VILĀPA KUSUMĀNJALI by Śivarāma Svāmī volume I – verses 1-17
Book review
Today’s blog coincides with the 40th
anniversary of my first acquaintance with Śrīla Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmī’s ‘Vilāpa
Kusumānjali' through my divine master Śrīla Nikunja Gopāla Gosvāmī in his ashram in Navadwīpa. In my diary it says
on December 1, 1982 —
“Bābā
enters into my room and places a small booklet before me, 'Vilāpa Kusumānjali' by Śrī Raghunātha Dāsa
Gosvāmī. He tells me to memorize it and possibly to translate it into
English. He says it is a very important booklet and that his father Ānanda Gopāla
Gosvāmī's pāṭhas on it were famous. “এই গ্রন্থের যেকোনো শ্লোক তোমাকে ধ্যানের অমৃতসাগরে নিমজ্জিত করতে পারে । গভীরে ডুব দাও - নীচে রত্ন রয়েছে ।" “Any verse from this book
can immerse you in an ocean of nectarean meditation. Dive deep – there are jewels on the bottom.” In 104
prayers this booklet gives a complete description of all manjari sevās
and līlās, briefly but very sweetly.
Now the review of the latest edition of Vilāpa kusumānjali, by Śivarāma Svāmī - volume I – verses 1-17
Vilāpa-kusumānjali 1
On page 166 Śivarāma Svāmī says manjaris
are not eager for Kṛṣṇa's physical contact and their experience mirror Rādhā’s
experience. That is not mentioned in the śloka but can only be found in
purports on this verse by non-ISKCON-devotees like Prabhupāda Śrī Ananda Gopāl
Goswāmī and Anantadās Bābājī. Prabhupāda Śrī Kiśora Gopāl Goswami, the eldest
son of Prabhupāda Śrī Ananda Gopāl Goswāmī, spoke in his commentary on the same
verse:
“The Divine Pair becomes
inebriated in Each other’s presence. In the course of these pastimes
Śyāmasundara bites Śrīmatī's lips, leaving a mark there. The relationship
between Svāminī and Rūpa Mañjarī is so pure that all the signs of Kṛṣṇa's
love-making on Śrīmatī's body, such as His bite-marks on Her lips, become
reflected on Śrī Rūpa Mañjarī's body also.”
Śivarāma Svāmī wrote a book against
taking śikṣā outside ISKCON but this purport shows he himself clearly took śikṣā
outside ISKCON.
Śivarāma Svāmī then quotes Raghunātha Dāsa Goswāmī’s Vraja
Vilāsa Stava verse 38 -
prāṇa preṣṭha sakhī kulād api kilāsaṅkocitā
bhūmikāḥ
kelī bhūmiṣu rūpa mañjarī mukhās tā
dāsikāḥ saṁśraye
which is accidentally also quoted by non-ISKCON-devotee Anantadās Bābājī
in his purport to the same verse?
On pages 167-168 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes Viśvanātha
Cakravartīpāda’s commentary on Śrīmad Bhāgavata 1.9.34 which is ‘accidentally’
also quoted by non-ISKCON-devotee Prabhupāda Śrī Ananda Gopāl Goswāmī in his
purport of Vilāpa Kusumānjali 17.
On page 169 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes Bhaktivinode’s Jaiva-dharma, chapter 17 saying that
Gauḍīya sādhakas attain 2 siddha dehas
– one in Kṛṣṇa-līlā and one in Gaura-līlā. Where is that mentioned in the 6 Goswāmīs’
books?
On page 173 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes his Guru
saying one ‘realizes his original position and wants to be reinstated as a
friend, servant or conjugal lover of the lord’. This is contrary to śāstra (Śrīmad Bhāgavata 4.29.70, 5.25.8,
5.26.3, 6.5.11, 8.24.46, 11.11.4, 11.11.7, 11.22.10, 12.11.29, and Vedānta
Sūtra 2.1.35) which says anādyavidyā – our conditioning is
beginningless. ’Re-instated’ means you were with Kṛṣṇa before and this is not
Vedic siddhānta but Christianity.
