The transcendental qualities of Prahlada Maharaja
February 28, 2020 in Articles by Damaghosa dasa
Pre-1978 Srila Prabhupada Books, Vedabase download(books only) click here
February 28, 2020 in Articles by Damaghosa dasa
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Hare Krsna to all
February 22, 2020 in Articles by Damaghosa dasa
February 21, 2020 in Articles by Laksman dasa
Lord Jagannatha and Mother Ganga
With love and confidence I share these two verses of Chaitanya Charitamrita, Madhya-lila, 15, 134 and 135:
134- Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, \”In this Age of Kali, Kṛṣṇa is manifest in two forms-wood and water. Thus He helps conditioned souls to become liberated by seeing the wood and bathing in the water. 135- \”Lord Jagannātha is the Supreme Lord Himself in the form of wood, and the River Ganges is the Supreme Lord Himself in the form of water.
I share this beautiful prayer to Mother Ganga: Sri Ganga Stotram: Prayer to Mother Ganga, by Srila Sankaracharya.
1) Oh, goddess Ganga! You are the divine river of heaven. You are the one who saves us from the three worlds. You are pure and restless. You adorn the head of Lord Shiva. Oh mother! May my mind always rest on your lotus feet. 2) Mother Bhagirathi! You give happiness to everyone. The meaning of your sacred waters is praised in the Vedas. I am ignorant and I am not able to understand its importance. Oh, Devi! You are full of mercy. Please protect me. 3) Oh, Devi! Your waters are as sacred as the charanamrite of Sri Hari. Your waves are white like snow, the moon and pearls. Please wash all my sins and help me cross the ocean of samsara. 4) Oh, Mother! Those who participate in your pure waters, reach without a doubt the highest state. Oh, Mother Ganga! Yama, the Lord of death cannot harm your devotees. 5) Oh, Jahnavi! Your waters flowing through the Himalayas make them even more beautiful. You are Bhishma’s mother and the daughter of sage Jahnu. You are the savior of the one who falls from his path, and that is why you are revered in the three worlds. 6) Oh, Mother! You fulfill all the wishes of your devotees. Those who bow before you do not have to suffer. Oh, bargain! You are restless to merge with the ocean, just like a young man eager to meet his beloved. 7) Oh, Mother! Those who bathe in your waters do not have to be born again. Oh Jahnavi! You are in the highest esteem. You destroy the sins of your devotees and save them from hell. 8) Oh, Jahnavi! You are full of compassion. You purify your devotees with your holy waters. Your feet are adorned with the jewels of Indra’s crown. Those who seek refuge in you get the blessing of happiness. 9) Or Bhagavati! Take away my illnesses, sorrows, difficulties, sins and bad attitudes. You are the essence of the three worlds and you are like a necklace around the Earth. Or Devi! You are the only refuge of mine in Samsara. 10) Oh, Ganga! Those who seek happiness love you. You are the source of happiness for Alakapuri and the source of eternal bliss. Those who reside on its banks are as privileged as those who live in Vaikuntha. 11) Oh, Devi! It is better to live in your waters, like turtles or fish, or on your shores like a poor chandala, than to live far from you like a rich king. 12) Oh, Goddess of the Universe! Purify us! Oh, daughter of Jahnu muni! Who recites this Ganga Stotram every day, certainly achieves success. 13) People who have devotion to Mother Ganga, always achieve happiness and achieve liberation. This beautiful and lyrical Gangastuti is a source of supreme happiness. 14) This prayer, Sri Ganga Stotram, written by Srila Shankaracharya, devotee of Lord Siva, purifies us and fulfills all our desires.
Hare Krishna, this YouTube link is a beautiful Artika or Mother Ganga worship in Varanasi.
February 21, 2020 in Articles by Laksman dasa
There are four Sampradayas from the beginning of the creation. One is called Brahma Sampradaya, and is coming down by disciplic succession from Brahma; another Sampradaya is coming down from Laksmi, called Sri Sampradaya; another is coming down from the Kumaras, they are known as Nimbarka Sampradaya; another Sampradaya is coming from Lord Siva, Rudra Sampradaya or Viṣṇu Svāmī. These are four bona fide Sampradayas that are accepted by the bona fide spiritualists. The Impersonalist Sampradaya is not original neither the Impersonalist Sampradaya or party can help us. At the present moment there are so many Sampradayas, but we have to test them about their method of disciplic understanding. Anyway, all the four Sampradayas above mentioned, they are after worshiping the Supreme Lord Visnu, in His different Expansions, and some of them are in favor of worshiping Radha Krishna. In the later age the Brahma Sampradaya was handed down though Madhva Acarya; in this Madhva Acarya disciplic succession came Isvara Puri. This Isvara Puri was accepted as Spiritual Master of Lord Caitanya. Therefore, we being in disciplic succession of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, we are known as the Madhva Sampradaya. And because Lord Caitanya appeared in Bengal, which country is called Gaudadesa, our Sampradaya party is known as Madhva Gaudiya Sampradaya. But all these Sampradayas are non-different from one another because they believe and worship the Supreme Lord. Any other Sampradaya who are Impersonalist or voidist or nondevotee, they are rejected by us.
