the innovator of the Bhagavata vachak tradition in Vrindavan. Gadadhar Bhatta was his successor and to this day his descendants maintain the tradition of preaching from the Bhagavata Purana. Gadadhar Bhatt was a reservoir of all virtues and a bringer of pleasure to all. He was naturally gentleman and a strict follower of the teachings of the acharyas. He was free of flaws like envy and desire, and an ocean of compassion to the less fortunate. It was as though he had taken birth only to awaken exclusive devotion to Radha and Krishna in the people of the world. Once he had come to stay in Vrindavan he never left, absor...

A book that I have been interested in finding for a considerable amount of time is the Prema-pattanam of Rasikottamsa (Yadupati Bhatta). I did not know much about this book other than that it has been quoted once or twice here and there, especially in relation to Prabodhananda and Harivamsa and their rejection of many of the rules and regulations of vidhi bhakti . I have, as I sometimes do in such cases, dropped everything [though I can ill afford to] to go through the book, typing furiously verses and tika for the Gaudiya Grantha Mandir . Will I manage to finish in this race against all external pressures, in this extreme act of renunciation for the sake of rasa? Probably not! But in the meantime, I am discovering a delicious bit of rasika literature, and it is incumbent on ME (!) to share it, after first tasting whatever few drops of this fruit of this all-too-little-known early 18th century Gaudiya text I can manage to swallow. For this is what the Grantha Mandir was meant for!...