On page 174 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes Govinda Līlāmṛta 11.137 -
spṛśati yadi mukundo rādhikāṁ tat sakhīnāṁ
bhavati vapuṣi kampa sveda romañca vāṣpam
adhara madhu mudāsyās cet pibaty esa yatnād
bhavati bata tad āsāṁ mattatā citram etat
exactly as non-ISKCON-devotee Anantadās Bābājī did in
his Vilāpa Kusumānjali 1 purport. Coincidence? Or did he take śikṣā outside
ISKCON?
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 2
In his commentary on Vilāpa Kusumānjali verse 2, on pages 188-193 of his
book, Śivarāma Svāmī takes more śikṣā outside of ISKCON by copying
the entire purport of Prabhupāda Śrī Kiśora Gopāl Goswāmī, the eldest son of Prabhupāda
Śrī Ananda Gopāl Goswāmī, peppering it with his own additions. There is simply
too much to quote here in a mere blog. It includes even the final point “The
fact that Svāminī is here addressed as 'land lotus', indicates that She is not close to the Śyāma-ocean of rasa (the word kamala
means water flower, but She's named sthala-kamalinī, land lotus,
here).
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 3
In his commentary on Vilāpa Kusumānjali 3, page 204, Śivarāma
Svāmī quotes Prabhupāda Śrī Kiśora Gopāl Goswāmī, the eldest son of Prabhupāda Śrī Ananda Gopāl Goswāmī, a non-ISKCON
devotee, from whom one should not take śikṣā, describing how Śrī Rati Mañjari
quickly runs to the kunja and, hangs the bells back on Svāminī’s waist
without being noticed by Her girlfriends, since she seems to be just joining in
the dance.
On page 220 Śivarāma Svāmī writes, “Rūpa Manjari’s cloud-grey eyes contain the untold mystery of the Vedas”
Is a pretty dry attempt at poetry, making comparisons with Vedas which have
already been rejected in Bhagavad-Gīta 2.40-45, let alone by the rasika ācāryas
of the Gauḍīya Sampradāya.
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 4
On page 225 Śivarāma Svāmī makes aparādha to Yadunandanācārya
by saying “even if Rūpa Gosvāmī is more spiritually prominent than his dīkṣā-guru.”
The Guru is on the absolute level and not on relative or comparitive level. Śrīmad
Bhāgavat (7.15.26) clearly says -
yasya sākṣād
bhagavati jñāna-dīpa-prade gurau
martyāsad-dhīḥ
śrutaṁ tasya sarvaṁ kuñjara-śaucavat
“For a person having faulty
intelligence who thinks that the guru, who gives the lamp of knowledge
and is the Lord Himself, is an ordinary mortal, all that he has heard from guru
becomes as useless as cleaning an elephant who merely becomes dirty again.”
Śrīla Raghunātha Dāsa Goswāmī praises Śrī Yadunandanācārya
in his ‘Mukta carita’ (4) as one to whom he owes the mercy of Śrī Rūpa Goswāmīpāda
-
nāma śreṣṭhaṁ manum api śacī-putram atra svarūpaṁ
rūpaṁ tasyāgrajam uru purīṁ māthurīṁ goṣṭha-bāṭīm
rādhākuṇḍaṁ girivaram aho rādhikā mādhavāśāṁ
prāpto yasya prathita kṛpayā śrī guruṁ taṁ nato'smi
“I bow
down to my blessed Śrī Guru, by whose grace I have received the greatest name
in existence, the holy name of Kṛṣṇa, the 18-syllable Gopāla-mantra, Śrī
Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the son of Mother Śacī, Svarūpa Dāmodara, Rūpa Gosvāmī,
his elder brother Sanātana Gosvāmī, the great city of Mathurā, the pastures of
Vraja, Rādhākuṇḍa, the best of mountains Govardhana, and the hope of attaining
Rādhikā and Mādhava.....”
