Publications in general

[meeno8]

I think if some time had been devoted over the years to fund raising for an institute, one where scholars could be grown, and our Nitaidas Pandit would be key in that role, then the goal of producing a lot of books would be that much further along.  I think the donors are out there, maybe mostly in India, but not necessarily.  Do the scholars need to have PhDs?  That would look nice next to their names, but it is more important that they can produce quality works.

At any rate... it is probably not too late.  May Nila wants to take on that task in addition to his other ones.  Or anyone else for that matter.

[meeno8]

And I think steering clear of gofundme is a good idea. All they do is tell you to use your own personal contacts for your campaigns. Unless you already have a lot of those that have deep pockets, write that site off as a useful resource. A lot of small donations could add up to substantial money. A few very large donations would be great as well.

[Nityānanda dāsa]

There are a lot of different threads related to publishing already on this symposium. Not sure if this is the best thread to add to, but why not!?

Some time ago, there was this post: caitanyasympos.proboards.com/post/6250

It details some of the projects that were on the front burner for Nitai at that time. It also lists some roles that people could get involved in to help push forward some of the publications.

In current posts in Nitai's World thread, he lists the projects presently on his plate. There are at least a few that I believe are 90% or more close to publication (Krishna Lila Stava, Bio of Siddha Krsnadas Baba, and Volume one of Lord Gouranga or Salvation for All, Mahamantra, etc.). Would be really fantastic to get the titles that are 'almost there' completed.

I can offer doing some editing/proofreading, working on the ebook side of things, giving things a read, and transliteration from original Bengali script into Romanized Bengali script with diacritic marks.

Thoughts?

I'm not sure if money is an obstacle in focusing to get these completed, but if so, maybe we can start a Gofundme or some other type of fund raising to generate specific funds that will go towards specific projects and/or parts of projects. 

Jai Radhe!

[meeno8]

When I looked into gofundme, it looked more like a scam than a worthwhile resource. If you think it is worth trying though, then maybe it is.

[Nitaidas]

I just noticed this thread. Sorry for my delayed response. Money is definitely not the problem. The way I publish books, as print on demand, is relatively cheap and I am not wanting for money. The real problem is finishing the books to a reasonably high standard. As Nilamadhavadasji remarks, several of the books are nearly done. Each of them, however, has something holding it up. Lord Gauranga vol 1 is nearly done, but as our current reading group reveals (we are reading it in the Caitanya Reading Group on Sundays at 6:30 Eastern standard time) there are stray mistakes in the main text which need to be fixed. In addition, I have decided to add a translation with the Sanskrit text of Murarigupta's Kadaca, at least covering the period of Mahaprabhu's life covered in the first volume. That text has not been properly edited and is incomplete in the sense that it does not cover enough of Mahaprabhu's life. In addition, the book needs an introduction to the author, S.K. Ghosh,and his relationship to CV. So it may be true that the book is 90% done, but some important things still remain to be done. If someone else wants to write the introduction that would be fine, but I think I need to be the one to finish the Murarigupta translation and refine the sections of that that are already done. It also needs an introduction to place it in the history of the hagiographies of Sri Caitanya. If Nilamadhavadasji or Eduardo or anyone else who is willing to do the research would like to write the introductions, that would be great. Unfortunately the research sometimes requires consulting texts in Bengali or Hindi. There is a good biography of SK Ghosh and there are probably some articles on the Murarigupta text as well. We need credible scholarship and not IGM BS.

Anyway, that is just one book. The situation is similar for the others that are nearly done. The Siddha Manohar book is one of those. The main text is done and mostly edited, but there are many appendices that are not done. I initially thought that just providing samples of some of the original works of Siddha Baba would be sufficient, but I now think that the whole works should be made available in this edition. If it is not done now when will it be done. So I want to include everything we have of the works of Siddha Baba. Nilamadhavadasji has been able to find Siddha Baba's works on the names of the bhaktas and the names of the gopis and those are major finds which Manohar Das Baba himself recommends as powerful sadhanas in cultivating Krsna preman. The upshot is that publishing that book with all his texts available in English would be a great gift to those wishing to experience and practice bhakti-rasa and bhakti-sadhana. I have all those texts. It is just a matter of translating them or completing the translation of them. Here too an introduction is needed explaining who Siddha Baba was and why his life story and works are important.

