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Post by malati on Oct 26, 2020 21:50:18 GMT -6
Lovely rendition.
Great, you're back, bhai, Radhapadadas.
I checked on the internet, Kartik month begins 01 - 30 November
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Post by Nityānanda dāsa on Oct 27, 2020 17:33:01 GMT -6
Here is my version of the Damodarastaka. Radhe Radhe. DamodarastakaOh wow! Yes definitely welcome back!! Jai Sri Radhe!! |
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Post by narottamadasa on Nov 4, 2020 11:23:18 GMT -6
Dear Vaisnavas,
I hope this thread is appropriate for the following question: has anyone heard/read a commentary on Bhagavata Purana 10.9.4 in which the milk Yasoda Ma wanted to prevent from boiling out would be described as expressing a desire to leave the pot in which it was boiling? Sri Visvanatha Cakravarti does not say anything like that and unfortunately I do not have access to Vaisnava-tosani or any other commentary on this episode. Kavi Karnapura does not write anything on this subject either.
Jaya Sri Damodara!
P.S. Radhapada Dasa's singing is so charming, I am listening to it over and over again.
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Post by Nityānanda dāsa on Nov 5, 2020 11:19:14 GMT -6
Radhe Radhe Narottamadasji!
I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Specifically, you wrote, "...expressing a desire to leave the pot in which it was boiling?" Why would the milk want to leave the pot?
I did look up the commentaries in the new 'A Symphony of Commentaries on the 10th Canto' but couldn't find anything matching your question. Can you elaborate further please?
🙏🏻
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Post by narottamadasa on Nov 5, 2020 13:27:02 GMT -6
Radhe Radhe Narottamadasji! I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Specifically, you wrote, "...expressing a desire to leave the pot in which it was boiling?" Why would the milk want to leave the pot? I did look up the commentaries in the new 'A Symphony of Commentaries on the 10th Canto' but couldn't find anything matching your question. Can you elaborate further please? 🙏🏻 Dear Nila Madhavaji, Namo namah. Thank you for willing to help. Here is the context:a friend of mine was listening to one katha in which the speaker said that according to our acaryas (I find plural in such statements particularly confusing), the milk thought that since Yasoda Ma was feeding Krsna with her breast milk, it did not have any purpose in life and decided to put an end to it by burning itself. That is why, it decided to leave the pot in which it was boiling in order to throw itself into the fire. My doubt is manyfold, but the most important thing is that on the one hand, everything around Krsna is composed of his svarupa-sakti, so a personal character in a portion of milk is not something unreal (or this assumption is not completely correct? If it is not, we could discuss it in detail later), and on the other hand, the very idea of committing suicide by a bhakta directly related to Krsna appears to be far-fetched. The gopis who could not leave their homes to meet Krsna (10.29.9) were also about to die according to Visvanatha Cakravarti, yet this is different from committing suicide. Hence, I would appreciate if someone could shed some light on this episode (regarding the milk). Since I have only Visvanatha Cakravartipada's commentaries, this source is not sufficient in order to refute or to confirm the above-mentioned explanation of the episode. Jaya Sri Radhe! |
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Post by Nityānanda dāsa on Nov 5, 2020 13:38:08 GMT -6
Radhe Radhe!
Thanks for clarification. I'm curious who the original speaker is who told this story of the 'commentary by our acharyas'. Honestly, it sounds like BS to me. When in the sastras do we find things like milk having a personality and acting of their own volition, even if for Krishna?
My guess is that this comment was from the class given by some IGM personality. 🤮 Making up sweet little stories like this to woo the audience with their vast learning of "commentaries by the acharyas". Call me a cynic, lol! 🤷🏼♂️
Jai Radhe!!
