How the Chaitanya Charitamrita unified and systematized Gaudiya Vaishnavism

Transcript

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So today morning On the sacred occasion Of the disappearance day of Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami We will discuss Not so much about his pastimes But about his contribution In writing Sri Chaitanya Charita Amrit He gave us two main contributions The Chaitanya Charita Amrit And the Govinda Nila Amrit The Govinda Nila Amrit is a very exalted And a very important book in the Gaudiya canon It especially describes The Ashtakalya Leela The How the Lord performs Different pastimes at different times And in the advanced Ages of devotion The devotees at a particular time Of the day using that book Meditate on what pastime The Lord is performing at that time in the spiritual world So in this way The chronological And the trans-chronological Are linked together through meditation So that is a Very important Smarana Paddhati In the advanced ages of devotion But that book is Very advanced. What we will focus on is His contribution is in Writing Chaitanya Charita Amrit So I will This talk will have mainly three parts First I will give the historical background Of how and why Sri Chaitanya Charita Amrit was written Then I will go As much as possible in the chapter by chapter Or Chapter set by chapter set Over the various chapters of Sri Chaitanya Charita Amrit And while going through Those chapters I will also not just give a quick overview But rather I will tell the significant Points within that chapter Which either Illuminate the Distinctiveness of the Gaudiya Sampradaya Or which have special relevance For us as Modern day followers of the Gaudiya Sampradaya So Let’s start with the historical context When Sri Chaitanya Charita Amrit Was written So Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared in 1486 Departed in 1523 Lived for 48 years When he spread Practically an ocean of Love of Godhead All over the country Historians say that There was a Bhakti renaissance In the mediaeval ages Starting from Before Ramanavacharya also The Alwars in South India They started And focused on Focussing on devotion As compared to rituals As compared to Karmakant The principle of Bhakti And this went through Many saints who championed Bhakti In various parts of the country And often they faced severe persecution From the religious orthodoxy Of their times We ourselves hear about how Within our tradition also There were caste Brahmins who Criticised Chaitanya Mahaprabhu chanting the names of The Gopis In Maharashtra we have Tukaram Maharaj The great saint, his books Were at the order of the Brahmins Thrown into the Chandrabhaga river And the river personified came out And gave back their Compositions So the point is Bhakti Was there in the Vedic literature But It became manifest through the lives of the saints And the teachings of the saints And that crest Which was moving upward, upward, upward It attained its culmination In Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s life and teachings So there were many Bhakti saints who Talked about the principle of devotion to the Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Popularised it more than anyone else Especially in the form of Harinam Sankirtan And Another thing is not only did Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Propagate the chanting Of the holy names as a very Accessible and relishable Way of connecting with God But more importantly He was the first person, he through his Followers, was the first among the Bhakti saints to give a Systematic theology of the holy name Theology means A philosophical explanation Of why the holy name is so glorious Now of course When I am saying Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was the first to give That does not mean it was not there in the scriptures But the scriptures are like a vast Ocean and We need the great saints The great spiritual exponents To dive into that ocean, find The pearls that are at the bottom of the ocean And bring them out to enrich All of us. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did That with respect to the Glories, not just The emotional glory of the holy name In terms of giving us Experience of Krishna But also the philosophical Glory of the holy name in terms of how it is A non-different manifestation of Krishna So Now Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Relatively speaking as compared to many Religious teachers, lived very short For a short while Ramacharya is said to have lived the longest He lived more than 100 years, 110 or 120 Years it is said, according to his biographers Shankaracharya also of course lived very short When Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed Unlike the other teachers Unlike the other Most Bhakti saints Most Bhakti saints did not systematise Their teachings, they were more in the mode of Spontaneous devotion And they wrote some things And by the example, by their talks They inspired others But not many of them systematised Or institutionalised things So Ramacharya did that, Madhvacharya did that Shankaracharya of course Was not a Bhakti exponent But he also did that to some extent In fact Shankaracharya was the first Organiser of Dharma In India And that was a response to the Buddhist organisations Which were actually Taking over the Religious scene in India at that time So anyway, coming to our point Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself Did not directly organise anything Now one of the important books About Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Is the Chaitanya Charita There are many books actually When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed 27 biographies were written About him So he was such a famous person, so many people were Inspired by him Of course 27 is what the record we have There may have been more written also Now not all 27 of them are available Right now, some of them are lost Some of them may still be there, somewhere in some homes In Bengal or Orissa Old manuscripts lying, there are some devotees who are Right now also doing research Trying to find those Manuscripts So now, among all the biographies That were written Chaitanya Charita Amrit was the last biography And it became the Defining biography It became the most important Biography, the final word in understanding Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s life And his teachings So, how did Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Chaitanya Charita Amrit Acquire such a Canonical status Canonical means something which is Authoritative within the Religious library of a book The religious library of a tradition So every religious Tradition has its own books Which are most important So those books are considered its Canon, Canon means the authorised Religious books, the important religious books So for example, for his con devotees, Prabhupada’s books Are the primary religious canon But then he gave us so many previous books also So Now, in the Chaitanya Charita Which is a book written by Kavi Karanapuri, he describes That when the first Gaur Purnima festival Was held That is in Kheturi Gramme, so actually Vaishnavas came from four Prominent places, they came from various parts But They came from Vrindavan Where the Goswamis had been sent They came from Bengal itself Where they were of course the Successors of the Bangla Vaishnavas, there were two prominent Traditions, three rather Gadadhar Pandits, Advaita Acharyas And Nithyananda Prabhus And then there were of course the Odia Vaishnavas Where Sarambet Acharya and others were still Living, Prabhupada of course had passed away By that time, now He also says that in the South India Area, what we now call as Karnataka Karnataka from there also a lot of Vaishnavas came, but When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went there He did not Travel with a group of followers who Sort of created a religious encampment over there So that’s why Because of a lack of follow up system Then these Vaishnavas did not Continue in Gaudiya Vaishnavism For very long, and that’s why when Bhaktaswami Sudhakar went on a South India tour He said that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went To South India and brought everyone to Gaudiya Vaishnavism, but now again We see in South India everybody is worshipping Primarily in Aishwarya, so now We have to retrace The path of Lord Chaitanya and Again do what he has done So basically There were four places primarily where Gaudiya Vaishnavas were located Now among these The Bengal and Orissa Are geographically Next to each other, contiguous Karnataka as I said Not many Vaishnavas continued Over there in that path, apart from that There were the Vraja Vaishnavas Now actually Some People say that actually Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was very A world rejecting teacher And because of him That all his followers who were in responsible Positions, they rejected the world And in one sense this seems To be in contrast to what Krishna Teaches in the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna wanted to renounce the world, Krishna told Arjuna That you continue your duty But Rupa and Sanatana Goswami were in very Important positions in the government But then He told them to renounce the world, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Had a different mission for them But along with the mission of Actually writing Literature, he gave them as we know four Missions, he said rediscover The lost holy places in Vrindavan Build temples At the past time places of Vrindavan, build temples basically Third is Write books establishing The Glory of pure devotional service As the conclusion of the scriptures and lastly Write books describing How devotional service is to be practised Now these four Missions were very important and we have to Understand the historical context Also, these were the missions but Along with that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also had a Desire that Vrindavan Be protected and revived And Vrindavan was actually Very close to Delhi And Delhi was the stronghold of the Mughal Empire over there Now just before Chaitanya Mahaprabhu appeared There was Babur and Humayun Babur had been especially a barbaric ruler And he had devastated Vrindavan Of course before that also Vrindavan had been neglected but because of the Mughal invasions It was very