What were the sources based on which the sages who wrote the Lord’s pastimes?

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absorption in our lives question how exactly were Krishna’s pastimes known to sages such as Vyasadev so that they could put it in the scriptures answer usually most of the scriptures are written with some divine intervention in if we look at the three main books here for us it is written with three main avatars Ramayana, Krishna Leela and then Gaur Leela so in the Ramayana it is described that Narada Muni at the start of the Ramayana it is described Narada Muni told the pastimes of Ram in summary and then blessed him blessed Valmiki and Valmiki sat in the mystic trance and he had already got that meter in which he was supposed to compose Ramayana and in the mystic trance he saw the pastimes being enacted so the Ramalmiki Muni doesn’t claim anywhere that these are eye witness accounts usually in terms of literary structure scriptures are written in the frame of what is called as the omniscient narrator sometimes a movie is told or a novel is written from a particular person’s perspective so it is sometimes autobiographical that I went here, I went there and then what I can’t know that’s unknown to me but scripture is written usually in the omniscient narrator this is happening here so for example when Kurukshetra is mentioned in the Gita there is a metaphor accepted metaphor what is the metaphorical what could be metaphorical there is no need to learn today in our life how that lesson we see from the past particular historical time in a particular which is a pastime look at the lesson similarly so so now also when Sanatana Goswami analyzes these pastimes he tells that in some cases the pastimes are not told chronologically especially from the 55th chapter of the 10th canto chronology is more or less left behind because say Krishna marries Rukmini and immediately after that the sons of Rukmini their stories are told, Sambha and others and then after that it is told Krishna marries other queens so that is not chronological exactly then it becomes more thematic Rukmini and pastimes connected with her like that so then so Sanatana Goswami explains Jiva Goswami also explains the same thing that the reason for this lapse away from chronology it is not actually a lapse it is a absorption ecstasy and when he is absorbed in ecstasy he forgets chronology or he neglects chronology we could say as his thoughts flow so he is remembering Rukmini and immediately he remembers Rukmini’s son and he starts speaking about Rukmini’s son so there the narrative is going spontaneously so Shukadeva Goswami it is described that he heard the pastimes of Krishna from Yasadeva and then the link usually is threefold I will come to the three part later but firstly that means there is hearing of the pastimes of Krishna from a great devotee whoever it may be that is the primary source of devotion as well as information about the pastimes but along with that the devotee also re-envisions the pastimes in the heart when the pastimes are re-envisioned in the heart that means Krishna reveals those pastimes as they are happening in his in so wherever the pastimes are happening they are revealed in the heart of the devotee so there is a narration which is being heard and there is also the the re-enactment that is happening elsewhere that is being revealed in the heart of a devotee so this for example is especially true when see the Goswami described pastimes which are not directly found in the Puranas so Jiyu Goswami for example describes certain pastimes which are there in the Puranas but they are in a very seed form so now for example Uddhava is associate of Krishna but when did Uddhava exactly meet Krishna for the first time that is not described in the Bhagavata but Jiyu Goswami describes that so that is a revelation which is being given to him and and this revelation is not exactly imagination that is a because the devotees are absorbed in Krishna’s pastimes Krishna reveals these details to them at the same time there is also third aspect which is the literary structure literary structure means say for example coming to Chetan Charita Amrit now Krishna’s Kailash Goswami is the primary person who among the biographers among the narrators of the Lord’s pastimes who describes his sources clearly so he says that I heard from Guru Nanak Goswami and I also referred to Murari Gupta’s Kadicha’s notes which he had kept when he had been in Chetan Mahaprabhu had been in Navadvip and based on based on that he has written these pastimes so now at the same time if we see the Chetan Charita Amrit is written in Bengali and it describes Chetan Mahaprabhu’s travels all over the country so say when Chetan Mahaprabhu came to North India and met Prakashan Saraswati there they would not have spoken in Bengali because Prakashan Saraswati has never been to Bengali he doesn’t know Bengali as such similarly when they came to Udupi also probably they must have talked in Sanskrit Udupi is nowhere near Bengal for the people there to know Bengali so then there is a particular narrative structure of the scripture which will be using a particular language so now Chetan Mahaprabhu and the Udupi Sanyasis or Varanasi Sanyasis they must have spoken a particular thing and that is taken in essence by Saskar Rajyotswami and describing Chetan Charita Amrit