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Post by narottamadasa on Nov 5, 2020 14:01:05 GMT -6
Radhe Radhe! Thanks for clarification. I'm curious who the original speaker is who told this story of the 'commentary by our acharyas'. Honestly, it sounds like BS to me. When in the sastras do we find things like milk having a personality and acting of their own volition, even if for Krishna? My guess is that this comment was from the class given by some IGM personality. 🤮 Making up sweet little stories like this to woo the audience with their vast learning of "commentaries by the acharyas". Call me a cynic, lol! 🤷🏼♂️ Jai Radhe!! Yes, whatever you say is true and I am sorry for bringing this BS in front of all venerable members of this august sanga, but I did need to clarify this point. It is always better to check, especially if there is such an opportunity, in order not to build assumptions on what acaryas would never say. This methodology of «acaryas wrote this» and «acaryas have never said that» is unstable in both cases. Cynic? I would not say say. And indeed, the author of that statement comes from IGM horizons. |
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Post by Nityānanda dāsa on Nov 5, 2020 14:13:25 GMT -6
Haha! No need to apologize. It is important to shift through this stuff, especially stuff coming from IGM.
"Whatever you say is true." That's definitely not true, although I try my best. I could certainly be wrong as I have not read all the commentaries of the 'acharyas' and it's not likely that I ever will although I would like to!!
I'm just using my noodle that the good Lord gave me and Krishna's milk wanting to commit suicide doesn't make any sense to me! And with what I have read, I haven't encountered any stories like that.
Jai Sri Radhe! 🙏🏻
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Post by Īśvaradāsa on Nov 5, 2020 15:23:56 GMT -6
Radhe Radhe! Thanks for clarification. I'm curious who the original speaker is who told this story of the 'commentary by our acharyas'. Honestly, it sounds like BS to me. When in the sastras do we find things like milk having a personality and acting of their own volition, even if for Krishna? My guess is that this comment was from the class given by some IGM personality. 🤮 Making up sweet little stories like this to woo the audience with their vast learning of "commentaries by the acharyas". Call me a cynic, lol! 🤷🏼♂️ Jai Radhe!! Haha well, you might be right, Nila, but yes, lack of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence in every case. I also heard this story many times from different IGMers, and I find it frustrating that, in general, they rarely find it necessary to quote their sources. However, in many cases they are indeed referring to something that's already in existence. Since you have already gone through the traditional commentaries then it might just be something recent coming from their direct acaryas (BSST or BVT) or made up by them as you say, or it might be in one of the retellings of the Krsna-lila as the Gopala Campu, which also contains the story of Damodara. It could also be part of a pada or devotional song, which I find likely considering the amount of those we have, and have yet to explore. Now, the question of "personality" is a good point, but it might not be as we're imagining here, remember that the gopis saw intent in unanimated objects from nature (10.21.9, 10.21.15 and 10.35.9, for instance), would it surprise you that a bhakta would do the same while remembering and retelling this lila in a song or a poem? This aside, Narottamadas is correct in that the svarupa sakti is cit, consciousness itself, not jada, however, nara-lila means things will mostly conform to the human experience so you don't usually find unanimated objects speaking or playing a character as it would contravene it, so my guess is that this could be the perception of a bhakta who's seeing or projecting his own attitude or feelings in the milk during his/her meditation on the lila, which I think might represent the vyabhicaris or passing emotions in this case, but I don't really know enough about rasa theory to say for sure. Anyway, this is just a hunch, if an actual source for this exists and I happen to come across it, I'll post it here. |
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Post by Īśvaradāsa on Nov 6, 2020 0:26:37 GMT -6