terribly devastated Now Chaitanya Mahaprabhu wanted the Goswamis Who had experience In dealing with the Mleccha rulers That they go there and they ensure That they use their expert Negotiation skills to ensure that Vrindavan Remains safe from The atrocities Perpetrated by the Mughal rulers And actually they did that Rupasanathan and Then Jivagoswami, their successor afterwards They actually revived Vrindavan and Just soon after Rupasanathan and Jivagoswami came there There was the period of Akbar And he also relatively had a Tolerant attitude And Vrindavan actually developed over there And even historians admit that Actually it was Gaudiya Vaishnavas who went from Vrindavan, from Bengal to Orissa To Vrindavan, they actually Made Vrindavan As a prominent religious place On the country’s map Because of their primary contributions Now of course After Jivagoswami, unfortunately just two generations Later there was Aurangzeb and he laid Everything to dust and that’s why Vishwanath Chakrathapur had to go again And then again like a phoenix Vrindavan rose again But for our point of view Right now, we are discussing That how Chaitanya Charita Amrit Brought about a marriage Between The Bangla-Odiya Vaishnavas And the Vraja Vaishnavas That is the unique Feature of this book So now Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu After he departed, the Biographies that were written of his Were mostly written in Bengali Some were written in Sanskrit But they were mostly pastime based Now if you read Chaitanya Mangal Or Chaitanya Bhagwat, which are the two prominent Books which we have right now with us Now if you see, they are mostly pastimes There are philosophical Assertions over there Oh, I don’t even know if this happens Philosophical assertions are there But there is no systematic philosophical Exposition There is no systematic philosophical analysis And explanation Now that Philosophical analysis And writing was actually done by The Goswamis in Vrindavan And they did it in Sanskrit Because It’s like, suppose a devotee From India goes to say Goes to Ukraine to preach That devotee In Ukraine will not write books in Hindi or Sanskrit Because you have to write To your audience there So in Vrindavan, no one knew Bengali, not many people, only the Bengali Vaishnavas knew Bengali So there The Goswamis wrote book in Sanskrit And because Vrindavan is already Although not a prominent religious place at that time The Gaudiya Vaishnavas made that But it was still a prominent place And the Gaudiya Vaishnavas had to Establish their authority Their authenticity Now we sometimes Have a simplistic understanding That if somebody comes in Sampradaya Somebody gets initiated, that is the authorisation However, being connected with Sampradaya is only the beginning of authorisation Just like In ISKCON also, if somebody gets initiated That is just the beginning After that the devotee has to perform proper service Learn Shastra And then the devotee gets authority And then the devotee can become a prominent preacher or whatever So like that, the Gaudiya Vaishnavas Had to write literature and establish Their authority So now The Goswamis Wrote many different Kind of literature They actually write philosophical works Like Jeeva Goswami wrote Then they wrote commentaries For example They wrote Jeeva Goswami wrote a commentary On Brahma Samhita He wrote a commentary on the Bhaktirasa Amritsindhu by Rupa Goswami He called it a Durgam Sangamanitika Then they wrote also Rasa Shastra works For example, Rupa Goswami wrote Bhaktirasa Amritsindhu And then he also wrote Ujjwala Neelamani Which talks about Madhuras in much more advanced things And along with that So they wrote That means their own philosophical books Like the Sandarbhas They wrote commentaries on pre-existing philosophical books Then they wrote Rasa Shastras Which are primarily not philosophy But they are I will talk about Rasa Shastra and what its unique role is in Gaudiya Vaishnavism a little later And lastly, they also wrote books of past times But they wrote past times primarily By Krishna’s past times So, for example Rupa Goswami Wrote a very beautiful book, Gopal Champu In which he develops the characters Which are given in the 10th Canto And by extensive research From the various Puranas Makes all those characters come alive When I read Gopal Champu I really felt that all the 10th Canto characters You really come to know them Who is Nanda Maharaj? Who is Uddhava? Who is All these people, it’s a very beautiful book So, like that They wrote these 4 categories of books Now, all these books, they were in Sanskrit And now Krishna’s Kaviraj Goswami had a unique Position He was born and brought up In Bengal And in Bengal, he was steeped In hearing the lore of Lord Chaitanya That’s past times So, right from the childhood, he kept hearing And he was Filled with the Chaitanya culture And then, Nithyanand Prabhu came in a dream And told him Go to Vrindavan And he went to Vrindavan and there He was trained So, he got a very strong devotional culture The vernacular culture in Bengali He went to Vrindavan and there he was trained By the Goswamis It was not just from Raghunath Das Goswami That he heard Chaitanya Leela But rather, he got systematic Philosophical training From the Goswamis And he, in his person And subsequently in his Contribution, he integrated The Past times which he had Heard from Bengal And the philosophy he had learned from Vrindavan And he put them all together in one book And that book is Sri Chaitanya Charita Amrit So Although sometimes Chaitanya Charita Amrit is called as a Biography Or a past time book But actually, it is not a past time book It is primarily a book of theology But it is a theological book In the mode of a biography In the mode of a biography And in fact Actually, Krishna Das Goswami Quotes from Over 35 Different books Different Puranas Different Upanishads Not just Bhagavatam Bhagavatam he quotes scores and scores of time Not just from the devotional literature He quotes from the Rasa Shastra, he quotes from the Nyaya Shastra Just the number Of quotations that he uses That gives us a Glimpse of the breadth of his scholarship Just like when we hear a class And some preacher quotes from this Upanishad and this book and that book Before we learn so much So we can see the breadth Of the learning of Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami From the variety of the sources That he quotes Now When he wrote the book He had to make a critical decision The Goswamis had written All their literature in Which language? Sanskrit Now he has interestingly Written his book in Bengali So now He wrote the book in Vrindavan And he wrote it after gaining training from the Goswamis But he wrote it in Bengali Why is that? Because Although he wanted to glorify Lord Chaitanya for the whole world He also had a specific Audience in mind And that audience was the Bangla Vaishnav community Because as I mentioned earlier That after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed He did not Depart with any succession plan So he did not Appoint any successor, he did not write any books Nor did he Start any organisation So to some extent the Gaudiya Vaishnavas Had become fragmented So he, we will discuss Chapter by chapter How he brought through his book A structure and cohesion To the Gaudiya Vaishnavas of his times So he targeted his book Primarily for the Bengali Vaishnavas To help them to bring Philosophical coherence Philosophical coherence To The overall Gaudiya Vaishnavism You know, organisational theorists say that There are three kinds of organisations Roughly, they call it soft core, medium core And hard core So what this means is Hard core organisations means there is one Central authority And not a blade of grass cannot move Without the sanction of that authority Everything depends on that authority Every decision, nothing can happen Without that Now, hard core organisations Have a lot of conformity Everything moves very symmetrically But then is Two three problems happen, one major problem is It creates huge pressure On the leader, the leader has to attend to Everything within the organisation And generally hard core Organisations after the leader departs They just collapse Because they are practically like personality cults Depending only on that person Now, at the other extreme There are soft core organisations Where practically there is no Organisation structure only There is just a broad Agreement About principles And may be a similar broad agreement About practises And in the medium core Organisations There is Some authority, some central governing authority But along with that There is also A significant amount of freedom For individual For individual Units Within that organisation to express themselves So now If you see Among these three Because Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had departed Without any succession plan So what had resulted was A completely soft core organisation All these Gaudiya Vaishnavas They accepted Shri Chaitanya Krishna as the Supreme Lord They accepted pure devotional service They accepted Chaitanya Mahaprabhu As the incarnation But there was practically no coherence Because now if you see this variety was there And even if to some extent If you know Gaudiya history The Kirtan style of Narottam Das Thakur was different The Kirtan style of the Bengali Vaishnavas was different And like that there were significant differences And this is not Necessarily wrong So Now Actually After the Goswamis wrote their books Krishnal Kailasa Goswami’s Chaitanya Chaitanya Tamas was written And then it was brought by The next generation of Vaishnavas These three great travelling preachers Srinivas Acharya, Narottam Das Thakur and Shyamalan Pandit And they brought these books And at the Kheturi Festival where all the Vaishnavas Came together At that time one of the main books that was distributed To all the Vaishnavas was Chaitanya Charita Amrit And through That book That book became like the constitution of Gaudiya Vaishnavism And through that book The Coherence was brought between Gaudiya Vaishnavism So traditionally Gaudiya Vaishnavism has always been At most medium core Medium core means Because of the presence of Chaitanya Charita Amrit Which accepted Which Brought, integrated The various strands of Gaudiya Vaishnavism That was there So it brought some coherence Now Srila Prabhupada strongly resisted attempts To