Jagat

It appears  that I was recycling old poems and that recycling process seems to have taken place more than once, which goes to show that just by cutting down lines into digestible chunks can make them seem more profound or at least is an attempt to imbue them with profundity. Profundity is in the eye of the beholder, but a trick of arranging things into lines signals to the reader "this is profound." Occasionally, it is. But profundity is cheap in our day and age. Anyway, today's poem on the Rasa Dance is one that I have commented on several times in this blog, which presupposes that I thought I was hitting on something deep. The other links are given below. Facebook Memories May 8.

There is certainly an unexpected symmetry to these memories--a crossing over of multiple synchronicities. There are ideas that recurrently trouble us, were troubling us then and they also seem likely to continue to trouble us recurrently to arbitrary unconscious triggers like, in this case, the coincidence of dates.  The similarities, the synchronicities and so on, are only so if we notice them. Non-observation of any kind, whether it is the non-observation of scripture, the non-sensual imperception of things, the things that happen but are so far from consciousness that they do not even ruffle a hair of our heads as they pass by, equal the non-existence of synchronicity. It is just another name for a meaningful memory. An uddīpana if you will.  At any rate, the "guru issue" appears to be a recurrent preoccupation.

A lot of stuff from a wide range of preoccupations--Gītā Govinda, Vr̥ndāvana-mahimāmr̥ta, Yoga-sūtra, American politics. Quite a mishmash. I chose for the title an utterance from seven years ago, when I seem to have been having deep thoughts.

The first verse of the  Gīta-govinda has been a source of confusion to scholars and devotees probably since it first appeared. There are a number of problems with it, all of which can be summarized as "it does not fit" what we know about the Radha-Krishna story in any source, Puranic or folk, prior to GG. Moreover, it seems to have little to do directly with the rest of GG.

Manuscript painting from Gita-govinda. Photo from Jayadeva Foundation Trust . (5) Rasa-niṣpatti Now we come to last verse in our series. This is also the last verse that Rupa Goswami quotes from an external source in Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi . The context is the following verse, which is the last "idea" that Sri Rupa presents in his discussion of madhura-rasa . vidagdhānāṁ mitho līlā-vilāsena yathā sukham | na tathā samprayogeṇa syād evaṁ rasikā viduḥ || Clever lovers find that there is more pleasure in all the varieties of their mutual dealings than there is in sexual union per se. This is the conclusion of the knowers of rasa. (15.253) Jayadeva's verse is given as an illustration of this point: pratyūhaḥ pulakāṅkureṇa niviḍāśleṣe nimeṣeṇa ca krīḍākūta-vilokite’dhara-sudhā-pāne kathā-narmabhiḥ ānandādhigamena manmatha-kalā-yuddhe’pi yasminn abhūd udbhūtaḥ sa tayor babhūva suratārambhaḥ priyambhāvukaḥ As the battle of the love arts began, there...

Jayadev Foundation Trust (4) Radha, the Empress of Love Our fourth essential verse of the Gīta-govinda  or Gita-govinda pañca-ślokī, comes in the final chapter and summarizes the last prabandha or song 24. racaya kucayoś citraṁ patraṁ kuruṣva kapolayor ghaṭaya jaghane kāñcīṁ mugdha-srajā kavarī-bharaṁ | kalaya valaya-śreṇīṁ pāṇau pade maṇi-nūpurāv iti nigaditaḥ prītaḥ pitāmbaro’pi tathākarot || Radha said, "Draw pictures on my breasts, decorate my cheeks with dots of musk, tie a sash of bells around my hips, braid my hair with a charming garland. Place bangles on my wrists and jeweled ankle bells on my feet." So being told, the yellow-robed Krishna, being pleased, did so. (12.25) This is the last verse that contains a description related to the overall dramatic theme of the Gīta-govinda . Rupa Goswami quotes it at UN 5.93 as an example of the svādhīna-bhartṛkā . As we have been saying, the eight situations of the heroine are the principal theme ...

From Jayadev Foundation Trust . (3) Radharani's māna viharati vane rādhā sādhāraṇa-praṇaye harau vigalita-nijotkarṣād īrṣyā-vaśena gatā'nyataḥ kvacid api latā-kuñje guñjan-madhu-vrata-maṇḍalī mukhara-śikhare līnā dīnāpy uvāca rahaḥ sakhīm|| When Radha saw Hari frolicking in the forest, treating all the women with equal affection, she felt her own special status had melted away. Envy and anger arose in her, and she went off. Somewhere, in a vine covered bower, where bees buzzed in circles overhead, she hid, and forlorn in her solitude, confided to her friend. If the first two verses of our five described Krishna as the viṣaya and then as the āśraya of love; now this verse points to the essential mechanism that transforms him from the one role to the other. This will be further explained in our analysis of the fifth verse. The third verse of the Gīta-govinda pañca-ślokī appears in the latter portion (verses 25-35) of BRS 3.5, the abbreviated chapte...