I am currently enthralled by Sridharasvamin and Srinatha Cakravartin and the Bhagavata in an attempt to discover what Mahaprabhu's philosophy really was. Was he really closer to Sridhara than we think? Is there room for advaita and Krsna-bhakti in the same worldview? I mean what does Acintya-bhedAbheda mean, if not something along those lines?

Anyway, we need some way to organize things and share the work involved in producing these books with the highest quality we can muster. I am just a little mouse munching on my cheese and trying to avoid the IGM cats. (Bhaktivedanta turned me back into a mouse, didn't he, punarmuSiko bhava, when I left ISCKON) I may live another 10 years or I may die tomorrow. I am hoping for the former, but I feel intensely the running out of time. It is better to produce one excellently done book than fifty half-baked ones.

[Nitaidas]

Here's an idea. Let's form a publication committee to organize and direct the publications of Blazing Sapphire Press. We have several good writers and learned members on the site who could serve on the committee. The purpose of the committee is to select a work to focus on, determine the various tasks to be completed to bring the book to publication, divide them up, encourage those who are working on different aspects of the book (introductions,editing, proofreading, translating, transliterating, cover design, maybe pr, etc.) to complete their work in a timely fashion. I would be willing to replace one of my current projects with the work the committee selects for publication. Once the current book is done, the committee would select the next book and direct the work on that book, assigning tasks and holding everyone to a preset schedule. For each of the books published like this we could include in the book's front-matter a list of committee members, so that everyone gets credit for working on the project in whatever capacity.

The committee would meet periodically to assess progress and set goals for the next period. In this way by the work of the committee books would come out periodically and new ones would be selected as the next project. That would take a great deal of the burden off me and encourage me to take up projects that have been sitting for years and which on my own I might not get back to soon.

I think possible members for the committee would include, Nilamadhavadasji, Eduardo, Meena0, Bets (Betsy), and me. Others who are interested would also be welcome. I think it might be a way forward towards opening up the bottleneck that seems to have choked the flow of almost done books.

What do y'all think?

[jiva]

Sept 12, 2021 13:08:52 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

I am currently enthralled by Sridharasvamin and Srinatha Cakravartin and the Bhagavata in an attempt to discover what Mahaprabhu's philosophy really was. Was he really closer to Sridhara than we think? Is there room for advaita and Krsna-bhakti in the same worldview? I mean what does Acintya-bhedAbheda mean, if not something along those lines?

Me too.

I think a book on this topic would be really something new and very significant.

[bets]

I think it's a great idea. One of your most wonderful traits is the one which leads you to dig deeper into a line or an idea until you see how it connects with other lines or ideas, and see also how different thinkers have construed the connection. It's cool that the aspen is your favorite tree, because (as with the banyan or the mandrake) what seems to be thirty different aspen trees is actually one connected organism, one massively complicated set of roots, with thirty different trunks, each with thirty branches, each with hundreds of leaves. Each of your projects is a different "trunk" of the same amazing organism, and each trunk deserves attention. It's good to be aware, as you are, of the magnificent root system, but it may well take a committee to get you to focus on one particular trunk--the one in the northeast corner of the aspen "grove" where the wood is just right for making flutes....

[Nityānanda dāsa]

Sept 12, 2021 14:40:09 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

Here's an idea. Let's form a publication committee to organize and direct the publications of Blazing Sapphire Press. We have several good writers and learned members on the site who could serve on the committee. The purpose of the committee is to select a work to focus on, determine the various tasks to be completed to bring the book to publication, divide them up, encourage those who are working on different aspects of the book (introductions,editing, proofreading, translating, transliterating, cover design, maybe pr, etc.) to complete their work in a timely fashion. I would be willing to replace one of my current projects with the work the committee selects for publication. Once the current book is done, the committee would select the next book and direct the work on that book, assigning tasks and holding everyone to a preset schedule. For each of the books published like this we could include in the book's front-matter a list of committee members, so that everyone gets credit for working on the project in whatever capacity.

