Jagat

So what do I mean "keeping faith with Kheturi"? The primary significance I take out of the above account is in its implications for initiation. Kheturi, as Chaitanya Vaishnavism's first major council, was an exercise in what is called, in religious-historical terms, the routinization of charisma. In short, it was a major development in the organization of the Chaitanya Vaishnava “church.” It is common for people to characterize this kind of institutionalization as a murder of the religious spirit. It’s what we could call the "St. Paul ruined Jesus" school of thought. Ramakanta Chakravarti, like Hitesranjan Sanyal and many other leftist Bengalis, see Kheturi and the establishment of the Goswami scriptures as a historical disaster because it reaffirmed Brahminical social dominance and its values instead of furthering the emancipation of the lower classes that had been started off by Nityananda Prabhu with his egalitarian ethos. Thus it was the victory...

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Here is some more from Chakravarti’s summary of the Kheturi preparation. This is not a pure quote as I have cut or edited here and there. I have highlighted a few points to comment on: The big Vaishnava festival was held in Kheturi for several reasons. It would have been relatively easy for the Vaishnavas of East and North Bengal to attend the festival if it was held in Kheturi. The planners of the festival certainly attached some importance to the prospect of a necessary liaison with them. It was really necessary for the leaders of the Chaitanya movement to build up bases in North Bengal and East Bengal. It was expected that the festival would serve the purpose of an assault on the locally prominent Shakta cult. In Narottama-vilāsa there is a vivid description of the barbarous behavior of the local Tantrikas. They immolated human beings on the altar of the goddess, raped virgins and created a reign of terror. Fifty messengers were sent to d...

Part I Part II Part III Part IV In the accounts of the lives of the three second-generation saints, Shrinivas Acharya, Narottam Das and Shyamananda, we are informed right away that this was the situation: Shrinivas, especially, is described wandering from one holy site to another, hoping to get the association of one or the other of Mahaprabhu’s companions, and each time missing the opportunity by a few days or months. Though most of these near-misses were no doubt exaggerated, authors like Narahari Chakravarti and Nityananda Das are simply trying to tell us that Mahaprabhu’s associates were quickly disappearing, and that this was a terrible disappointment to him and everyone else. In their search for leadership and guidance, they eventually turned to Braj where Rupa, Sanatan and the other Goswamis had been diligently establishing a disciplined theology. According to the Caitanya-caritāmṛta , Mahaprabhu instructed Rupa and Sanatan to write scriptures on philosophy and sad-ācār...

I have been invited to speak at the Rupa Goswami Conference, which is held annually at Gopinath Bhavan (August 27-28 this year) as a part of the celebrations of Rupa Goswami's disappearance day and Jhulan Purnima. Manjari Tennant, the organizer of the conference, has asked me to speak on the Kheturi festival. I have written several articles on this subject, and even though I am a bit rusty on the subject and my research is far from complete [in fact I disagree with some of the things I wrote here], I thought alright, why not? As I did a bit of preliminary rummaging around, I noticed that this old article from Gaudiya Discussions is not on the blog. It is a bit long for a blog, so I split it into four segments. It looks like it is in serious need of some editing. I will try to do that before the conference begins. Part I Part II Part III Part IV Most of the world’s major religions held councils that played an important role in their historical development. Buddhists held ...

Bhaktivinoda Thakur's Gaur Gadadhar deities in Svananda Sukhada Kunj This article appeared in its original form in Nitai Das’s little publication, Gifts of Sacred Wonder  (Calcutta: Subarna Rekha, 1985), where it was given the title “The Role of Shakti in Gaura Lila.” This title was somewhat misleading as the article does not fully answer the questions implicit in it. This was my first real publication, and that book is quite a wonderful little collectors’ item, with two article by Nitai, one by Advaita Das, and another by Gadadhar Pran Das, with a lot of nectar in it, despite its many flaws. The follow article was meant to research the various Vaishnava texts for a more complete understanding of Gadadhar Pandit Goswami. The train of thought and the goal of the text were not always clear, so I thought that I would revise it and make it public again. That was done on Gaudiya Discussions in 2004, where the article is still being archived . I am posting it in view of rece...