make ISKCON a hard core Organisation We discussed how when the GBC wanted to centralise The finances, Prabhupada What did he do? He suspended the GBC itself And he said this is nonsense You let individual initiative have Its way So now of course So in general Prabhupada Made ISKCON to be a medium core organisation Now of course within this individual leaders Will have their nature and some leaders Will tilt Little bit towards soft core, some leaders Will tilt little bit towards hard core But either way the Gaudiya Vaishnav standard Has been largely The medium core So but even that medium core How was that coherence done? That was through Chaitanya Charita Amrit So in this way Chaitanya Charita Amrit Played a very defining role And it is among the few books In Bengali history Or for that matter In the history of literature in vernacular languages That the original book Is in Bengali And it got a commentary in Sanskrit Vishwanath Chakradhakar He wrote various commentaries So one of the commentaries he wrote, unfortunately that commentary is lost today Its a great loss for Gaudiya Vaishnavism He wrote a commentary on Chaitanya Charita Amrit And he wrote it in Sanskrit Why? Because this was such a Important book There are practically very very few books like this Normally the Commentary tradition is that The original book is in Sanskrit and the commentary is in a vernacular language But Here the original book was in a vernacular language The commentary was in Sanskrit, why? Because this book was so theologically important That he felt that its reach Has to go beyond the Bengali audience And it has to reach The larger Intellectual elite of the country Who would normally read books only in Sanskrit So In this way Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami’s Chaitanya Charita Amrit Plays an extremely vital role in our tradition So with this historical context Now lets go into the Chapter by chapter analysis of the book And We will see how much we can cover I will cover definitely the whole thing But whether we will be able to go chapter by chapter or not we will have to see As per the time So now there are 17 chapters in the Adi Leela 25 chapters In the Madhya Leela And 20 chapters In the Anta Leela That makes a total 62 chapters So even if I give one minute we will need 62 minutes more For each of the chapters So lets see how we manage So basically what he does is Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami Does not start with the past tense In fact in Adi Leela The past tense starts from the 13th chapter The first 12th chapter He is actually positioning The book Positioning the book means He is actually Presenting the way In which he is going to present the book And he gives a lot of philosophical context Along with that we see His personal devotional mood also The first chapter is The spiritual master It starts with obeisances How the spiritual master should be respected What the position of the spiritual master is And how the Shiksha, Diksha, How they correlate All that is talked about in the first chapter The second chapter is It gives an introduction of the subject of the book Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu The Supreme Personality of Godhead And then it goes into third and fourth chapters Talk about the external reasons And the internal reasons For the appearance of Lord Chaitanya Now, one of the Challenges that happened because He is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Channa Avatar That Actually it became very difficult For the devotees to clearly Understand who he was Not just for outside people, even devotees Because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not publicly Systematically explain his position So In the different books, different Things are talked about.
For example If you read Chaitanya Bhagwat The concept of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu As a Combined incarnation of Radha Krishna It practically finds no mention in Chaitanya Bhagwat Why is that? Because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Exhibited his Radha Bhav Primarily after he left Vrindavan Actually it was his The sixth chapter of the The eighth chapter Of the Madhya Leela That is his meeting with Ramanandaraya So it was when Radha Met Vishakha Chaitanya Mahaprabhu met Ramanandaraya Actually that was the meeting that brought Out prominently the Radha Bhav In Lord Chaitanya And after that we see the Radha Bhav more and more So in his Mayapur pastimes He does not talk about the Radha Bhav Sometimes he talks about the names of the Gopis But there is also Krishna is calling out the Names of the Gopis, that is the mood So The understanding That Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the Combined incarnation of Radha Krishna That is not found in Chaitanya Bhagwat Now Of course it is pointed to in Chaitanya Mangal But not so much in Chaitanya Bhagwat Chaitanya Mahaprabhu primarily talks about Lord Chaitanya as Gauranarayan As the incarnation of the Lord who has come to establish Shukadharma So basically the previous biographies Had given Understandings of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu From different perspectives So by putting them In a systematic structure Three external reasons Three internal reasons What Krishna Das Kala Jayaswamy did was He integrated it all together And in that way he gave a holistic Understanding. Now here when we talk About somebody being an incarnation It is very important Now normally we say that if anybody claims that My Guru is an incarnation, we say where is that Given in scripture? The scriptural Authentication is important But we see in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Lifetime that when He is travelling and when certain devotees Realise that he is the Lord, it is not that you know they are Waiting at the doorstep with the scripture in hand And looking at Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, oh you match With that scripture, therefore you are God It is not like that Actually Chaitanya Mahaprabhu By his personal charisma By his personal Spiritual potency Gives such transformational experiences To them and they feel Sarvambhattacharya is no Ordinary person, he is a great scholar But then he Is stunned by The scholarship, the devotion And the overall personality and charisma Of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and he says such learning Cannot be present in anyone other than God So it is not that He concludes that he is God Based on scripture But his experience Of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s extraordinary Erudition, that stuns him And then of course he gets scriptural confirmation Also later, he quotes Scripture to point how actually There is a reference in scripture also That the Lord appears, so the point which I am Making over here is That It is experience That convinces People about spiritual truths Scripture gives us a context in which To understand those experiences So if somebody is convinced that my Guru Is God, just quoting scripture Will not be enough to change that person’s understanding Now we have to actually Help them practise the process of Devotion and get divine experiences And actually this is the approach which Bhaktivinoda Thakur uses in his book Life and Precepts of Lord Chaitanya At the end of the introduction He says, he gives a quick summary Of Lord Chaitanya’s pastimes, many of the Miraculous pastimes and then he states That Now the question remains About the position of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu As far as the Vaishnavas are concerned The Vaishnavas accept Lord Chaitanya As the incarnation of the Supreme Lord But we leave it Up to our readers to decide How they would like to Accept Lord Chaitanya, as the Lord Or as a great saint, as a great devotee Who taught about How to approach the Lord He said yes, he performed many miracles And the Vaishnavas see these miracles As proof of his divinity, as Pointers to his divinity, but ultimately Miracles are not the proof of divinity Because the scriptures describe Even demons like Ravana Perform miracles like changing their forms So he said The ultimate miracle That Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu performs Is that he fills the heart With a flood of love Of God And that flood of love of God Can be experienced By anyone who follows The instructions, follows the process of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, follows the Teachings of Bhakti Yoga as he has given Based on the Vedic tradition And this can be followed Irrespective of whether one accepts Lord Chaitanya’s divinity or not So Bhaktivinoda Thakura is a very Sensitive, broad minded And very Very intelligent Preacher, so he presents it Very, very acceptably To people, so here Second and third chapters talk about How, sorry third and fourth chapters Talk about his external and internal reasons for his Appearance, now after that He moves towards The associates of Lord Chaitanya He introduces, now his personal spiritual master is Balramji Nityanandji, so he talks about Nityanand Prabhu in the fifth chapter And Advaita Acharya in the sixth chapter Then after that in the Seventh chapter now, he talks about Lord Chaitanya and his five features So this is quite a theological Chapter, we describe the different potencies Of Lord Chaitanya and especially It introduces the Panchatattva understanding Of the Lord Then after that in the eighth chapter That is the, it is practically the only chapter Where he talks about himself Now every author Especially a biographer has to decide You know, is he Going to write in a Personal narrative tone or An omniscient narrative tone Personal narrative means, like I was also A character in the story and I refer to myself as I Or I refer to an omniscient narrator, that means I just put myself also as a third person and I write about Myself, so for example Satsvarupa Maharaj in his Lila Amrit He doesn’t, he writes as a Omniscient narrator, omniscient narrator means He doesn’t talk about, when he is talking about Satsvarupa He doesn’t say I, he says Satsvarupa Das Goswami Now there are other books he has written In which he refers to himself as I Because he felt this is an authorised biography Which is to be written, so he felt that Putting myself I, it will make it too personal To stay authorised So overall Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami Keeps his book as, he