Radhe Radhe Narottamadasji! I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Specifically, you wrote, "...expressing a desire to leave the pot in which it was boiling?" Why would the milk want to leave the pot? I did look up the commentaries in the new 'A Symphony of Commentaries on the 10th Canto' but couldn't find anything matching your question. Can you elaborate further please? 🙏🏻 ... and on the other hand, the very idea of committing suicide by a bhakta directly related to Krsna appears to be far-fetched. The gopis who could not leave their homes to meet Krsna (10.29.9) were also about to die according to Visvanatha Cakravarti, yet this is different from committing suicide... Hi, Narottamadasji Radhe Radhe! I kind of suspect this could be a transitory emotion or vyabhicAribhAva, as I said to Nila earlier, but I'm not entirely sure. Today was the tirobhava of Thakur Mahasay, I remembered he himself wrote while grieving: pāṣāṇe kuṭibo māthā anale paśiboAnd the summary of the third act from Sri Rupa's lalitamAdhavanATakam in B.B. Majumdara's Krsna in History and Legend (p.214) says: "The third act describes the grief of the Gopis at the departure of Krsna for Mathura. Radha and Visakha put an end to their life by throwing themselves into the swift currents of the Yamuna. Lalita commits suicide by jumping from the top of a hill..."Of course, there's more to that story. But anyway, this has been stuck in my mind since the first time I read it, so the whole thing about the milk wanting to commit suicide didn't sound so strange to me. |
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Post by narottamadasa on Nov 7, 2020 2:15:43 GMT -6
... and on the other hand, the very idea of committing suicide by a bhakta directly related to Krsna appears to be far-fetched. The gopis who could not leave their homes to meet Krsna (10.29.9) were also about to die according to Visvanatha Cakravarti, yet this is different from committing suicide... Hi, Narottamadasji Radhe Radhe! I kind of suspect this could be a transitory emotion or vyabhicAribhAva, as I said to Nila earlier, but I'm not entirely sure. Today was the tirobhava of Thakur Mahasay, I remembered he himself wrote while grieving: pāṣāṇe kuṭibo māthā anale paśiboAnd the summary of the third act from Sri Rupa's lalitamAdhavanATakam in B.B. Majumdara's Krsna in History and Legend (p.214) says: "The third act describes the grief of the Gopis at the departure of Krsna for Mathura. Radha and Visakha put an end to their life by throwing themselves into the swift currents of the Yamuna. Lalita commits suicide by jumping from the top of a hill..."Of course, there's more to that story. But anyway, this has been stuck in my mind since the first time I read it, so the whole thing about the milk wanting to commit suicide didn't sound so strange to me. Dear Eduardoji, Many thanks for these insights. The question becomes more clear with statements from Visvanatha Cakravartipada, Narottama dasa and Sri Rupa Goswami ( acaryas in plural this time). To summarise, we can probably present it in the following way: Purva-paksin: Acaryas say that the milk in Bhagavata 10.9 wanted to commit suicide because it would not be able to do seva to Krsna.
Answer: indeed, in some places bhaktas are described as willing to die due to separation (viraha) from Bhagavan and since everything in his entourage is a part of his svarupa-sakti, personal characteristics attributed to ordinary objects is not something uncommon. Hence, a clarification is needed in regards to whether this was a physical phenomena (boiling of milk) or a conscious act of the bhakta. Moreover, the plural in the statement "acaryas say" is confusing without a precise reference to the author(s) of such explanation.At present, it can be noted that Visvanatha Cakravartipada in his Sarartha-darsini tika or Kavi Karnapura in his Ananda-vrndavana Campu do not mention this detail. I have only an electronic version of Gopala Campu, it may be incomplete and I did not find this description either. We still have Sridhara Swami, Sri Sanatana, Sri Jiva, Vallabhacarya, Sri Baladeva and Vamsidhara who definitely commented on the episode. Nila Madhavaji says that these acaryas did not say anything about the milk's desire to put an end to its life. The circle of acaryas seems to be quasi complete in this regard, but we still have hundreds of bhajanas in which this detail could be given. Let us see, probably some more light will be shed on this question. Jaya Sri Radhe! |
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Post by malati on Dec 8, 2020 2:56:42 GMT -6
I have never heard of that commentary on SB 10.9.5 about the boiling milk. It's like an analogy for someone who has reached the stage of extreme love.
However, that kind of comment or "story" in the context of the GV literature might not be BS at all. It's said that in Vraja everything, living and non-living, animate and inanimate are conscious. If you read Govinda Lilamrita, or Sri Krishna Bhavanamrta, even birds, plants, vines etc, are sentients, have intents or agency - Alright, water is inanimate.compared to living things like birds, etc.
I vaguely remember reading though many years ago, not sure if it's from a blog or shastras, that in Vraja , "the ground hopes that today Krishna will tread on it so it can touch Krishna's footdust" , something to that effect.
I'm recently scanning through the 2 books above to see an example of an an inanimate object in Vraja showing intention, wishing for something to happen. Will let you know of my research😇
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