New Publications?

[Ldd]

Nitai dasji, the devotees are ready to assist and the Lord will soon shower you with mercy !
I hope this man is not sick. That would be the only thing stopping the production.

However we think that Nitai Chand will bless him with good health from 2010 on and he will live at least a hundred years. 40 more years of publishing, at 2 books per year = 80 books.
Brace yourself, the Sapphire is about to blaze through the universe. But it won't happen if the publisher is sleeping. Where is the man hiding?

[Nitaidas]

Thanks, everyone, for your offers of help and support. It is encouraging to me. No, the publisher has not been asleep but busy. He is teaching at present and that is sucking up more of his time than he thought it would. Nevertheless, it is time to get serious about creating some sort of a system or machinery that will crank out books of high quality and uncommon worth. I need to think this through and come up with a solid plan that can be applied to each and every book. Let us see where we stand:

1 Typists: square, jd33, ekantin, nitai
2. Copy-editors: square, ekantin, nitai
3. Type-setters: nitai
4. Proof-readers: square, jd33, ekantin, nitai
5. Distribution and PR: square
6: Electronic formattiing: nitai

Translators: nitai, ?

Other areas that would be great to have are:

1. Graphic design
2. Indexing (none of our books have indexes yet)

This seems to be where things stand at present. It also occurred to me that much of the textual typing has already been done. It is available at the Gaudiya Granth Mandir and has mostly been done by Jan (jagat). If I use Jan's materials, I should certainly give something in return. That can be in the form of donations to the GGM or an improved version of the text, or both. There is a great wealth of material available at the GGM.

Here is the most recent list of works for production:

1. A new edition of the classic by Shishir Kumar Ghose, Lord Gauranga.
[The first half of this has been typed. It awaits editing]

2. A translation of the Sri Krsna-lila-stava of Sri Sanatana, perhaps the first CV book.
[The introduction needs to be finished and the translation reworked. Then it needs editing]

3. A biography of Siddha Manohar Das Babaji (already translated, waiting for corrections and editing).


4. My dissertation on the rasa aesthetics of Sri Rupa (in process of being converted to my current system of diacritics and Devanagari production, then in need of some rewriting and updating)
[Only three chapters have been converted. Conversion of the rest and then editing]

5 The Songs of Govindadasa (bilingual edition with translation and comm of Biman Bihari Majumdar)
[Most of the first chapter on Mahaprabhu has been translated. That needs to be finished and then the astakaliya-section. After that editing.]

6. Bhakti-granthavali: Five Short Works on Caitanya Vaisnavism by Visvanatha Cakravartin (bilingual edition with the comm. of Shyamlal Goswami)
[Most of the first book is done. The text can be taken from GGM and compared with printed version. Remaining four books need to be translated. Needs to be edited.]

7 The Ujjvala-nilamani of Sri Rupa (bilingual edition with notes from the commentaries)
[First three chapters have been done. Much more translation to do and annotation.]

8. The Govinda-lilamrta of Sri Krsnadasakaviraja (bilingual edition with notes from the comm.)
[First two chapters have been done. Needs some typesetting and then more translation. The text is available at GGM]

9. The Sadhanamrta-candrika of Siddha Krsnadasa Babaji (bilingual text on practice)
[About a fifth has been done. Text is available at GGM. Much more translation is needed.]

10 The Nama Cintamani (three vols.) of Sri Kanupriya Goswami (translation from the Bengali with notes and introduction)
[Barely begun. Only the preface and some of the introduction. Much more translation work is needed]

11 The Bhagavad-gita (bilingual with notes and introductions from the comm of Sankara)
[First four chapters is done. Some annotation is needed in the first four chapters. Much more translation is needed.]

12 On Bhakti Rasa by Sri Kunjabihari Das (translation from the Bengali with notes and citations)
[Barely begun. The introduction by Majumdar is started and needs to be finished and the text itself has been begun and needs to be finished.]

13 The Siksastaka of Sri Krsnacaitanya Mahaprabhu
(bilingual with extended commentary of Manindranatha Guha)
[Barely begun.]

14 The Brhad-bhagavatamrta of Sri Sanatana (bilingual edition with notes from the autocommentary)
[First three chapters has been done. Commentary needs to be added. I believe it is available at GGM. Commentary needs to be translated and the rest of the first section completed. That in itself would be a sizable volume.]


Magnum opus: Bhagavata Purana with comms.
[First chapter of first skandha done. Needs the comm of Sridhara and Srinatha added. Available at GGM, I believe. Then, translation of the rest of chapters and their comms. First Skandha by itself will make a sizable first volume.]

Here is where the book projects stand at present. It is sensible to take up the ones that are closest to completion first. Any thoughts?

By the way, Blazing Sapphire has had two pretty good months, December and January. We have sold nearly twenty books during that time, mostly through our distributor. The biggest sellers are Sri Krsna: the Lord of Love, Sadhu Sadhu, and The Life and Teachings of Krsnadas Babaji. If the books continue to sell steadily at this rate we might break even this year!

[Nitaidas]

Jan 30, 2010 12:17:59 GMT -6 JD33 said:

I will handle typing in all of Dr. Kapoor's books, except for his book on Caitanya. I have Baro Baba's book The Life of Love, already half-way done and parts of each of his two Saints Books. I will next work on the one you want Nitai Dassji - The Companions - right Visakha?. As you know I will continue to edit and proof-read copy and support monetarily. BTW - it is Visakha Dassi who is doing this typing work! May God Bless her!

Do you have a copy of the Gosvamis of Vrndavana? That has long been out of print and is the one I would like to see come out next. Also there is his small book on the Raga-marga which needs some careful annotation (since it is partially wrong). Even though it needs some careful handling, it is an informative and worthwhile book. The Caitanya book is the same way. Those fanatical sections need to be properly explicated or if they are found to be unsupported, cut out.

[Ldd]

Esperemos sus ordenes, senor commandante.

[spiritualbhakti]

I'll Help! I'll Help!

But im not too sure what I can do....

[Nitaidas]

We'll get you typing on something, don't worry. Everyone can help.

[subala]

Niati...

To be honest, any of the the books you are working on will be good.

The Songs of Govindadasa would be top notch if it included a cd (or mp3's to download) of the songs. Now that would get me really excited!

BTW, does anyone know where I can obtain recordings of Sri Prema Bhakti Candrika? It's abit frustrating not having recording of bhajans...

[Nitaidas]

Good idea, Subrataji. I am currently working on a book by Dr. Guy Beck on the songs of the Radhavallabha traditoin. He has recorded at least 108 songs over the years. A couple of sample CDs will come with the book and if purchasers want they can purchase the whole set on 18 CDs! We need something like that for the Caitanya tradition. Who can we get to do the singing? Are there any great kirtaniyas left in Bengal? If so, who? Radhapada does a fine job, too. Are there others? Subrataji, you know the situation better than anyone else on this forum. Perhaps we should try to create a project to record these songs before they are lost.