doesn’t bring An I too much, except at the beginning Or at the end of each chapter, where he says I seek the blessings of Rupa Raghunath Like that, but in this chapter He describes how he wrote The book and how he got The inspiration based on the flower garland That fell from the deities And now what is he doing, now after this He has to do a very challenging task And he is assuring His Vaishnava readers that Actually what I am doing Is not just based on my personal preferences Or my personal biases It is actually divinely authorised So what does he do After this chapter, after he Describes this, how he got The authorisation from the Vaishnavas From the Lord and again from the Vaishnavas Together, then he wrote this book Now, what has happened is After Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed There were, this happens After every great leader departs There are some disruptions There are some deviations that happen So, I mentioned one deviation Which he refers to in a later chapter That some of the followers of Advaitacharya Sons of Advaitacharya They became Mayavadis Mayavadis in what sense? That they started considering that Advaitacharya Because he called Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Therefore he is greater than Chaitanya Mahaprabhu And therefore he is the Yugavatar And he should be worshipped, not Lord Chaitanya So like that Among the devotees’ ranks There were deviations that had happened So now, over the next Four chapters, or five chapters Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, four chapters What Krishnadaswamy does is He Names the authorised branches And by that Directly or indirectly He cuts off the deviant branches So the ninth chapter is The desired tree of devotional service He uses the tree metaphor In these four chapters And then he talks about the roots The branches and sub-branches of the Chaitanya tree That is the tenth chapter Now here he is talking about the antecedents Means how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, how the previous Acharyas were How glorious this tradition is And the main work of separating The grain from the shaft Separating the Proper devotees from the deviants He does it in the eleventh, twelfth chapters Eleventh chapter is the expansions Of the Nityananda tree And the twelfth chapter is the expansions of the Advaita Acharya And the Gadadhar Pandit tree branch So what he is doing by this is That which are actually the expansions Which are the deviants, he is separating The two And this is a very vital task So, after giving This philosophical background Then Actually what happens is, when we read it now We may not consider it very important There are so many Names, so many names What is the use of those names? But, you know, the names They are very very important at that time It’s like, say, if we Read the will of some Jagveerdar Who lived 500 years ago Now we will see those names are just as names What does it matter? But at that time, whether the name Was present in that will or not, that would Determine whether that Person got some property or not Isn’t it? The presence of the name Plays a very vital role over there So why does he give so Many names in these chapters? Because he is enlisting who are the authorised Followers of Lord Chaitanya And then after having Done all this philosophical positioning He starts with the Pastimes So the thirteenth chapter is the appearance Of Lord Chaitanya and Krishna Das Kailash Goswami Is a beautiful poet and what he Does is, not only Is the Lord divine, but Everything connected to the Lord is also divine So he starts this chapter by saying That I offer obeisances, not to Lord Chaitanya who descended to the world I offer obeisances to that Holy day on which Lord Chaitanya Appeared. So he says It is the day that has become sacred Because Lord Chaitanya appeared on this day So the holy days Are actually In one sense Manifestations of Krishna In time.
He says Krishna Is manifestation, deity is the Manifestation of Krishna in Matter. The Dham is a manifestation of Krishna In space. So like that the Sacred days are the manifestations Of Krishna in time.
So he is offering Obeisances to that day and then he Describes beautifully how Lord Chaitanya Appeared. And then the subsequent four Chapters, they talk about the four Phases of Lord Chaitanya Baal Leela is the 14th chapter, Kamara Leela Is the 15th chapter, Paugandha Leela is the 16th chapter and then the Yauvan Leela is the 17th chapter So now, in These chapters, so many Things have happened and there are many Ecstatic pastimes which are described By Vrindavan Das Thakur in his Chaitanya Bhagwat So Now we have to look back and remember That what is Krishna Das Thakur’s purpose in writing this book His purpose is To establish the Theology of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu So therefore he does not go Too much into the ecstatic pastimes That ecstatic, the narration of the Pastimes is primarily done in, of the Baal Leela or the Of the Navadvipastimes is done Elaborately in the In Chaitanya Bhagwat, so he Just mentions those pastimes and He focusses here primarily On the philosophically significant Pastimes and he focusses Even among those pastimes On their philosophical significance For example, in the 16th chapter We have the conversion Of Chandakasi, now It’s a very dramatic pastime You know, in order to Make it intelligible To the modern audiences You know, our Acharyas refer to it As the first civil disobedience movement The word civil disobedience is referred to Used to refer to the Second Independent struggle that happened in India The first was the non-cooperation movement in 1920s 1932 was the civil disobedience movement And 1943 was the Quit India movement So in order to make that That ancient struggle Intelligible to the modern audience Chaitanya Mahaprabhu called it a civil disobedience The devotees called it as a civil disobedience movement So anyway, but the point is In this, this is a very Dramatic pastime and the drama Of the pastime Is found in Chaitanya Bhagwat Krishnath’s Govardhanam focusses on the Philosophy of the pastime Of course he doesn’t go elaborately into the philosophy But he talks about the main Philosophical points in the discussion Between Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Chandakasi And then in the 17th chapter he starts pointing Towards the sannyas But he does not describe the sannyas in detail Because multiple reasons, again The sannyas is a very heart-wrenching experience For the devotees and Also Again his focus is primarily the philosophy So it’s like, you know, suppose Somebody is playing a movie and in some section You don’t want to watch, so you just do fast-forward It’s almost like he does a Fast-forward over the sannyas pastime And then when we come to the Madhya Leela Now Krishna, just like Prabhupada had a Lifetime of training Before he wrote his books and before he started Preaching also in a vigorous way So similarly Krishnath’s Kaviraj Goswami To write a book Like that required a Lifetime of scholarship So it was no Small effort And because of this What he did was he was concerned That he may or may not be able to Complete the book and that’s why he Quickly gives A summary In the next two chapters What he does is He gives a later pastimes of Lord Chaitanya Which is just a summary of all the pastimes that are going to come Later and this also shows how Structured the book is Because whatever is described in summary in this Madhya 1, it actually comes in the later chapters And then after that Madhya 2 is a See there is In a devotee’s life there is an action and there is an emotion And actually the inner emotion Or the inner action is even more important in Vivesh So that, the ecstatic manifestation Of Lord Chaitanya That he talks about in the second chapter Then after that He returns To the main narrative So he is given like a quick overview He says that in case I don’t live long enough to complete The book, at least the summary I have given Then he doesn’t Talk about the sannyas, the sannyas event is left To Chaitanya Bhagwat The post sannyas events he starts describing So he describes how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu meets The Vaishnavas again at Advaita Acharya’s house And then Instead of going to Vrindavan He is told by his mother to go to Puri Then that journey is described In two pastimes, described elaborately The fourth chapter is The Madhavendra Puri’s pastime, Sakshi Gopal No, the Kheer Chor Gopinath The fifth chapter is Sakshi Gopal So again what is Keshavji doing by telling these pastimes? Two things First he is describing the rich devotional tradition That was there And how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu belongs to such a rich devotional tradition But he is also describing The distinctive nature of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu That when he is going He is not, although he has taken sannyas He is not manifesting his divinity He is showing us the example of a seeker Going to various holy places And relishing the pastimes of the Lord With his great devotees Now Till now There have not been any major Philosophical discussions There have been two When Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was in Navadweep One is with Keshav Kashmiri But with Keshav Kashmiri The discussion was primarily grammatical There was not much philosophy in it And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu proved how Grammatically his composition was wrong And With Chand Kazi Actually there was some discussion But actually in those times The Islam Was never considered to be like An intellectual competitor So because the idea was People who eat flesh and things like that What can they actually know philosophy So it was a very preliminary discussion That happened over there Now After the main Philosophical discussions that are there They come from the 6th Dalila onwards So as I said this is not just a biography This is a work of theology in the mode of a biography So as he is going over the life Whenever there is any major Philosophical discussion that happens At that time Krishna Swamy sort of Presses a slow button And then he expands on it So the 6th chapter Is The conversion, the liberation of Sarvabhauma This is the first Major intellectual discussion That Shri Chandra Mahaprabhu has As a devotee Acharya And he It’s a stupendous victory Because Nyaya was one of the