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February 19, 2020 in Articles by Damaghosa dasa
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compiled by Yasoda nandana dasa
February 5, 2020 in Articles by Damaghosa dasa
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Sri Vadiraja Tirtha is one of the foremost of the Vaishnava acaryas in our Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya sampradaya. He lived for 120 years. Took sannyasa at 8 years old and established many temples throughout Karnataka, South India.
He wrote many powerful commentaries on Madhva’s books and preached vigorously against the mayavadis. He revised the paryaya system in Udupi to bring it to a two-year term, instead of two months. He used to feed Lord Hayagriva every night by placing a bowl of oats mixed with molasses and almonds (picture attached).
Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha
Shri Vadiraja tIrtha occupies a very exalted place in the galaxy of saints in Madhva parampare. Some accord to him a lofty status along with Sri Jaya tIrtha, Sri VyAsa tIrtha and Sri Raghavendra tIrtha, whereas others consider him second only to AchArya Madhva.
In any case, he is universally acknowledged as a great saint with immense spiritual powers in addition to being an outstanding poet, philosopher, social organizer, reformer, debater and prolific writer.
There are many aspects about him that are truly outstanding. He lived for 120 years, (1480-1600 AD) out of which 112 years as a sanyAsi, and entered brindAvana alive! No other saint, irrespective of doctrinal affiliations, can claim this distinction. He saw 5 paryAyas and entered his Brindavana alive in 1600. He went around India twice and captured his experience in a travelogue.
He has left his unique imprint on many institutions. The present paryAya system in Udupi, the mini Udupi he has created in Sode, the Manjunatha temple in Dharmasthala, the multitude of devaranAmas and stotras that he has left behind are some aspects that come to mind immediately
Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha is the second highest saint in the Mâdhva hierarchy, being next only to Srimad Ananda Tîrtha himself, in the târatamya. He is widely regarded as being the incarnation of Lâtavya, a rju-tâtvika-yogi and the successor to Mukhya PrâNa. Therefore, even though he nominally had Sri Vyâsa Tîrtha as a guru, he acknowledges only Srimad Ananda Tîrtha himself, as his preceptor. He is an outstanding poet, a very pugnacious opponent, and a most ardent devotee. He is also responsible for creating the paryâya system of rotation, according to which each of the eight Udupi ashhTa-MaTha-s has a two-year spell “in office” at the Krishna temple in Udupi, with each getting a turn sometime during a sixteen-year cycle. By instituting this system, Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha changed the previous one of each MaTha getting a two-month term of administration, which had been started by Srimad Ananda Tîrtha himself, and that had started to degenerate. It is without a doubt that of all the saints in the Mâdhva hierarchy, only Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha had the stature to explicitly recast a system that had been formulated by Srimad Ananda Tîrtha himself.
Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha’s criticisms of countervailing philosophies and schools are carried out with a poet’s flair, and always have a raw appeal even to the unschooled, because of their commonsense disguise — he often uses very simple worldly concepts and experiences to make profound points, which is in sharp contrast to the usual style of presentation that generally tends to make all metaphysics look rather otherworldly and disjointed from everyday experience and understanding. While his poetry and prose writings in Sanskrit mark him to be an extraordinarily luminescent intellect, even in a paramparâ that boasts of many brilliant scholars, he does not make a highbrow rejection of the needs of the less scholarly, and has made significant contributions to the Hari-dâsa tradition, the vehicle to take Tattvavâda to the non-Sanskrit-literate masses, and has translated Srimad Ananda Tîrtha’s Mahâbhârata-tâtparya-nirNaya into Kannada. Dr. B.N.K. Sharma writes: “In this respect, his work marks a new and necessary phase in the history of Dvaita Literature and breathes the spirit of a new age which produced other popular exponents of Madhva-Siddhânta, both in Sanskrit and in Kannada” (Emphasis as given by author). Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha is also well-known as the creator of many stotras, quite a few of them distinctly hortatory, that explain sophisticated concepts in relatively easy terms, and encourage the seeker to give up the bondage of material desire and seek the shelter of Vishnu.