The committee would meet periodically to assess progress and set goals for the next period. In this way by the work of the committee books would come out periodically and new ones would be selected as the next project. That would take a great deal of the burden off me and encourage me to take up projects that have been sitting for years and which on my own I might not get back to soon.

I think possible members for the committee would include, Nilamadhavadasji, Eduardo, Meena0, Bets (Betsy), and me. Others who are interested would also be welcome. I think it might be a way forward towards opening up the bottleneck that seems to have choked the flow of almost done books.

What do y'all think?

I definitely like this idea and I'm on board. But to offer a little 'devil's advocate' perspective, in my mind the only person who can really do any writing of introductions and do translation work is Nitai Dada. Well, I believe MinaketanRamdas-ji can do some translation, but I'm not sure how free-flowing his translation abilities are. I believe he mentioned to me that his translation machine is a bit rusty. Hopefully we can shake that rust out, get a bit of oil in there, and have another translation master up and running!

Sometimes I wonder what Eduardo-ji secretly knows. He seems to have a very good grasp of Bengali/Sanskrit vocabulary. Makes me wonder if he's stealthily hiding away becoming a master of languages himself?? 

If that's not the case, then I would imagine (I'm not volunteering him) that he would... well, I'll let him speak for himself. 

As for me, I'm not trained in editing or proofreading, but I believe I am good at these tasks as I pretty much constantly have my head in one book or another. I also feel that I have good layout and design capabilities. My graphic design skills are definitely rusty. I've been thinking to brush up on Adobe Illustrator to work on some diagrams of the Gutika book. These skills will also come in helpful in redesigning the cover of Jiver Svarup if that task falls back on me. I have a friend (Charlie a/k/a Chanda Simha Das) who worked many years in the laying out and publication of a legal magazine. I've asked his help with the Jiver Svarup book. We'll see what happens with that. He's without a computer, but I keep pushing for him to get a new one. He has a lot on his plate so who knows? 

But I wanted to say that I think there isn't a lack of people who would give pre-publication texts a read and share any corrections they find. So to clearly develop that list would be helpful. 

I believe there also needs to be a two part process. (1) Is the production schedule and steps within that schedule. I imagine that Nitai already has some process in this regard. (2) This is the more tedious one. For a text to be worked on by many people, we all need to be on the same page regarding what software is used so that the book files can be passed back and forth seamlessly. So that when a text is sent for editing/proofreading/reading that it can be sent back and the changes can easily be viewed and corrected with as much ease as possible. I believe that it can be done in Acrobat reader but I'm not entirely sure about that. I think Adobe InDesign may also be an option. 

For the ebooks side of things I did find an editor/layout assistance software that I have yet to try. I think I also need to learn how to write style sheets as that will help with at least the layout of the books for ebook publication. 

And probably the most important point of all is time. Again, many thanks to the gods that Nitai is retired. Otherwise our viraha of these books would be greatly increased! Sadly this isn't the case with the rest of us and it's hard to say/know how much time we can all commit to the publishing task on say a weekly or monthly basis. We all know that life tends to get in the way sadly. So maybe we'd all need to think about how much time we can literally and specifically commit to the task of publication.

One more idea!!!   (sorry for all the hot air) Perhaps this committee can also become the committee for BSP if it can be transformed into non-profit??? This requires a whole other set of plans, considerations, costs, pros/cons analysis, etc. 

So with all that said, it does look like the bulk of work falls onto Nitai Dada. I do continue to study Bengali regularly. Maybe I need to shift gears and just start translating. I'm sure my work will be filled with errors at least initially, but that's how I will learn. My focus so far has been in learning the modern, spoken (cholti bhasya) language. So maybe if I just take one of the easier Bengali texts and work on it, that will help to build and strengthen some translation skills. Any thoughts on this one?