most prominent Schools at that time And Sarvabhaum Bhattacharya Was a proponent of one of the Modern developments Of that school called Nava Nyaya Very prominent scholar he was And to get him converted It is stunning It is like It’s a very mundane example But to understand this Now cricket is a team sport So it doesn’t apply Let’s consider an individual sport Say like tennis And in tennis there are all seeded players And number 1, number 2, number 4 Like that there are seeds And these are considered to be the favourites For winning the championship And if somebody is an unseeded player There are many unseeded players Some people just become qualifiers And come out Now in the history of Wimbledon or Grand Slam Actually an unseeded player Barely a qualifier Going all the way and winning the championship Defeating the champion It’s unheard of practically So Sarvabhaum Bhattacharya is the most Prominent scholar in Puri He is One of the pioneers of Nava Nyaya He is a prominent Not just prominent In Utkal But all over the country he is well known And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is just a recent Sanyasi, like a qualifier An unseeded And he comes and completely defeats Not only defeats but converts Many times Unless a person is Convinced against his will He is of the same opinion still That person doesn’t change heart And that also happens in some of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s dealings For example when he goes to Udupi He defeats the Madhva scholars But they don’t become Gaudiya Vaishnavas You know they just recognise the limitations Of their doctrine but here what happens Sarvabhaum Bhattacharya He gets converted And he becomes one of the most prominent followers And that is Such a significant victory So Srila Prabhupada took some of the great Great conversations Of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu And he put them together as the book Teachings of Lord Chaitanya So talk with Sarvabhaum Bhattacharya Then we will discuss the other talks one by one As we move forward And then surprisingly Chaitanya Mahaprabhu feels that he has already Achieved a very great victory So he says that let me travel now And then 7th chapter he starts off On the holy place And actually if you see this carefully What does he do in this 7th chapter he starts off his South India tour 9th chapter also describes His further South India tour 8th chapter is the discussion with Ramanandraya I will come to that a little later And 10th chapter is his return to Puri Now in the 7th and 9th Chapters What is Krishnas Kiviraj Goswami doing He is not, again you remember His purpose is theological and philosophical It is not just chronological or It is not a travelogue So he does describe List of some of the places Chaitanya Mahaprabhu goes to But primarily what he is doing is He is establishing He is demonstrating how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Establishes the Gaudiya Siddhanta’s glory So We see that he converts a Ram Bhakta To a Krishna Bhakta He meets Sri Vaishnava Who is that Venkata Bhatta And converts him to a Gaudiya Vaishnava He meets the Buddhists And he grants them Nirvana Bauddha Jaina Mayavadi Kutarka Khandana So Dakshina Tarana Bhakti Grantha Uddharana Very beautiful set of Gauranga Shatana Hundred names Hundred and eighteen of Lord Chaitanya written by Bhaktivinoda Thakur Attributed to Bhaktivinoda Thakur And therein he describes What did he do? He says Dakshina Pavana Bhakti Grantha Uddharana He went to Dakshina He delivered the whole of South India And Bhakti Grantha He discovered Bhakti Grantha especially the Brahma Samhita And other books like that Bauddha Jaina Mayavadi Kutarka Khandana So How Chaitanya Mahaprabhu defeated the exponents Of different schools of Philosophy That is what he is describing in the South India Past Times And while he is doing that The eighth chapter in many ways Is actually The Emotional theological climax Of the Chaitanya Charita Amrit In terms of exposition, in terms of analysis In terms of emotions, it comes at the end of the book But here Eighth chapter is the conversation between Ramananda Raya and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Such an amazing conversation Takes from the level of Aparadharma to Paradharma And within pure emotional surveys He talks about how The love of Radharani is the highest And actually this will become a whole subject I will just mention two quick points briefly Here that I have a whole separate class on How there are Bhakti is a universal concept That is there in scripture But what is Bhakti exactly? You know that The different Vaishnavacharyas have different Understandings For example, Madhavacharya has the idea that Actually A devotional Meditation With knowledge of the glory of the Lord That is Bhakti So Nayananda is giving very Approximate definitions over here Ramanacharya says that actually it is Affectionate remembrance of the Lord that is Bhakti So like that The different Acharyas have given different Understandings of what is Bhakti But it is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in his Revelations, in his pastime that he reveals That Bhakti Is not just some emotion in our Head, is not just some Contemplation in our heart Bhakti Bhakti is actually The personified manifestation of Srimati Radharani Bhakti is Ladini Shakti, Ladini Shakti is Radharani So It is not that when we think of Krishna That is Bhakti Because there are so many times we may think of Krishna and we may not feel any devotion So actually how it is His understanding is that when we think Of Krishna At that time our Attempt to think of Krishna As per the instruction of scripture Pleases Krishna And Radharani and then Radharani manifests Her presence in our heart And when she manifests her presence In our heart that is when Bhakti is experienced So Bhakti is not Just an emotion or a contemplation It is a manifestation of Radharani In our heart, this is a unique Understanding, it is definitely based on scripture But in the first time this is revealed Systematically in the teachings of Lord Chaitanya First is the unique understanding of Bhakti And the second is the understanding of Rasa Now probably before we came to ISKCON, the only time we heard the word Rasa Was Amras or Gannaras Mango juice or sugarcane juice Or something like that Now what exactly is Rasa Now Rasa, if we look at Again very Briefly, this is an elaborate subject The Rasa Shastra is a whole genre Of literature, Natya Shastra Natya Shastra is a book written by Bharat Muni Wherein it describes how Actually when dramas are performed The drama should be performed In such a way that By the gestures, by the Speech, by the backgrounds By the mood set up In a Rasic audience In a refined audience An appropriate Rasa, an appropriate Emotion will be invoked So this is the Original understanding of the concept of Rasa Original means or traditional we could say Now what is Rasa as it is Traditionally understood in the Rasa Shastra It is an appropriate emotion Experienced by a refined audience In a dramatic setting But Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the first Vaishnavacharya who takes Rasa out of its dramatic Context and brings It within a devotional context The concept of Rasa is there but its Application here is what Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Has done for the first time So what he explains is Rasa is not just something Which a person occasionally experiences In a drama, Rasa is Something that can be experienced Constantly by a Devotee in relationship With the Lord So the theological Import of Rasa is revealed by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and that is Actually coming in the Chaitanya Chittamrita For the first time in this 8th chapter And that is systematised by Rupa Goswami In his Vakkirsama Sindhu later Now after this Now here there is one Interesting question, sometimes scholars Criticise that Actually Chaitanya Chittamrita has got the Historical sense completely wrong Because what happens, he depicts That when they are having discussions When Chaitanya Mahaprabhu And Ramananda Raya are having discussions Or later on Rupa Goswami and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu are having discussions Sometimes it is described that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is quoting a particular Sanskrit Verse and say this Verse is from Lalita Madhava, this verse Is from Vidagdha Madhava and Prabhupada gives the reference also Now What the critics argue is that This actually Lalita Madhava is written later So You know At this time Rupa and Sanatana Goswami have not even met Chaitanya Mahaprabhu So they have not gone to Vrindavan and they have not written Lalita Madhava and Vidagdha Madhava So how can Chaitanya Mahaprabhu be quoting From a book that is not yet written also So they say that actually This just indicates that this whole book is a Product more of the imagination of Krishnasagar Rajgoswami But the fact is We have to understand that Those verses Did not originate They may be found in Lalita Madhava and Vidagdha Madhava So I will explain first What the problem is The problem is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is describing a historical event Meeting between Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Ramanandaraya And here Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is speaking some verses So now those verses Are coming from Lalita Madhava But Lalita Madhava is a book Which is written later So how can a book which is coming Earlier quote From a book which is going to be written later Or rather how can An event which has happened earlier Quote from a book which is going to be written later So the point is That actually The verses don’t originate In that book The verses originate from Lord Chaitanya Lord Chaitanya told those verses To the Goswamis And the Goswamis put them in their books But because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Only told them orally So there is no textual Source for his oral speech So the textual source that is there Is a later book If it is not clear Then don’t worry about it The point is that There are some cheap critics that happen to this But it is a very sophisticated book So why is Krishnavaskar Goswami Doing like this Because remember his audience Is the Bengali Vaishnavas And the Bengali Vaishnavas They have met the Vraja Vaishnavas, the Goswamis a