It is said that in a previous birth, Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha served Krishna in a very special way, by acting as RukmiNî’s messenger to Him, just before she eloped with Him as per her own request.
Biographies on Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha include the Vâdirâja-guruvara-charitâmrta, and the autobiographical work Svapna-vrndâvana-âkhyâna. Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha lived a long life of 120 years, all but eight or so of them as a sanyâsî. He is said to have, in his early days, been a native of the village of Huuvinakere, Kundâpur Taluk, in modern Karnataka state, but as in the cases of many other saints, a detailed account of his childhood seems to be unavailable, perhaps because it is considered of secondary importance as compared to his achievements as a grown-up.
Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha wrote many works, not all of which have survived, unfortunately; and of those that have, not all are in print. Among the ones that are in print, the best known and most often read and cited is the Yukti-Mallikâ, which is a humongous treatise that conducts a threadbare logical analysis of different philosophical systems, with the author professing to proceed on the basis of strict rationality, with no fond or hateful preconceptions, and finding, at the end, that Madhva’s view is the right one:
Notice the definitive usage “ante siddhastu siddhânto,” and the use of ‘Tattvavâda,’ rather than anything else, to name the doctrine which he finds right. Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha uses his unique blend of wit, sarcasm, and poetic aptitude, to underscore many of the points made by Srimad Ananda Tîrtha and other scholars before him; he communicates with his audience very effectively, by using pithy language peppered with down-to-Earth metaphors. In the Yukti-Mallikâ, we find detailed expositions of Mâdhva positions, as enshrined in the Vishnu-tatva-vinirNaya and other works, on the futility of atheism, the bheda interpretation of the so-called Mahâ-vâkyas, etc. He also refutes the Brahma-Suutra-bhâshya of Shankara, and gives quotes and interpretations not previously employed by Mâdhva scholars.
Other works by Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha include the Mahâbhârata-Prasthâna, an independent detailed commentary on the Mahâbhârata of Veda Vyâsa. This, in fact, is the only authoritative detailed commentary on the Mahâbhârata by a Mâdhva scholar, as Srimad Ananda Tîrtha’s Mahâbhârata-tâtparya-Nirnaya does not offer a line-by-line commentary on the epic. Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha also wrote a commentary on the Mahâbhârata-tâtparya-Nirnaya, and a translation of that work into Kannada (which has already been alluded to).
Among the other extant works of Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha, two stand out: the RukmiNîsha-Vijaya and the Svapna-Vrndâvanâkhyâna. The former is considered to be the greatest work of poetry ever written, and was written in response to a work called “Shishupâla-vadha,” which described the encounter between Krishna and Shishupâla, and its background. Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha objected for several reasons, among them the one that the work, whose title literally means “Shishupâla’s killing,” is inauspiciously named and does nothing to signify Krishna’s greatness. He then promised that he would obtain a new grantha within nineteen days, one that would cover the same subject the way it ought to be. He then authored the RukmiNîsha-Vijaya within that period.
The Svapna-Vrndâvanâkhyâna was authored in a very special way. There was a deaf-mute and illiterate brâhmaNa, who served Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha in menial ways. Years after Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha’s Brndâvana-pravesha, he appeared in the deaf-mute man’s dreams over a period of several weeks, and gave him the Svapna-Vrndâvanâkhyâna. Every next day, the deaf-mute man would go to the pontiff of the Matha, and recite whatever he had heard in his dream encounter with Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha the previous night. All that was written down, but could not be made sense of. Finally, many years later, the same man was reborn, and became a sanyâsi in Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha’s own line and came to head his Matha, and he then himself wrote an exposition on the Svapna-Vrndâvanâkhyâna that he had received previously. A fragment of the Svapna-Vrndâvanâkhyâna called the Anu-Vrndâvanâkhyâna is regularly recited by devotees of Srî Vâdirâja.
In addition, Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha composed many devotional songs in Kannada; unfortunately, few of these have survived to the present. We are luckier with respect to his stotras: manuscripts of a few dozen of those have made it to our day, the better known of them being the Dashâvatâra-stuti, the Shrî-Krishna stuti, the Hayagrîva-sampadâ-stotra, the Haryashtakam, the Nava-graha stotra, etc. (see the complete list).
Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha’s MaTha is one of the eight Udupi MaTha-s, and is headquartered at Sode, on the banks of the Shâlmali, and very near the Trivikrama temple that Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha himself installed in the year 1582. Sri Vâdirâja Tîrtha’s Brndâvana is there also, and he will stay there for the rest of Kali Yuga, protecting devotees who would otherwise be annihilated by evil.
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February 3, 2020 in Articles by Laksman dasa
Sripada Ramanujacarya Tirobhava Tithi (disappearance day)
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