Papa Sanatana's Brhad-bhagavatamrta

[Nitaidas]

Papa Sanatana was the father of Caitanya Vaisnava theology. He was the visionary who first saw the many possibilities that others, like Sri Rupa and Sri Jiva and Sri Raghunatha, later developed. My feeling is that he was the real genius behind the sophisticated developments that made CV a world-class religious and philosophical tradition. Unfortunately, he gets short shrift when it comes to passing out credit. No one says Sanatananuga. But Rupanuga means really Sanatananuga, because Papa Sanantana pointed out the directions that Rupa later traveled so well. This thread is dedicated to him, humble visionary and ecstatic, whose visions were never really fully realized in the tradition that CV became. Perhaps that may change.

Here is my ongoing work on Papa's masterpiece the Brhad-bhagavatamrta:

www.bhajankutir.net/sanatana/bb-master-trans.pdf

Comments and criticisms are appreciated.

[Tarun]

Was Brihad Bhagavatamritam written before Bhaktirasamritasindhu?

[Deleted]

Radhe Radhe Have you a special reason to call Sanatan Goswami "papa" ?
I don't understand this appearent familiarity!
It is not a critic but a simple question.

[Deleted]

This question about "papa Sanatan" came from Bhaktipada Das and send through the login of Assim

[Nitaidas]

Because he is the "papa" of our tradition. Papa is the same as baba and pope. I consider him to be the real source and inspiration of the philosophical and religious tradition that has later come to be known as Caitanya Vaisnavism. His younger brother Rupa (Uncle Rupa) developed the aesthetic side of Papa Sanatana's line of thought and Cousin Jiva developed his philosophical and theological side. No disrespect is intended, but I think it is long past time to realize this relationship between these three great foundational thinkers of the CV tradition. Students of the tradition often praise Rupa or Jiva without realizing how much they gained from and depended on Sanatana. The relationship between them can only really be understood by one who has read them closely. Few people do that any more. Instead they depend on the misleading Reader's Digest versions of their works found in the Caitanya-caritamrta. Hopefully, the materials needed to understand this intimate connection will eventually be made available on this forum.

So. good question. Hope you don't mind the answer

[Nitaidas]

I have begun to work on this again. I consider it to be one of the most important works of the CV tradition. It really is foundational. Sanatana Goswami laid the foundation upon which Sri Rupa and Sri Jiva built. He was the real genius behind the theology of our tradition. It began with his Sri Krsna-lila-stava which was the first work recognizably belonging to the Caitanya tradition and culminated in his Brhad-bhagavatamrta and his commentary, the Brhad-vaisnava-tosani, on the 10th Skandha of the Bhagavata. The teachings attributed to Mahaprabhu in the Caitanya-caritamrta are really Sanatana Goswami's ideas based upon his years of study and meditation on the Bhagavata Purana. As usual, Krsnadas Kaviraja has put the cart before the horse. Though we pay more attention to his younger brother and his nephew today, he was really the moving force behind them. They took different aspects of his thought and developed them to their completion, but Sanatana Goswami was the one with the big vision. Some of us think of ourselves as Rupanugis, but we are really all Sanatananugis. I've known this for years, but for the longest time have not truly taken it to heart. Now I am back at work on the BB and will post the first three chapters of the first part shortly. It requires careful annotation and that will take some time. It is a beautiful text and I think the most honest expression of what we as followers of Mahaprabhu's tradition can authentically hope for in our sadhana. I hope to lay that out as clearly as possible as the work proceeds.

On another front, I want to try to polish up Sanatana Goswami's first [Caitanyite] work, the Sri Krsna-lila-stava and release that, too.

राधे श्याम गौर!

[JD33]

Thank you Nitai Dassji. One note is the almost always under-rated : the humble Gopal Bhatta Gosvami. Thank you again and again.

[Nitaidas]

Well here is the latest version of Sanatana's बृहद्भागवतामृत.

www.caitanya-symposium.org/bb-master-trans.pdf

Comments and criticisms are appreciated.