On page 225, Śivarāma Svāmī says “Yet sādhakas should not
look outside their spiritual master’s line for higher teachings …..” while we
have already at this early point found many instances of he himself doing
exactly that.
On page 226 Śivarāma Svāmī narrates how Sanātan Goswāmīpāda was chastised by Jagadānanda Pandit for
wearing red cloth (saying that it is not for Vaiṣṇavas to wear) – providing
food for thought why both the author, his Guru and his Param Guru disobey this
prohibition?
On page 232 Śivarāma Svāmī claims
that the brahma gāyatrī is part of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava initiation while such
practice is neither prescribed in Haribhakti Vilasa, nor has it been practiced
by any other Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava but the followers of Bhaktisiddhānta Saraswati.
Brahma gāyatrī is not a part of bhakti sādhana at all but of varṇāśrama dharma,
and is only for men born in the upper three castes, to which the author does not belong.
On page 234 Śivarāma Svāmī calls gunjā-mālā ‘a small garland of
conchshells’, while even every riksha driver in India knows they are red and
black berries.
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 5
On page 245 Śivarāma Svāmī writes: “Raghunātha Dāsa Goswāmī shed his false ego and
regained his original identity.” There are two mistakes here – Raghunātha Dāsa Goswāmī was an eternally liberated
soul (gaurāngera sangi gane nitya siddha
kori māni, Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura) and we don’t regain our original identity as we
did not fall down from the spiritual world (anādyavidyā,
see my review of verse 1).
On page 252 Śivarāma Svāmī writes that Mahāprabhu is the combined form of
Rādhā - Kṛṣṇa; this is not correct. Śrīla Svarūpa Dāmodara Goswāmī writes rādhā
bhāva dyuti subalitam naumi kṛṣṇa svarūpam – He is Kṛṣṇa endowed with Rādhā’s
bhāva and luster (Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi 1.5).
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 6
On pages 290-291 Śivarāma Svāmī writes that Sanātan Goswāmī
was called prabhu because he was an extension of Caitanya Mahāprabhu and an
uttama adhikārī. Why then the members of Gauḍīya Math and ISKCON call every
single new bhakta, and in extension
even drunken riksha-wallas and meat-eating life-members ‘prabhu’? Is that not cheap imitation? In śāstra we see the word prabhu being used for luminaries like
Vyāsadeva and Sanātan Goswāmī.
At the end of his commentary, Śivarāma Svāmī recites a mantra
-śrīṁ laṁ lavaṅga mañjaryai svāhā, which comes from who knows where but
surely not from Haribhakti Vilāsa.
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 7
On page 320 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes this verse from Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta
(1.7.126) –
tathāpi sambhoga sukhād api stutaḥ sa ko'py anirvācyatamo manoramaḥ
pramoda-rāśiḥ pariṇāmato dhruvaṁ tatra sphuret tad rasikaika vedyaḥ
“….still this is ultimately a joy that is even greater
than the transcendental bliss of meeting Kṛṣṇa, an indescribably beautiful abundance of ecstasy. Only the rasika devotees (who are able to taste
the flavors of transcendental emotions) know this in truth.”
exactly at the same point that non-ISKCON-devotee Anantadās Bābājī does in his
earlier Vilāpa Kusumānjali 7 purport. Coincidence? Or Śivarāma Svāmī took
śikṣā outside ISKCON?
On page 326 Śivarāma Svāmī claims that one can take
shelter of Śrī Rādhā in the aspired-for siddha deha at the stage of āsakti but
fails to quote evidence for that from the 6 Gosvāmīs’ books. He contradicts
himself immediately by quoting a verse by Raghunātha
Dāsa Goswāmī where he prays to Śrīla Rūpa Goswāmī that he control
his mind.