few times We will discuss Twice they come to Puri First chapter and the fourth chapter of their Mantra Leela But the Aurya Vaishnavas and the Bengali Vaishnavas They don’t know much about these Vraja Vaishnavas Just heard about them So he wants to show the coherence That what the Vraja Vaishnavas are talking about In their books is actually based on the teachings Of Lord Chaitanya And by that they will accept that this is the authentic Philosophy So now after that the 10th chapter Describes his return And now Here he starts Establishing Himself in Jagannath Puri and then actually From that point onwards It is interesting that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has come to see Jagannath But he leaves without Participating in the Rath Yatra The first Rath Yatra description that is there is Now after he comes back From his South India tour So then the 10th chapter onwards it is all building up Towards 13th chapter So 11th chapter is the Beda Kirtan pastimes, 12th chapter is the Gundicha Marjan, 13th chapter is Lord Chaitanya is dancing in Jagannath Puri Now this is the time when actually The Puri Vaishnavas Start seeing the immense Extraordinary ecstasy of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu He must be a special person That he converted As Arun Bhattacharya like that In just one meeting Of course it was a long meeting, 7 days But still just one interaction But then Pratap Rudra also sees Chaitanya Mahaprabhu for the first time and he sees The miracle and he is present in 7 times in 7 groups And then he realises That what Arun Bhattacharya is saying That he is not an ordinary saint Supreme Lord In fact he said that many many great Travelling saints and others who came And they saw Chaitanya Mahaprabhu dancing in the Rath Yatra, they were overwhelmed Stunned And they conquered their hearts And the 14th chapter Describes the post Jagannath Rath Yatra That is the Vrindavan pastimes So how Lakshmi Devi is angry With Lord Jagannath for leaving And how they get him back Now 15th chapter describes, the whole chapter Describing how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Accepted Prasad at the house of Arun Bhattacharya Now you may wonder What is so great about describing Prasad And how is that going to establish Theology, if that is the purpose of the book Actually the theology that is explained over there is Through the Amogha pastime How somebody who is Who is very critical Offensive Can quote great danger and will be Forgiven by the grace of Lord Chaitanya Now After this Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has Gone to South India, now his original desire Was to go to Vrindavan So now how does he go to Vrindavan, in fact Actually 3 chapters are Describing the journey The first chapter describes, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Tries to go to Vrindavan So he tries and the whole chapter is about how Different devotees give different reasons, don’t go now My lord, don’t go now my lord, don’t go now my lord So now from here actually The Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mood Is, we will see this more and more It is primarily Not to describe the preaching conquest That is there, but ultimately It is the heart’s conquest Through loving reciprocations And those loving reciprocations Which will be what will be Until he is practically filled with that only So this whole chapter is divided How Chaitanya Mahaprabhu honours the devotees Request, please don’t go, so he delays And then finally he starts off 17th chapter he starts off 18th chapter describes how he is in Vrindavan And what he does in Vrindavan And that is His heart’s desire Is fulfilled over there, he longs to see Vrindavan And it is interesting over here That here In the 17th and 18th chapters There are also encounters of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu With Muslims So there are actually three encounters One is of course Chandaka which happened And there are two other encounters where these Muslims He converts them and they are later called Pathan Vaishnavas So essentially in this context The Chaitanya Charita Amrit Does contain the word Hindu So the Vaishnavas When they are trying to refer to themselves In contrast With the Muslims They use the word Hindus So when we say Hindus, not in the Vedic literature We are referring to the Puranas, the Upanishads That is not there But by the time the Muslims had started ruling the world And the Muslims used to refer to Those people as Hindus And to differentiate themselves From the Muslims the word Hindu Was used, but primarily In their own conversation they would not use the word Hindu They would use the word Vaishnavas Because there were so many groups Of people within the Vedic canon There were the Shaktas and Shaivites and this and that So the Vaishnavas would refer to themselves Not as Hindus but as Vaishnavas But the word Hindu does come over there Now after this, after the 18th chapter Again So there is some devotional ecstasy that is described But now again the two Main discussions come up The 19th chapter is His discussions with Sanatana Goswami That 10 days meeting Sorry Rupa Goswami 10 days meeting And then 20th to 24th chapters Actually 5 chapters Is the meeting with Sanatana Goswami And 20th chapter sort of Starts the discussion 21st chapter is about Sambandha, 22nd chapter is about Abhidheya 23rd chapter is about Prayojana And 24th chapter is about The The multiple explanations of Atmarama words So this is actually this chapter, this set of chapters Describes Chaitanya Mahaprabhu You can say in full intellectual form And his full flow is describing Now here one interesting Question we can discuss That actually the chapters are long And with Prabhupada’s purport they do become very long But still it’s not A complete recitation It’s only a summary description It’s a summary description And Now Sridhar Swami In his Bhagavatam commentary right in the beginning Raises the question That when the scriptures Describe some pastimes Are they verbatim Literal narratives Is it every Did this person speak exactly these words Did that person speak exactly those words Now if you see Let’s first look at Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrit Now Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrit If we see, it’s in Bengali Now when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is going to meet With say Prakashananda Saraswati and talk with him He, Prakashananda Saraswati is in Varanasi He doesn’t know Bengali So obviously that conversation was not in Bengali Or for that matter when he meets With the Udupi Brahmins They have nothing to do with Bengal, they are not going to speak in Bengali So at the very least There is a translation There is going to be, book is in a particular medium And that book Book’s language is going to depict The characters In that language, so the original characters May not have spoken in that language Now another issue that comes up is Say there are conversations in the Ramayana Where Lord Ram is talking with say Guha Or he is conversing with Other people who are like lower caste Or things like that Now generally Sanskrit was the language of their life So did these people Know Sanskrit No, generally they would not know Sanskrit They did not have to know, they could have known in exceptional cases But they did not know So at the very least the author What he does is, it’s not the literal word The author Puts it in a language of the narration And it’s not that All the people at that time Would always be talking in poetry Like say Ramayana and Mahabharata, they are poetry Now there are some people Who are expert enough to talk in poetry But it’s not that everyone was expert enough to talk in poetry So what he describes is Because the transmitters Because the people who have written down The scriptures Are great saints Who can actually see these past tense in scriptures So therefore When they put it either in a particular language Or they put it in a poetic format The essential meaning Is preserved And not only this special Raksha is also imbued And that’s why when the Acharyas Take one word and analyse Oh this word could have meant this, this word could have meant this This word could have meant this It’s not something just abstract or theoretical Actually that meaning Is imbued By the loving connection Between the Lord and the devotee The past tense has happened in a particular way The Lord inspires the devotee To write that past tense in a particular way But that writing is imbued With meaning because of the intimate Loving connection between the Lord and the devotee So then there is a So again the 71 different explanations The Atmarambhuars, he doesn’t describe all those Actually different Acharyas Chaitanya Bhagwat gives a different number How many exactly were there, but the point was there were very many That is the most important thing But then Essentially that describes How Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was stupendously Scholarly And then the 25th chapter describes One of the greatest victories of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, that is The conversion of Prakashananda Saraswati You know that is in one sense even more glorious Than defeating Saravana Bhattacharya Why? Because Prabhupada used to say Varanasi is the Vrindavan of the Mayavadis It is their headquarters So it’s like say the Indian cricket team goes to Pakistan and defeats Pakistan In Pakistan, that is a far greater Victory than in the neutral ground Or in India defeating them So Puri was already a Vaishnav place More or less So here when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu goes there To Prakashananda Saraswati and you know They have a discussion And initially he starts the dogma This dancing, singing Vaishnava, he must be Unintelligent. But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Exhibits such intelligence That at that time Prakashananda Saraswati understands What is Prakash, what is Ananda and what is Saraswati Now After this Here the Chronological description Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has gone to South India and come back He has gone to North India and North Indian travel, it culminates In his victory at Puri, at Varanasi Now interestingly, this same Past time is also described in the 7th Chapter of the Adi Lila Lord Chaitanya and the 5 features, the same past time Is described there also.