I guess that's all the devil in me has to say for now. We talk pretty regularly so I'll let you know if there's any more he has to offer, lol. 

Jai Jai Sri Radhe!
Grantha Seva ki Jai!!

[Nitaidas]

Sept 12, 2021 20:29:31 GMT -6 jiva said:

Sept 12, 2021 13:08:52 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

I am currently enthralled by Sridharasvamin and Srinatha Cakravartin and the Bhagavata in an attempt to discover what Mahaprabhu's philosophy really was. Was he really closer to Sridhara than we think? Is there room for advaita and Krsna-bhakti in the same worldview? I mean what does Acintya-bhedAbheda mean, if not something along those lines?

Me too.

I think a book on this topic would be really something new and very significant.

A book on Sridharasvamin would be good. Such a book would have to be based on a thorough reading of his works, especially his commentary on the Bhagavata Purana. I get the feeling that many if not most of those writing on him haven't read much of his work. I know I haven't. I have just read his commentary on the first chapter of the First Skandha. So far I have seen some discussions of his commentary on the first verse (1.1.1), but that is only a small part of his writing. That is one of the reasons I want to do the Bhagavata trans. with his whole commentary. Fortunately, Puridas has an edition of that commentary that is available on archive.org. That strikes me as potentially the best edition. I have noticed, for instance, that the version of it that is available from Satyanarayana's Gaudiya Grantha Mandira has additions in it that are not in the version published by Krishnashankar Shastri with eleven commentaries. Where do those additions come from? Are they in Puridas's edition? Anyway, without having studied his comments on the Bhagavata and the Visnu Puranas, on the Gita, and his poem Vraja-vilasa, I don't think a book would be very illuminating. That is a huge task.

[Nitaidas]

I am glad to hear that you approve of the plan for a publication committee, Nilamadhavadasji. There are many details that need to be worked out and you raise many of them in your post. I don't envision it as a full-time involvement for the members of the committee, as you point out that apart from me, most of the others are also working at other jobs. Most of the work of editing, proofreading, research, and such could be done part-time. The biggest problem is finding pathways by which we can share our work. I use a system that is built on free tools developed years ago by mathematicians in order to typeset works with complex mathematical formulas in them. As it turned out, the problem of typesetting formulae is the same as typesetting foreign scripts and so, many add-ons and improvements were made to the system so that nowadays it is used by many Indologists and Chinologists to typeset works in the Indic languages and Chinese and dozens of other languages with good results. The problem is that it does not fit well with modern word-processors like Word or LibreOffice which embed lots of useless and troublesome codes in documents created by those programs. Passing documents back and forth will require some conversion software. There exists such software but how to use that safely so that nothing is lost is going to be a little tricky. Fortunately, unicode standards should make things easier. Anyway, these are things that should not be insurmountable.

So what is the next step? Should we call for members who are interested to make that known and begin talking to each other? Working out the details of involvement with the committee. We might even approach others who are not members, but who have some skills or language abilities that would be useful to the production of the books. Other Bengali scholars or Sanskrit scholars who are not blinkered by IGM and yet have an interest in this work might join. The idea is to minimize ego and maximize bhakti-grantha seva (and keep me focused .

[Nityānanda dāsa]

Good morning all.

Radhe Radhe!

I've been thinking some this morning about the 'publishing' topic, ha ha! It seems that maybe publishing is just somewhat of an anamorphic, molasses-like process. I personally have a number of things I've started that are really just hanging out there with little progress and/or focus due to the many other things that life has thrown my way. So I understand how a text could hang at like 98% completion for years before publication. Other things just take the front seat.

I truly LOVE the idea of increasing the CV canon of literature in English. Yet there are so many hurdles it seems.

Specifically one of my thoughts today was that over this upcoming trip to India, I should try to meet with the committee who publishes the books of Anantadas Babaji Maharaja (ADB) and his gurudeva, Kunjabiharidas Babaji Maharaja. I want to tell them about 'publishing on demand' and how it has been wonderful to have the few books we do have of theirs available in English and how those books can be printed in such a way that they will become 'always available' to buy. It looks like the recent, very nice printing of Stavavali by Das Gosvamin in 2 volumes is already out of print. I have spoken with Rasaraj Dasji as well as Tarun Govinda Dasji as they both have assisted in the English publications of ADB, but they've both conveyed that it is not necessarily an easy process working with all parties involved.

