Jagat

Photo of Bhaktivinoda Thakur and signed by him dated January 14, 1896, on completion of the Jivani. I have been working on a project for the past more than one year now, revising a translation of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur's Autobiography or Sva-likhita-jivani and then writing a rather long introduction. It looks like I am finally ready to send it off to the next step, for publication by the Jiva Institute, so I have decided to publish the intro here in 12 parts. Some have already gone up and you can look at the bottom of this page at the links. I will update the table of links as these short articles go up. It took longer for me than projected -- unsurprisingly I would say -- because such projects tend to have implications far beyond the simple academic work of studying Bhaktivinoda Thakur's life as he himself presents it. The more important Usually on some level of why is it important to me? What relevance does it have for me, or indeed for anyone else? Most of us fe...

I have been through this subject a couple of times on this blog. (1)  Narayan Maharaj's comments on Sva-likhita-jivani (2) Lalita Prasad Thakur and Bhaktivinoda's meat-eating . This version is a little shorter, since I have here been able to rely on the testimony of Shukavak Das and the photos from the MS. This file also includes some comments on the new translation and acknowledgements and appreciation at the end. Though it seems barely worth mentioning, there are unfortunately some who doubt the authenticity of the Jīvanī . These persons have put forth various speculations on why it may be a forgery or have been tampered with in some way. This seems to have arisen out of a misunderstanding of the genre and mentality of Bhaktivinoda Thakur in writing his autobiography. Perhaps these suspicions -- always coming from those who have little or no expertise in Bengali or Bengali history -- arise out of a fear that anything that disagrees with the image of the Thakur as ...

In Daśa-mūla-rasa , Bipin Bihari Goswami tells a little of his life story, some of which I summarized in an earlier article about him . Those details were taken from Kanan Bihari Goswami’s book on the Baghnapara tradition, but reading here directly I think it worthwhile giving a bit of nuance to that. This information is supplementary to that. Bipin Bihari lost both his parents when quite young. He had been having trouble applying himself to his education and after their departure he fell into bad company and was about to mess up his life when a friend of his father’s, Anupam Chandra, set him straight. Bipin Bihari then asked him what he should do, and was told to take up devotion to Krishna. As a result of this advice, Bipin Bihari started frequenting Bhagavan Das Babaji in Kalna. Bipin Bihari refers to Bhagavan Das Babaji in several places in the course of this book, and it seems that Bhagavan Das was quite familiar with the Baghnapara tradition and literature. Bipin Biha...

One of the things that Gadadhar and I talked about the other day was the Janma Sthan. He was reading to me from his latest chapter in "Another side of Bhaktivinoda Thakur," and in the context of Bipin Bihari Goswami brought up the controversy about the birthplace. He downplayed it in part by saying that Mahaprabhu responds to devotion, and the rāgānugā bhakta in particular is not confined by material time or place, but in his mind goes to the eternal Goloka Navadvipa. Ananta Das Babaji's dsiciple Vaishanva Pada Dasji also said to me last year when I saw him at Radha Kund: "What is the harm in having two birthplaces? Why argue over it? We have two places to remember Mahaprabhu's appearance. Mahaprabhu accepts everyone's sincere devotion and prayers. The external place is not the important thing." "But," Gadadhar said, "I don't agree with these Gaudiya Maths who just claim that their math is on the site of Nandanacharya's house...

Bhaktivinoda Thakur's meat eating has been a subject of some interest on this blog. The article I wrote in 2007 has been one of the most read on this site and still regularly attracts readers. As I have been revising the translation of Sva-likhita-jīvanī , I have been asked by certain people to censor any mention of meat-eating in the book. I have said emphatically, "absolutely not," because it is my feeling that this would completely destroy one of the principal themes of the book itself. Bhaktivinoda Thakur's autobiography is an extremely interesting work, especially to one who is directly in disciplic succession from him. It was written as a letter to his son and disciple, my guru Sri Lalita Prasad Thakur, when he was only a boy of 15. It is hard to understand what the purpose of such a confession would have been in that context. Lalita Prasad was born and brought up in a household where there was a shuddha sattvika diet of prasad. He had feelings of hero-wor...