so now is it that every single detail must have happened exactly as it is not necessarily it’s not that every word that has been spoken was exactly spoken like that so so in the Gaudiya tradition there is a book written by Rupa Goswami called as Natak Chandrika in which he describes various rules for how dramas are to be formed and depicted so he says that in a drama there can be three kinds of characters there is historical characters there is fictional characters and there is a blend of historical fictional characters so what this means is say of course Krishna, Radha, Rani all the historical characters but sometimes there may not be historical characters entirely so for example Jiv Goswami has written a book called Gopal Champu and the format of that book is that there are two narrators two bards those who sing very nicely and describe past times, describe stories they are called bards so there are two bards and the setting which Jiv Goswami has envisioned there is that Krishna has been in Vrindavan left Vrindavan, come back to Vrindavan and Krishna is now with the Vrajavasis and Madhu Kanta and Sita Kanta are also in Vrindavan and they are narrating the past times of Krishna to Krishna and the Vrajavasis so it’s something similar to what Lava and Kush did for Lord Ram so now here as far as we can see there is no mention of Madhu Kanta and Sita Kanta directly in any of the Puranas and this particular setting is not mentioned so this could be considered fictional the point is they are narrating Krishna’s past times and then they quote you know this point we can understand from this scripture, this point we can understand from this scripture so this is like a literary device used to to create a particular structure for narrating the past times so this may may or may not be historical, this may be fictional and sometimes in few exceptional cases, sometimes some historical characters may be put in the fictional setting, that means say Prabhupada tells the story of how death can never be avoided in that connection he says that once a person thought if Yamaraja is going to come to kill me take me away, I don’t want to be taken away, so he thought that if I am in a very revolting form, Yamaraja will not come so he put himself, he covered his whole body with stool and he thought that Yamaraja will not come but then what happened, Prabhupada says Yamaraja came in the form of a hog, he licked and ate all the stool and then took the man away so now is it really that Yamaraja came in the form of a stool of a hog and ate stool, unlikely, but this could be very well, Yamaraja is a historical person but this story in such story the historicity is not as important as the principle the principle is death is unavoidable so like that so there is a Chaitanya Chaitanya Charitamrita Mahakavya Chaitanya Chaitanya Chaitanya Chandrodaya Natika by Kavi Karanapur there he has described how when Chaitanya Mahapuru appeared in this world there Kavi Karanapur has envisioned all the past times in terms of Natak so he says when Chaitanya Mahapuru appeared he says that he decided to Kali tried various ways to try to distract Chaitanya so Chaitanya Mahapuru was very young and at that time he says Kali inspired him to get caught in mundane scholarship but then suddenly to disrupt Kali’s plan Ishwara Puri came over there and Ishwara Puri met Chaitanya Mahapuru’s devotee then he decided to Kali thought that oh I will try to get him attracted to a woman then he inspired his mother to get married to have him married to a very beautiful and chaste wife but then suddenly providence intervened and his wife died then Kali again inspired him to get married to another good girl but still Chaitanya Mahapuru remained detached so like this what he is doing is Kali is sending various weapons and he is being countered so now this may or may not be exactly true it can be also it is a revelation but there are it is clearly called a Natak Natak can involve non-historical characters also so primarily when we hear the past times our purpose is the awakening of Rasa so precisely whether the exact past time happened in the exact same way we may not be able to know and in general unless past time goes against Rasa in the tradition also it is not objected to so for example Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrut Chaitanya Bhagwat, Chaitanya Mangal all three are accepted as authorized biographies by our Acharyas at the same time some past times are described slightly differently in some books none of the tradition none of the Acharyas have taken that difference very seriously so the point is that in general the past times are heard by the devotees from the saints from their spiritual masters and guides then they are by the lord’s grace revealed in their heart in further detail or sometimes some further aspects of the past times also by which they can put them into writing and sometimes for the purpose of literary structure in certain narrations of the past times there can be a combination of historical characters in some non-historical settings or so the lord’s past times through all this through the historical narration through the inner revelation and through the artistic depiction the purpose of all of these is the narration is the generation of rassa in the audience the generation of bhakti bhava the attraction to Krishna does it answer your question?