ābhīra pallī pati putra kāntā dāsyābhilāṣāti balāśva varaḥ
śrī rūpa cintāmala sapti saṁstho mat
svānta durdānta hayecchur āstām
“May my uncontrollable mind mount the horse of
spotless thoughts about Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī that is mounted by the strong desire
to serve the lover of the son of the lord of the village of cowherds.”
Is that the sign of āsakti? (though Raghunātha Dāsa Goswāmī is nitya siddha he makes a
philosophical statement here in his own humility, that lack of mind control
does not bar sādhakas from aspiring for rādhā-dāsyam).
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 9
On page 357 Śivarāma Svāmī writes that for Raghunātha Dāsa Goswāmī the holy names have not yet
parted the curtain that covers Rādhā’s pastimes. Surely he must mean that these
are Raghunātha Dāsa Goswāmī’s pastimes as a
sādhaka, not reality.
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 10
On page 375 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes his guru Swami
Bhaktivedanta saying that the Guru is a representation of Nityānanda Prabhu, a
theory for which there is no scriptural evidence. Also Śivarāma Svāmī says
Rādhā is the guru but Swami Bhaktivedanta didn’t say that. He said the guru is
one of Rādhā’s confidential associates. Śivarāma Svāmī also mixes up the forest
fire of material suffering which consumes the conditioned souls with the forest
fire of divine separation felt by Raghunātha Dāsa
Goswāmī, which are two totally different things.
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 11
On page 391 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes exactly the same Śrīmad Bhāgavata-verses (10.38.25-26) that non-ISKCON-devotee Prabhupāda Śrī Ananda Gopāl Goswāmī quotes in his
lecture on Vilāpa Kusumānjali’s verse 8 about the
power of Akrūra’s obeisances. Has Śivarāma Svāmī taken śikṣā outside of ISKCON
or is this sheer coincidence?
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 12
On page 417 Śivarāma Svāmī ascribes personality to the ankle-bells the
way that non-ISKCON-devotee Prabhupāda Śrī Ananda Gopāl
Goswāmī ascribed personality to the waist-bells in his purport
of Vilāpa Kusumānjali verse 94. They
are sad.
Immediately on the next page Śivarāma Svāmī quotes Rādhā Rasa Sudhānidhi (16) exactly at the same spot where non-ISKCON-devotee Anantadās Bābājī quotes it in
his own purport on the same verse – is this coincidence or peeping inside a
non-ISKCON book for some śikṣā outside of ISKCON?
pādāṅgulī nihita dṛṣṭim apatrapiṣṇum dūrād udīkṣya rasikendra mukhendu bimbam
vīkṣe calat pada-gatiṁ caritābhirāmāṁ jhaṅkāra nūpuravatīṁ bata karhi rādhām
"When
can I see Śrī Rādhā with Her charming form, shyly looking down at Her own toes
when She sees the moonlike face of Kṛṣṇa, the king of relishers, from afar, as
She steps along with jingling anklebells?"
On page 425 Śivarāma Svāmī
presents the concept of vastu siddhi, when a devotee gives up
his body to go to the spiritual world, something which is nowhere in the
Gosvāmīs’ books.
Throughout the book, the residence of Śrī Rādhā is
consistently misspelled as Yāvaṭā, when it should be Yāvaṭa.
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 13
On page 436 Śivarāma Svāmī claims that love of God is
dormant and cites Bhakti
Rasāmṛta Sindhu (1.2.2) with a wrong translation - the
words nitya siddhasya bhāvasya in that verse mean that the phenomenon of bhāva
is itself eternally perfect, not that prema is dormant in the heart. That verse
does not carry the word dormant at all.
