Jagat

Prema Mandir, now the number one attraction in Vrindavan. I wrote the following article at the request of Steve Rosen , the editor of the Journal of Vaishnava Studies , for an issue about tirthas, so I tried to distinguish Braj from other tirthas in India. I have written a lot about Vrindavan over the past decade and it was something of a task to extract the essence of my experience of Vrindavan and express it in the present moment. I will publish the article on this blog in three parts. Part I of this three part series. [Introduction, Places of Pilgrimage: Tirtha, Kshetra and Dham, Vaishnava criticisms of tīrtha-yātrā, Braj/Vrindavan is a dhāma] Part II of this three part series. [How a Gaudiya Vaishnava performs pilgrimage to the Dham, The eternal glory of residence in the Dham] Part III : Sattva-guṇa and Nirguṇa, Globalization and the Dham, Can a culture truly be translated? Introduction The town of Vrindavan, now a part of the municipality of Mathura-Vrindavan , ...

This is a cross post from Vrindavan Today , with a few revisions. One of the subjects I have been thinking a great deal about is identity and globalization. My identity in Vrindavan is that of a Vaishnava sādhaka living in the Dham. This identity has to fight against the demands of the ever-increasingly dominant modern, globalized culture. Now there are two kinds of people living in Braj. The first are true blood Brijbasis, some going back many generations. Though there are many of these, the religious elites, the Gosais, are at the top of the hierarchy. But the traditions hold that all these Brijbasis are namasya , because they are most directly serving the Vrindavan lila. Times are changing, but they have been learning the game known as "Braj" for many generations. And many of them are now in the process of learning how to "be Braj in the world." Collectively also, the battle is on for an identity for Vrindavan. Brijbasis are not immune to external influ...

I have been watching a lot of strange videos over the past few days. A rather abrupt and inexplicable detour from the few days of more intense bhajan in the association of Bengali Babajis in Barsana. While in Barsana, I was standing in the Ladli temple on the outside terrace portion and someone appeared to have fainted. An elderly Brijbasi Gosai, with a bushy white moustache, a colorful turban and yellow silk dhoti, a stick in his hand, was walking toward me. For some reason I was impelled to say something stupid and started to speak, but my Hindi tongue was tied and could not express, "We must all pass by that." At the Brajvasi's insistence I repeated myself again without success and ended up stuttering out the words andham tamah . Which I knew the instant they came out of my mouth that they did not fit at all what I really wanted to say, pointless as it was. The Gusai responded vehemently in a tone of chastisement, but even singing a Brijbhasha song, glorifying B...