[narottamadasa]

Dear Nitai Dada,
Namo'stu te.

Wonderful news! Are you going to publish it via Blazing Sapphire Press? We await the continuation impatiently. There are many important tattvas in Gopa Kumara's story as well.

जय श्री राधे!

[Nitaidas]

Jul 3, 2020 5:38:21 GMT -6 narottamadasa said:

Dear Nitai Dada,
Namo'stu te.

Wonderful news! Are you going to publish it via Blazing Sapphire Press? We await the continuation impatiently. There are many important tattvas in Gopa Kumara's story as well.

जय श्री राधे!

Greetings Narottamadasji,

राधे राधे !

Yes, I plan to publish it through Blazing Sapphire Press when the first volume is done. I have not yet even cracked open Part Two, but I know it is wonderful. Gopa Kumara is based on Sanatana himself. That and the Priti-sandarbha are the culmination of CV theology just as the Ujjvala-nilamani is the culmination of CV rasa aesthetics. With luck I will be able to finish those before the Yama-dutas arrive to drag me off into the nether regions. Once family returns to their abodes, I hope to focus most of my time here in Crestone to working on this text and Sri jiva's Tattva-sandarbha. I know the latter has been done several times, but my perspective will be a little different and perhaps, because of that, a useful counterbalance to overly enthusiastic endorsement of teachings that make no sense or are demonstrably false. Here's hoping.

राधे श्याम गौर !

[narottamadasa]

Dear Nitai Dada,

We also need you to expand in a couple of व्यूहाः as well for दिग्दर्शनी and other texts like this. 

जय श्री राधे श्याम​!

[Nitaidas]

Jul 3, 2020 11:41:08 GMT -6 narottamadasa said:

Dear Nitai Dada,

We also need you to expand in a couple of व्यूहाः as well for दिग्दर्शनी and other texts like this. 

जय श्री राधे श्याम​!

Narottamadasji,

राधे राधे!
Thanks for your kind words. I am counting you and other members of the younger generation like Eduardo and Nilamadhavadasji, perhaps Jiva, Ganesha, and our new member kdb91 to learn Sanskrit and/or Bengali and take up the torch and present the profound works of the CV tradition, both ancient and modern, to the modern world. My light is fading. I may have a few more good years before me, my candle is already sputtering.

The main problem with this project is that the world has changed since the 16th century. We know much more about the nature of the universe, and the history of mankind, especially that of India. we have vast resources at our fingertips. All of these things need to be applied to the texts of CV and to the texts those texts are based on. These things were not available to Sanatana, RUpa and Sri Jiva.

For instance, the CV epistemology needs to be thoroughly rethought. What Sri Jiva considered justifiable in the 16th century has been proven inadequate. Sure, pratyaksa has its limitations, but we have discovered ways around those limitations of sensory knowledge in the development of the scientific method. We now doubt all our the sense data and require that it be confirmed by later experience or experiments. Similarly, Sabda is just another form of pratyaksa. It is the sense of hearing and just as sights can be mistaken, so sounds can be misheard or misunderstood. Thus texts, too, are corruptible. changeable, and subject to misapprehension. Texts can tell lies too and thus are subject to vipralipsa. We need some careful text-criticism in order to separate the truth or genuine teachings from fake teachings. In short, we cannot trust the texts 100%, perhaps not even 50%, even those by our acaryas. Moreover, we know the difference between history and mythology and understand their different kinds of truths. All of these new skills and understandings need to be used in presenting CV in the modern world. CV has survived as long as it has because it has been fortunate enough to have generation after generation of interpreters who were able to capture the core of the teaching and present it in new ways to their own generations. That is what I have tried to do in my work and that is what I hope you young folks will do as well. We don't need mere repeaters. Repeaters will repeat the lies along with the truth and not know the difference between the two. Genuine representatives of the tradition will only present the truth in ways enhanced by their own realizations arising from practice and from their own careful reflections on the works of their predecessors.