(2) Krishna, the Lover of Radha Our second verse is taken from Gīta-govinda 's third chapter— kaṁsārir api saṁsāra-vāsanā-baddha-śṛṅkhalām | rādhām ādhāya hṛdaye tatyāja vraja-sundarīḥ || Krishna, the enemy of Kamsa, took Radha, who is the link that makes all his hopes for happiness possible, into his heart and left aside all the other cowherd beauties. (3.1) The context in GG is provided by the next verse we will cite. Radha has seen Krishna as described in verse 1.48 and is not pleased. She has become overwhelmed by jealous anger and has left the scene of the rāsa . We shall discuss this further in the appropriate place. In Rupa Goswami's categorization of the madhura-rasa in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu , this verse is given as an example of kṛṣṇa-rati, which in this case does not mean (as is customary in BRS) love for Krishna, but Krishna's own love for another, in this case Radha. Although from the theological point of view it goes without saying that God ...

(1) Krishna, the Embodiment of the Erotic Rasa viśveṣām anurañjanena janayann ānandam indīvara- śreṇī-śyāmala-komalair upanayann aṅgair anaṅgotsavam | svacchandaṁ vraja-sundarībhir abhitaḥ praty-aṅgam āliṅgitaḥ śṛṅgāraḥ sakhi mūrtimān iva madhau mugdho hariḥ krīḍati || By his pleasure giving, he brings joy to all the worlds; With his limbs, as soft and dark as blue lotus flowers, he inaugurates the festival of love. O friend Radhe! Hari frolicks in the spring, like the embodiment of śṛṅgāra-rasa ; completely enchanted by the beauties of Braja, who surround him and wantonly embrace his every limb. Our first "essential" verse is GG 1.48, which as already stated above, is pivotal in the introduction both to the Gīta-govinda and to Rupa Goswami's treatment of the madhura-rasa . In GG, it comes after the scene has been set for the story by describing the springtime ( prabandha 3) and the rāsa dance as performed in the spring ( prabandha 4). The first two son...

I have written a fair amount about the Gīta-govinda on this blog, but mostly bits and pieces without a coherent argument. Or at least, the argument has been expressed repeatedly but without being fully defended with evidence. So I am in the process of doing so now. The general thesis is this: Prior to Rupa Goswami there are a number of different strands of the Radha-Krishna lila tradition. According to Krishnadas Kaviraj, who states it several times in his Caitanya-caritāmṛta , Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was particularly fond of five devotional works or authors through which he relished the rasas of bhakti to Krishna. To these five of course should be added the Bhāgavata itself. caṇḍīdāsa, vidyāpati, rāyera nāṭaka-gīti, karṇāmṛta, śrī-gīta-govinda svarūpa-rāmānanda-sane, mahāprabhu rātri-dine, gāya, śune — parama ānanda Night and day, in the company of Swarup Damodar and Ramananda Ray, Mahaprabhu would sing or listen to the songs of Chandidas, Vidyapati, the musical play of Ramamanan...

Yesterday I gave a talk at Gopinath Bhavan here in Vrindavan. On Srila Narayan Maharaj's order, his disciples hold an annual conference on Rupa Goswami in English and Hindi. The English event takes place in the morning and the Hindi assemblies are in the evening. Many speakers come, especially in the evening, most of them being sannyasis from the Gaudiya Math, though a few other scholars attend, such as Shrivatsa Goswami and Achyutalal Bhatta Goswami. The daytime program is fairly well attended, 30-40 devotees, with senior English-speaking devotees holding forth on Rupa Goswami from various perspectives. Somehow or another, despite reservations about me personally, the organizer of that event kindly put me in as a speaker. I was not so keen at first, but then I was persuaded. I haven't been doing any public speaking in ages, and it is probably best that I get back in the habit. In order to keep me from saying anything controversial, however, the organizer originally asked m...

Love and Truth were lovers. Love became the Love of Truth, and Truth became the Truth of Love, and together, they were True Love. Love should be looked at as a verb, not just a noun. Love is as love does. There is no place in love for abuse. Unless we uproot the untruth from our self knowledge, there is no possiblity of love. There are no magical beliefs that we can dress our ignorance in: not even the most noble-sounding of lies, can make us eligible of love. Krishna is a man. Like all men, he thinks he is God. And this is his problem. His lie. Until he gives it up and becomes a man, he is lost to love. This is our current working theory. And because Krishna is a man, having nara-līlā , we have to make the connection to our human lives and our human reality. Here is what Bell Hooks says in her book All About Love : "All my life I have thought of love as primarily a topic women contemplate with greater intensity and vigor than anybody else on this planet. I still hold t...