Why doesn’t Srila Prabhupada mention even once in the Bhagavad-gita As It Is that we should chant 16 rounds of Hare Krsna Mahamantra?

From Sushant Kulkarni

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
any other questions? Hare Krishna question from Sushant Kulkarni Prabhu why doesn’t Srila Prabhupada mention even once in the Bhagavata as it is that we need to chant 16 rounds of the Hare Krishna Mahamantra answer the important point to recognize is when Prabhupada gives scripture, he gives principles, he focuses on principles and then he also gives practices but the principle of chanting Prabhupada talks about it repeatedly in fact in the 8th chapter which is attaining the supreme Prabhupada talks about chanting Hare Krishna and he spells out the Hare Krishna Mahamantra also repeatedly again and again and again so now the specific prescription was something which Srila Prabhupada gave according to time, place, circumstance now when Srila Prabhupada went to America seeing the extent of the degradation of the Americans and then as absolutely necessary for purification he told them you have to chant 64 rounds initially and he quoted Bhaktasanta Thakur who said that if somebody doesn’t chant 64 rounds then that person is fallen so now Bhaktasanta Thakur also had multiple levels he would have 64 rounds for some people and then he would have some different number of rounds for different people depending on their various services that they would be there so when Srila Prabhupada wrote the Bhagavad Gita as it is he had not yet started his scorn, he had not yet encountered at a first level at a direct level the extent of the challenge that was there for him to elevate his disciples and for his disciples to actually stay connected with Krishna in spite of their conditionings so because the Bhagavad Gita is written before he started the founding mission and because there was variable prescription which his spiritual master had given this variable specific prescription so Prabhupada talks repeatedly about the principle that we have to connect with Krishna, the best way to connect with Krishna is by in this particular age by chanting and among all the mantras Hare Krishna Maha Mantra is the most potent so Prabhupada talks about all this emphatically but because the specifics are often contextual then Prabhupada did not talk about those specifics which emerged after his direct contact with the west and he told his disciples, Prabhupada says constant chanting, so it’s not 16 rounds what Prabhupada says in the Bhagavad Gita we should constantly chant the holy names, he talks about this in the introduction itself in again several places throughout the Gita including especially the 8th chapter so the now because Prabhupada is the Acharya and the Acharya gives the Kaurna Deshpala Patra prescription so for us the 16 rounds is the standard prescription but because the Bhagavad Gita was written before that particular prescription was given so Prabhupada talks more about the principle of chanting and he talks about constant chanting, so 16 rounds is a way to attain the level of constant chanting eventually, constant remembrance of Krishna absorption in Krishna which is life’s perfection so the principle is we have to progress towards life’s perfection and the practice will be given by the Acharya depending on specific historical time place circumstance, thank you Hare Krishna