But there The purpose is theological Here the purpose is chronological So there while he is establishing The position of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu He talks about how he converted Prakashananda Saraswati And here, in the flow of The biography, he describes That’s why, rather than repeating Things, the different things are told In these two different past times In these two different places rather, about the same past time Now After this, it is described how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Comes back to Vrindavan, to Puri And now we come to the Anta Lila So the Adi Lila Is primarily about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu In Navadvip. The Madhya Lila Is primarily about his travels Although things happen in Puri also, but it is about his travels The Anta Lila Is about his stay In Puri And what is he doing over here? Essentially, in his preaching Conquest, his preaching conquests are largely Described in the Previous chapter, in the previous, in the Madhya Lila. Now how he conquers The heart of his devotees By 6 fold loving exchanges That is what is described In the next chapters So, in this Anta Lila So, Rupa Goswami’s Second meeting, Rupa Goswami’s Meeting, coming to Jagannath Puri, that’s how the Chapter starts.
And here Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Gives such profuse mercy On Rupa Goswami Now, as compared to the other Vaishnavas For us, the Goswamis are very exalted But if you consider from that point of view Rupa Goswami was first of all an administrator And then he Almost converted to Islam And then he left and went to Vrindavan Chaitanya Mahaprabhu brings him back And he brings him to the centre of his Intimate community of devotees And he says His handwriting is like a set of pearls His words are like a Shower of nectar And he has been specially blessed So, all of you Vaishnavas, please Bless him. And in this Way, what is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu doing? He knows that he has given Rupa and Sanatana Goswami A very difficult mission. First of all For a devotee to live in separation from the Lord itself is very Difficult.
And secondly, to live in a Hostile environment like Vrindavan Vrindavan is of course a devotional environment But at that time, politically it is hostile To live there is very difficult So, he sort of charges him with So much mercy, so much devotional Memories That actually Rupa Goswami feels so enriched, so Empowered that he goes back And now actually If you see, the Goswamis did not have many meetings with the Lord But still they did so much service Because in the short meetings that he had Chaitanya Mahaprabhu blessed and enriched And empowered and infused them With so much grace In the second and third chapters talk about the Two Haridas, Chota Haridas chastisement And the glories of Shri Haridas Thakur So, here what is he doing? Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is Devotionally ecstatic but he is also very strict in his Principles. And actually this chapter of Haridas Thakur, Chota Haridas chastisement Anticipates How there are going to be people who may Be deviant and sets His precedent, how one has to deal with very Carefully And then of course he describes, Haridas Thakur comes Twice in this chapter here And the eleventh chapter describes his departure And after that There is the Sanatana Goswami’s coming And it is also very sweet And Sanatana Goswami when he comes Although he has become sick And his body is filled with flowers, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Embraces him and through That actually he shows his love These are small small but very Significant emotionally Things for every individual How the Lord accepts him And embraces him and blesses him And Then he is winning the hearts Of people one by one by one. He already won their heart But he is entering deeper and deeper into their Hearts.
Now there are different kinds Of encounters which go on then Then there is the encounter of Pradyumna Mishra and Pradyumna Mishra Realises the glory of Ramanandaraya As he is actually massaging And dressing and instructing the Devi Dasis So Unfortunately some people through this Concluded Ramanandaraya was a sahajiya But Ramanandaraya was not a sahajiya He was a very proper philosophically astute Vaishnava but he had a very Exalted level of devotion So that exalted level of devotion Is also glimpsed through this past time. Then there is of course The meeting of Raghunatha Bhatta Goswami over there, Raghunatha Das Goswami All these chapters go on. Vallabha Bhatta meeting is there Then there is the chastisement Of Ramachandra Puri.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu does not actually chastise but he Criticises and then he falls So each of these past times Is illustrating an important devotional principle Gopinath Pattanaikar’s past time is there These all illustrate different important theological Principles See now I will just talk about one Or two over here. We won’t go into the significance Of each of these chapters. Now The chapter about Vallabha Bhatta Now that is, now he is Vallabha Acharya And normally Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami is very respectful In talking about various Acharyas.
But with Vallabha Bhatta, he doesn’t refer to him as Vallabha Acharya He refers to him as Vallabha Bhatta. So what Had happened was Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami Was an eye witness To one of the most Heart wrenching disputes In the history of Vaishnavism We know What had happened was that Madhavendra Puri discovered the deity of Which deity? Gopalji Now Madhavendra Puri Initiated Ishwara Puri and Ishwara Puri Disciple of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Now at that time There was this Vallabha Sampradaya Vaishnavas also And the Vallabha Sampradaya Vaishnavas They Somehow felt that Madhavendra Puri belongs to our Lineage and they felt that This temple should be with us The Gopalji’s temple.
And then the Gaudiya Vaishnavas Were taking care of the temple over there And then he was there Our Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami was there at that time And somehow Now the history is very confused but essentially What happened was The Pushti Marg Vallabha Sampradaya Vaishnavas Came there and forcibly threw the Gaudiya Vaishnavas out of the temple And they took over the temple And till that time The Vallabha Sampradaya and the Gaudiya Sampradaya were very close to each other But that was like a fracture That ripped apart the two Vaishnava Sampradayas Very badly So now Of course now History, lot of time has passed and now Things are much better but still So that is what also Comes out. The Vallabha Bhatt He refers to him as. Now after This if we move forward Here again he is depicting how Yes they may have the position of the temple But theologically, philosophically As Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Understanding is the highest That’s what he depicts over here Now as the chapters move Onwards further What is happening is, especially the last chapter If you go to the, I won’t go to all the chapters Now, from the 15th chapter onwards They are all describing internals It is The inconceivable behaviour of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu The ecstasy of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Rescuing Lord Chaitanya from the ocean And all these are Chaitanya Mahaprabhu goes more and more And more into an internal mood Actually In one sense The ecstasy That he demonstrates in Gambhira They are among the Highest ecstasy that any Devotee has ever In any tradition Anywhere in the world, they have demonstrated In the Christian tradition they have their idea of the saints And sometimes they call it the passion of Christ Now we use the word passion To refer to Rajoguna In the Christian tradition the word passion has a very different meaning The passion means The sacrifice, the selfless devotion The emotion of Jesus When he was crucified So they have had some saints When they would meditate On the On Jesus and how he was crucified And how he sacrificed himself So what would happen is Because of that Because of that intense Absorption in meditating on Jesus Sacrifice, then The marks of the crucifix would appear in their own Bodies also.