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 14
On page 462-463 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes Narottama dāsa
Ṭhākura’s song describing how he was introduced to Śrī
Rādhā by Rūpa Manjarī, exactly as non-ISKCON-devotee Anantadās Bābājī did in his purport of the same
verse. Coincidence? Or śikṣā outside of ISKCON?
Śivarāma Svāmī calls Madhumangala bhato; this should
be baṭu instead.
The different drawings of Raghunātha Dāsa Goswāmī in this book are all wrong. If, in his ecstatic state, he wore any tilaka at all, it would have been tilaka of the advaita parivāra (the unbroken disciplic succession originating from Śrī Advaita Prabhu) in which he was initiated via Yadunandanācārya (see verse 4). And with almost 100% certainty it would have been tilaka from his beloved Rādhākuṇḍa, not gopī-candana tilaka.
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 15
On page 480 Śivarāma Svāmī says Yadunandanācārya was
in the pancarātrika paramparā of Raghunātha Dāsa Goswāmī and Rupa Goswami was in his bhāgavat paramparā, while these concepts were
only invented by Bhaktisiddhānta Saraswatī around 1918, some 400 years later. There is
no such concept in any śāstra at all. What and where is Bhaktisiddhānta
Saraswatī’s ‘pancarātrika paramparā’ then?
On page 483 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes Gita Govinda 1.3 -
yadi hari-smaraṇe sarasaṃ mano
yadi vilāsa-kalāsu kutūhalam |
madhura-komala-kānta-padāvalīṃ
śṛṇu tadā jayadeva-sarasvatīm
Śivarāma Svāmī’s translation includes the
sentence “…if you wish to serve your pleasure pastimes at Rādhākuṇḍa…..” However
sweet this is, it is nowhere to be found in the original text of this verse. I
suppose he interprets the word sarasam to be ‘the lake’ – while Bhānu Swami
translates it more truly as ‘- in full of love (in mādhurya-rasa); B.V. Nārāyan Mahārāja
says: “if you are hankering to contemplate upon him with
intense affection”. The Bāla Bodhini tika (by either Caitanya Das or
Prabodhānanda Saraswati) says: “The word sarasam indicates śṛṅgāra-rasa.”
On page 492 Śivarāma Svāmī claims the bridge to Ananga Manjari’s kunja in
the middle of Rādhākuṇḍa is invisible, but the Govinda-līlāmṛta ślokas
(7.100-101) that describe this place do not say that.
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 16
On page 524 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in
his 'Bhakti Rasāmṛta Sindhu' (2.5.128):
sañcāri syāt samonā vā kṛṣṇa-ratyāḥ suhṛd ratiḥ
adhikā puṣyamānā ced bhāvollāsa itīryate
while the non-ISKCON-devotee Prabhupāda
Śrī Ananda Gopāl Goswāmī quoted the same verse in his lecture on the very same
verse, which was later published by non-ISKCON-devotee
Anantadās Bābājī in his printed edition. Has Śivarāma Svāmī taken śikṣā outside of ISKCON?
I also wonder where Śivarāma Svāmī got the
teaching about tad-bhāvecchātmika bhakti from on page 525 - The devotional attitude of wanting to assist Śrī Rādhā and other yūtheśvarīs
(gopī-groupleaders) in meeting Śrī Kṛṣṇa and enjoying amorous
pastimes with Him and to relish the sweetness of these pastimes rather than to
enjoy with Kṛṣṇa personally. It’s also in the Vilāpa Kusumānjali-edition of non-ISKCON-devotee
Anantadās Bābājī.
On page 531 Śivarāma Svāmī introduces the concept of the manjaris being
like Śrī Rādhā’s shadow – a
concept presented no less than five times by non-ISKCON-devotee Prabhupāda Śrī Ananda Gopāl Goswāmī in his lectures on Vilāpa
Kusumānjali.