While I'd love to try to push my idea forward, i.e., to see if I can present 'publishing on demand' services to the ADB Committee/Trust, I don't have the feeling that I will meet with success. So why waste my limited time in India with that? And yet I'm tempted.

I've also spoken with Advaita Dasji of Netherlands as he has self-published many of his translations by these authors, but even he was unwilling to try to figure out a way to make this happen. Sadly Advaita's work has been plagiarized to no end and even by some of the present Goswamis in legitimate lineages! So obviously that's very discouraging.

I know that Haricharan Dasji recently finished his translation of Prem Bhakti Candrika with the tika of ADB. I also recently found out that ADB did a translation/tika on Prarthana as well. This latter text has also been translated and is in pre-publication process. I wonder how Haricaran and this other translator of Prarthana are planning to publish these? With or without permission of the ADB Committee/Trust???

I guess there's much to be said for not having to deal with such a trust. Not that they are bad. But they have their ideas, motivations, money management plans, etc. Certainly it is easier to publish one's own translations/works such as Nitai Dasji has done with his Blazing Sapphire Press.

And yet SO MANY texts have yet to make their way into English.

Is book publication important? Well, we know what IGM says about that, but I don't mean to address the topic by their beliefs. Obviously it's important, but I guess CV just doesn't yet have the organization and/or focus to really get these texts out there. They are coming, slowly slowly, but I guess it's not something any of us can force or try to expedite. We can try to learn the languages and publish our translations ourselves. That's about all we can do and for a person to go from zero to accurately published translations will take years, if not decades.

Otherwise, it seems that the most important thing we can do is to just do our bhajan sadhana and read what is available to us. What else can we do?

Meanwhile IGM continuously publishes trash as if it's going out of style. I don't think it will be in any of our lifetimes that we'll see CV publications overtake the refuse pile.

Maybe I need to do a little self-education on international book publishing law? Now that sounds like some juicy, rasik reading!! But I don't even want to go there. I guess time will tell. We'll all just have to wait and assist as we can in hopes of being blessed with more English CV works.

Jai Sri Radhe!

[Jon]

Sept 12, 2021 13:08:52 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

I am currently enthralled by Sridharasvamin and Srinatha Cakravartin and the Bhagavata in an attempt to discover what Mahaprabhu's philosophy really was. Was he really closer to Sridhara than we think? Is there room for advaita and Krsna-bhakti in the same worldview? I mean what does Acintya-bhedAbheda mean, if not something along those lines?

Dear Nitai,

I apologise for hijacking this rather old thread, but I just wanted to say I'm very keen to hear if you'd make any progress organising your thoughts on the above conundrum! I'm not sure if I mentioned elsewhere but I am writing a biography of Sri Krishna Prem (Ronald Nixon), and while the facts of his life are simple enough, his rather complicated personal philosophy -- which (despite his protestations) is strongly Advaitic, with lots of talk of the need to annihilate the ego, etc., particularly towards the end of his life -- means I'm rather putting off writing about it.

I'd also like to offer my editing/proofreading services wherever I'm needed. While I'm a wretched monolingual, I'm a writer, journalist and PR, so I know my way around the English language, at least...

All glories to the mysteries of achintya-bheda-abheda 

Jon

[Jon]

Apr 5, 2022 1:12:44 GMT -6 Jon said:

his rather complicated personal philosophy -- which (despite his protestations) is strongly Advaitic...

Here's a good example of what I'm talking about -- perhaps I should post in the Krishna Prem thread too.

His commentary on Gita 10.20--42 explains that those verses "are not to be considered as that mere empty hymning of a personal God so dear to theists. Again it must be said, the “I” who speaks is not the personal Krishna but the Great Atman, One and manifold, pervading by Its Powers all things that are."