Jesus was crucified So the nails went into his body So what would happen is the nail marks would appear in their Own bodies. So this is Considered in their tradition to be a Sign of great devotion to Jesus That you meditate so deeply on Jesus That the marks Which are there on Jesus’ body appear on Your body Now of course in every tradition there are sahajiyas So there were Christians who wanted to Pretend they were highest so they would artificially Create those marks and they would think that we are We are great saints But In practically no religious tradition Anywhere in the world The kind of bodily transformations That Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had Just the whole body The limbs getting disjointed practically Being held together just by the skin Now his body expanding Practically Chaitanya Bhagwat says that When Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would dance in ecstasy The Ganga that had come from his Lotus feet earlier now came from his Lotus eyes Pools of tears that would come So In this way He essentially describes this Unique, unparalleled Ecstasy of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Before that of course there are some Other pastimes which describe interactions Now how he takes Prasad at the house of his devotees And how he tastes When he takes prasad, he is not just taking prasad He tastes the nectar of the lips of Lord Krishna when he takes that prasad So essentially the mood of Chaitanya Amrit Is reflecting the more and more Internal mood of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu And like that it goes on Till 19th chapter And significantly Chaitanya Amrit Does not complete With a description of The departure of Lord Chaitanya Why? Because in one sense the departure is very difficult For the devotees To describe And if you see Generally we say Krishna’s pastimes are described in 10th canto of Srimad Bhagavatam But the 10th canto does not include the departure of Lord Chaitanya Lord Krishna Actually the departure comes much later in the 11th canto Around the 30th chapter So 7th through 30th chapters Are Uddhava Gita, the instruction And after that Chaitanya Krishna departs So In the main body of Lord Krishna’s Pastimes, his departure is not included in the 10th canto But here In the Bhagavatam at least it describes briefly his departure Krishna’s Kairaja Aswami does not describe the departure at all Why is that? Because at one level it is very painful for him to Describe that, at another level He wants to give a special message The message is That the Lord Lives on through his teachings And that’s why The last chapter of the Chaitanya Charita Amrit is The Shikshashtakam prayers Where His teachings He is given various teachings but none of them are directly Composed by him, they are composed by Subsequent Successors or subsequent Disciples who wrote the books But this was one composition that Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Gave and How Chaitanya Mahaprabhu composed the Shikshashtakam prayers, how he meditated On the Shikshashtakam prayers And how he exemplified and disseminated The Shikshashtakam prayers That is what is The message with which The Chaitanya Charita Amrit This majestic theological and biographical Classic concludes The message is that the Lord Lives on in his teachings, that Lord Who appeared for 48 years And departed, that Lord Can still manifest in our heart If we follow his teachings And imbibe a mood of devotion Following in his mood of devotion And it is this book Which Shri Prabhupada gave to us You know, Shri Prabhupada Had a very difficult task Because the Gaudiya Vishwanath Themselves had written so many books As I mentioned, Sambidanand Prabhu One of Bhaktisansur Raku’s disciples He wrote a PhD thesis From London University About the literature of The Gaudiya Vishwanath and a comparison With other Vishwanath traditions So he did his thesis and it is a very good book Very excellent summary of all The literature is given. The point is The Gaudiya Sampradaya Has got so many literature So Prabhupada had to carefully choose He knew he had limited time Which book should I give So Some books Prabhupada just gave He gave us summary studies For example, N.O.D and Krishna book He gave us summary studies And Shri Prabhupada started the Bhagavatam And he considered it his magnum opus But then At one particular point he felt that I am a member of a Gaudiya Sampradaya And I have to give a Gaudiya literature Which Gaudiya literature should I give So there are conversations where he says People have been advising me to Translate and comment Chaitanya Bhagavatam But I have decided to comment on Chaitanya Charita Amrit Because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Gives not just the past tense It gives the philosophy and gives the overall Context within which to understand The glory of Lord Chaitanya And Prabhupada in one sense writes His commentary He wrote his commentary very fast We know how he wanted his disciples to produce a marathon But he wrote in a marathon also Now how did he do that Actually Prabhupada His primary contribution was that He largely Took from the Gaudiya Bhashya That is the commentary of His spiritual master Bhaktiswara Swami Thakur So almost 70-90% of Bhaktiswara Swami Thakur Prabhupada’s commentary is Bhaktiswara Swami Thakur’s commentary translated And some issues unique to Iskcon devotees They are talked about Some problems between Iskcon devotees And Gaudiya Mahadevotees He talks about those things Otherwise Prabhupada he considered himself Simply as a mouthpiece of his spiritual master When he was giving this Chaitanya Chaitanya Now some devotees say that Prabhupada Actually his commentary comes from Gaudiya Bhashya But he doesn’t quote that book even once Also So is it that Prabhupada did not want to give credit To his spiritual master Actually not like that Prabhupada’s whole life was dedicated to his spiritual master only At one time during one Vyasa Puja celebration Prabhupada was supposed to give Was supposed to give a talk And you know he just gave a brief talk And then he called the devotee Tell the names of How many devotees are initiated Do you have the names of all the initiated devotees And Prabhupada just read out the names of all the initiated disciples Said all of you are my offering To my spiritual master So the point was Prabhupada is completely Devoted to his spiritual master But we have to understand in tradition You know there is no such thing as Copyright Copyright is a right to copy Actually So you know actually if somebody quotes a previous Acharya That is the glory So his whole life was dedicated to Bhaktisansur Thakur And he may not mention the name But he is devoting himself to Bhaktisansur Thakur only And the one One distinctive thing That Prabhupada brings in his commentary is He brings The exalted Mathuri Rasa Down to our level in his commentary Now it is interesting That Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Is talking about ecstatic emotions He is talking about How in the mood of Radharani He is feeling separation from Krishna And His longing Prabhupada’s purpose is saying We should preach Krishna Consciousness all over the world And we may say it is a complete mismatch You know there is Radharani Feeling separation from Krishna And you are talking about preaching What is this? But actually what was Prabhupada’s mood? Prabhupada’s mood was That we enter the Lord’s pastimes Through service And what is the service That we can do? At one level we can do many services We can even meditate on the Lord’s pastimes But Actually Chaitanya Mahaprabhu That same Radha That same Radha who is meditating on Krishna That same Radha Krishna As Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has given us the instruction That It’s a prediction But actually A devotee considers A devotee doesn’t think that Krishna Has given the prediction that means it will get fulfilled I don’t have to do anything A devotee thinks that fulfilling Krishna’s prophecy Is my responsibility That The Lord’s words will come true But I show my service attitude to the Lord By helping in making His words come true And therefore How do we enter into the Lord’s pastimes? We enter By serving Him And the service that we can do practically Now is at our level Sharing Krishna consciousness with others So Prabhupada has a famous quote where he says To enter Radha Bhav Radha Bhav means to preach Krishna’s message all over the world That is how we will enter Radha Bhav So we should not think that these two are different They are intimately connected By the mood of service Prabhupada would say that my purports Are my devotional ecstasies Now sometimes we see that in his purports He is refuting Mayavadis He is refuting Atheists There doesn’t seem to be much about Krishna Not much devotional ecstasy So how do we understand That his purports are devotional ecstasies See a devotional ecstasy Is that which gives Krishna ecstasy Not that which gives us ecstasy The mood of devotion is we want to please Krishna So when Prabhupada is writing His purports, what is he thinking? He is thinking that there are all These souls And there are so many misconceptions that are there Between these souls and Krishna So He is writing his purports He could privately have just been Lost in exalted emotions About Radhakrishna’s pastime, but he doesn’t do that What does he do? He thinks what can I write By which I will remove The obstacles between these souls and Krishna And when those Obstacles are removed and the souls Come closer to Krishna That will give Krishna ecstasy To see his lost children coming back And what gives Krishna ecstasy is Prabhupada’s Devotional ecstasy Devotional ecstasy is to remove the obstacles In the path of the conditioned souls So I will conclude with one point There was one devotee who was asking A question on this website On my website, you know Do you ISKCON devotees have a phobia for the Tenth Canto? You have a phobia for Krishna’s pastimes You say it is a Krishna consciousness Movement, but you don’t read the Tenth Canto, you don’t discuss Krishna’s pastimes How will you ever become Krishna-bhaktas? And I found out That this devotee has asked this question He is not exactly a devotee He is also connected with some Gaudiya Vaishnavas from Vrindavan He is visiting their website and asking Them questions And then they gave this idea That in ISKCON you can never develop Krishna-bhakti Because ISKCON has a phobia for the Tenth Canto You don’t discuss Krishna’s pastimes How will you develop Krishna-bhakti? But the point is That it is not that a phobia Phobia, the word itself is filled with value Judgement.
Phobia indicates An irrational fear There is no logic, no reason, but there is Fear. So some people have Arachnophobia, they are afraid of spiders They say some spider will come and they will become very Fearful. So what we have is not A phobia, it is a caution Based on reverence We understand these are very exalted Pastimes and when we go prematurely into them We misunderstand them But our goal is not to Stay away from these pastimes Now Prabhupada said Tenth Canto, don’t rush into it prematurely But then Prabhupada wrote Krishna book And he told Krishna book should be widely distributed So aren’t people Rushing into Krishna’s pastimes prematurely? No.
If there is proper Philosophical contextualisation Then there is nothing premature about it So it is not that we should Think Chaitanya Chakram is very elevated The power of Radha Krishna is very elevated Tenth Canto is very elevated These are our Legacy First of all it is about the books That Prabhupada has given us And then about the books the previous Acharyas have written also Prabhupada And the previous Acharyas They have written their books for us If we don’t read the books Who are going to read them? If non-practitioner scholars read them What are they going to understand? They will only perpetuate further misunderstandings So Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami Has given us this legacy Of Gaudiya Vaishnavism In this beautiful book Chaitanya Chaitanya Prabhupada has made it accessible to us Imbued us with his unique preaching mood And he has given it to us as his commentary And on this day we can pray To Krishna Das Kaviraj Goswami This was the day when he disappeared from this world That we can also one day Come to the level where we read and relish The gift that he has given to us And through that we can also learn To relish The divine supreme loving ecstasy That Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Brought to the world Thank you very much