On page 535 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes Bhaktisiddhānta
Saraswati saying Kṛṣṇa’s cows and the flute are in śānta rasa. No śāstra
says that. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī says in his commentary on Śrīmad Bhāgavata
(11.12.8) - gāvo
vātsalya rasena “Vraja's cows are in vātsalya rasa.” He repeats that the cows are in vātsalya rasa in his comments on Śrīmad Bhāgavata 10.14.30-31 - aho'ti-dhanyā ityādibhīrāmātmaka vātsalyādi ratimanta eva
stoṣyanti (30) ye tu tvad bhakteṣv ati-prakṛṣṭās teṣāṁ tvayi śuddha
vātsalyādi rati-bhājāṁ padavīṁ prārthayitum ayogyā... (31) “I
am not qualified to pray for their
vātsalya rasa”), 10.20.26 (prītyā is motherly affection) 10.21.13 - “The cows (not the calves)
are in vatsalya rasa- na ca tatrāpi
vātsalyabhāva eva mohane hetur astīti vācyam….., and “The cows stand
still as they take Govinda within their hearts through their tear-filled eyes
and embrace Him out of vātsalya bhava – sva manasaḥ kroḍe eva vātsalyāt sthāpayantyas tasthuḥ
(Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī’s commentary). The statement vaṁśī priya sakhī
from Brahma Samhitā (5.56) shows that Kṛṣṇa’s flute is even in madhura rasa, let alone śānta rasa!
Vilāpa Kusumānjali 17
On page 575, Śivarāma Svāmī says the gopīs are not good swimmers but
śāstras like Govinda-līlāmṛta and Sankalpa Kalpadruma give the opposite view.
On page 577, Śivarāma Svāmī quotes Śrī Rādhā, being in the
kunja at noon with Kṛṣṇa at Rādhākuṇḍa, that he is the supreme person, served by demigods,
the Vedas and the sages. A worse type of aiśvarya-view isn’t imaginable at this pinnacle of mādhurya, in both time and place. Another instance is there on page
582, where Kṛṣṇa paints alta (foot-lac) on Śrī Rādhā’s feet, a most mādhurya event, but Kṛṣṇa recites an
aiśvarya verse from Rādhā-kripa-kaṭākṣa-stava-rāja (12) –
makheśvari kriyeśvari svadheśvari
sureśvari
triveda-bhāratīśvari pramāṇa-śāsaneśvari
rameśvari kṣameśvari pramoda
kānaneśvari
vrajeśvari vrajādhipe śrī rādhike
namo ’stu te
O queen of Vedic sacrifices, O
queen of pious activities, O queen of the material world, O queen of the gods,
O queen of Vedic scholarship, O queen of knowledge, O queen of the goddesses of
fortune, O queen of forgiveness, O queen of the forest of happiness, O queen of
Vraja, O empress of Vraja, O Sri Radhike, obeisances to You!”
Clearly totally out of tune.
More on page 585: While Kṛṣṇa is putting on Her foot-lac, Śrī Rādhā hears him think ‘the Vedas say that I am the
unlimited Personality of Godhead. Then why am I outdone by this humble red
liquid?” This is similarly totally out of tune with the immense mādhurya of
this pastime.
On page 588 Śivarāma Svāmī quotes Kṛṣṇa saying – “I am in My
name. so if I write my name in the laksa I will also have a place on Rādhā’s lotus-feet.” Non-ISKCON-devotee Anantadās
Bābājī wrote in his purport of the same verse: “ Everyone says that I am non-different
from My name, so let My name stay on Her foot-soles then!"
The circumstances under which Śrī Rādhā kicks Rati or Tulasi are practically copied from non-ISKCON-devotee Prabhupāda Śrī Ananda Gopāl Goswāmī and non-ISKCON-devotee Anantadās
Bābājī as well.
I heard that the next volume of Śivarāma Svāmī’s Vilāpa
Kusumānjali will be issued around Janmāṣṭamī 2023. If both Śrīpāda Śivarāma Svāmī and yours truly are still around we will resume our review then.