He does also sometimes call this "non-personal" Great Atman Krishna, too, but this kind of writing from a freshly initiated Gaudiya Vaishnava is hard to wrap one's head around. He seems most often to treat Krishna as the Krishna of Vraja/Mathura-lila etc only, as a man akin to Buddha, Jesus, Sankara, etc.

[Nitaidas]

Apr 5, 2022 1:12:44 GMT -6 Jon said:

Sept 12, 2021 13:08:52 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

I am currently enthralled by Sridharasvamin and Srinatha Cakravartin and the Bhagavata in an attempt to discover what Mahaprabhu's philosophy really was. Was he really closer to Sridhara than we think? Is there room for advaita and Krsna-bhakti in the same worldview? I mean what does Acintya-bhedAbheda mean, if not something along those lines?

Dear Nitai,

I apologise for hijacking this rather old thread, but I just wanted to say I'm very keen to hear if you'd make any progress organising your thoughts on the above conundrum! I'm not sure if I mentioned elsewhere but I am writing a biography of Sri Krishna Prem (Ronald Nixon), and while the facts of his life are simple enough, his rather complicated personal philosophy -- which (despite his protestations) is strongly Advaitic, with lots of talk of the need to annihilate the ego, etc., particularly towards the end of his life -- means I'm rather putting off writing about it.

I'd also like to offer my editing/proofreading services wherever I'm needed. While I'm a wretched monolingual, I'm a writer, journalist and PR, so I know my way around the English language, at least...

All glories to the mysteries of achintya-bheda-abheda 

Jon

Greetings Jon. It is great to hear from you here. You are not hijacking anything here. I post my current thoughts here and hope others will respond to them here, too. In a discussion board this old there are many threads to read and respond to, but some are buried so deep in the chaos of the threads that even I don't remember they are here. One could wander around in the threads for months, maybe years, and not reach the end. Many of my more outrageous statements periodically come back to haunt me. Nevertheless, there are many useful tidbits here and there.

As for this question you raise here, I make another statement that I may regret someday, but don't at present. My main impulse for starting this study/translation is that over the years I have become profoundly suspicious of the way Mahaprabhu is represented in some of the biographies, especially in Krsnadas Kaviraja's "Final Word." There is a sectarianism and a "we better than you" attitude in the CC that I find suspicious and distasteful, especially with respect to those wicked "mayavadis." I doubt that KdK ever read a word of Sankara and since I am currently reading the Tattva-sandarbha with Sri Jiva's autocommentary where he clearly has read Sankara and in many cases quotes him (and Vacaspati Misra) approvingly, I doubt KdK even read that work. In addition, much recent fine scholarship on Sankara has demonstrated convincingly that 90% of the books attributed to Sankara were not by him and that those discredited books are the books in which mayavada is primarily presented. This leads me to further distrust in the polemic of KdK in the Cc. The question for me then is what did Sri Caitanya really think if the picture of him in the Cc is a fabrication? My suspicion is that he was closer in viewpoint to Sridhara than we previously thought. His virulent anti-mayavadin stances in the Cc are bs. So I am looking at the early biographies of Mahaprabhu and fringe presentations of his philosophy as in Srinathacakravartin's comm. to try to get a better sense of what Mahaprabhu really may have thought (more like Sri Krsna Prem, perhaps?). My guess is that advaita and dvaita were blended in him much as they are in Sridhara, though I must say that Srinatha's interpretations rather temper that, to a degree. I will give a recent example in another post. Anyway, it is much too early in the project to draw any conclusions. I am learning a great deal and enjoy the hunt for the authentic Sri Caitanya. I will periodically provide updates as I discover or realize things.

I am glad to hear of your work on Ronald Nixon and hope you will share some of it with us here. Maybe once you are near completion we can consider publishing it with Blazing Sapphire Press, unless you have better options in mind.

Thank you for your kind offer of editing and proofreading. I will certainly take you up on that. The more eyes and minds applied, the better. I will chat with you in private about the mechanics of that.

I look forward to hearing more about your work and interests.