Nava-vraja-mahimā — Volume Three, Part One

Śivarāma Swami

Nava-vraja-mahimā

Volume Three

Part One

Lāl Publishing

Somogyvámos

Also by Śivarāma Swami:

The Bhaktivedanta Purports

The Śikṣā-guru

Śikṣā Outside ISKCON?

Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana series:

Śuddha-bhakti-cintāmaṇi

Veṇu-gītā

Na Pāraye ‘Ham

Kṛṣṇa-saṅgati

Readers interested in the subject matter of this book are invited to visit the following websites:

www.sivaramaswami.com

www.srsbooks.com

Design and cover illustration: Akṛṣṇa Dāsa

Copyright © 2012 Śivarāma Swami

Copyright © 2012 Magyarországi Krisna-tudatú Hívők Közössége, Lál Kiadó

All rights reserved.

Quotations from the books, letters, conversations, and lectures of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, along with a Sanskrit pronunciation guide, are

Copyright © The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc.

Used with permission.

www.krishna.com

ISBN 978-615-80553-9-0

Although I have written Nava-vraja-mahimā for the pleasure of all Vaiṣṇavas who either physically or mentally reside in Vṛndāvana, I dedicate this book to those whose hearts are devoted to Rādhā-Śyāmasundara and New Vraja-dhāma. It is my hope that they will pass their time in this way:

iha vatsān samacārayad

iha naḥ svāmī jagau vaṁsīm

iti sāsraṁ gadato me

yamunā-tīre dinaṁ yāyāt

Here our Lord herded the calves, and here He played the flute. I pray that I may pass my days shedding tears as I speak these words on the Yamunā’s shore. (Śrī Raghupati Upādhyāya)

Contents

Preface

CHAPTER NINE

The Festival and Lifting of Govardhana Hill

CHAPTER TEN

Living Beneath Govardhana Hill and Kṛṣṇa’s Abhiṣeka by the Demigods

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Nāradavana to Harideva

CHAPTER TWELVE

Brahma-kuṇḍa to Gaurī-tīrtha

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Surabhivana to Airāvata-kuṇḍa

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Rudra-kuṇḍa to Nima-grāma

APPENDIX 15

Apparent Transience in the Realm of Absolute Permanence

APPENDIX 16

Kṛṣṇa Convinces the Gopas That He Can Lift Govardhana Hill

APPENDIX 17

The Vraja-vāsīs Question Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s Divinity

APPENDIX 18

The Liberation of Aṣṭāvakra Muni

APPENDIX 19

Which Queens of Dvārakā Heard Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam at Kusuma-sarovara

APPENDIX 20

Who Found Gopāla — Mādhavendra Purī or Vallabhācārya?

APPENDIX 21

Spiritual Affinity and How It Applies to the Places of Kṛṣṇa’s Pastimes

APPENDIX 22

The History of the Deity of Lord Ālālanātha at Brahmagiri

APPENDIX 23

The Purifying Effect of the Dust of Devotees’ Feet on Sacred Waters

APPENDIX 24

Tava Kathāmṛtam

About the Author

Sanskrit Pronunciation Guide

Bibliography

Preface

The title of the book you are now reading, Nava-vraja-mahimā, when rendered in English becomes The Glories of New Vraja-dhāma. I originally conceived of it as a booklet, meant to guide devotees visiting the holy places of New Vraja-dhāma, ISKCON’s rural community in Hungary.

As you must have noticed, the book has grown in size since its inception and would now likely require a small handcart for eager pilgrims to be able to transport it from one pastime place to another! Nonetheless, it still serves its original purpose of extolling New Vraja-dhāma by praising its presiding Deities, Rādhā-Śyāmasundara, and by narrating the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes in His eternal abode, Śrī Vṛndāvana-dhāma.

Texts that glorify the holy abodes (dhāmas) of the Lord are called dhāma-māhātmyas. Two prime examples of this genre of devotional literature are Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Śrī Mathurā-māhātmya and Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s Śrī Navadvīpa-dhāma-māhātmya. Both of these books establish the sanctity of the dhāmas they depict — Vṛndāvana and Navadvīpa respectively — by citing Purāṇic praise of the dhāmas themselves as well as the pastime places within their boundaries. There is, however, an interesting difference between the two. Śrī Mathurā-māhātmya is an unordered compendium of scriptural references to the pastime places it describes, while Śrī Navadvīpa-dhāma-māhātmya chronicles the Lord’s pastimes and the places at which they occurred by following the sequence in which pilgrims visit those places as they circumambulate the dhāma. Ṭhākura Bhaktivinoda also recounts the personal spiritual reflections he gleans from circumambulating Navadvīpa in an appendix to Śrī Navadvīpa-dhāma-māhātmya that he calls Śrī Navadvīpa-bhāva-taraṅga.

Despite their stylistic differences, the transcendental benefit readers derive from these two types of māhātmyas is the same. They act as practical guidebooks to the dhāma, and at the same time they aid pilgrims in immersing their thoughts in the Lord’s glories. For that reason, devotees who do not travel to the dhāma can also derive transcendental benefit by circumambulating the holy places in their minds as they meditate on both the Lord’s pastimes and the dhāma’s glories as they are recounted in sacred texts of this nature.

Nava-vraja-mahimā is a māhātmya in the style of Śrī Navadvīpa-dhāma-māhātmya in that it includes an account of my own personal circumambulation, or parikrama, of New Vraja-dhāma and the realisations that came to me as a result. In fact, as I visit the pastime places in New Vraja-dhāma — more commonly known to the people of Hungary as Kṛṣṇa Valley — I sometimes reflect on similar parikramas I have undertaken in Bhauma Vṛndāvana, recount histories of how New Vraja-dhāma was established and developed, or express my own devotional aspirations. This personal approach is primarily an attempt to please the devotees of New Vraja-dhāma, who requested me to describe the parikrama not as a passive observer but as a participant who shares his adventure with the reader.

Amongst many possible readers, this personal adventure is especially intended to be shared with the residents of and visitors to New Vraja-dhāma, for whom this book will naturally be of greatest interest. Those readers who are not a part of that particular audience may rightly question what New Vraja-dhāma is and how its glorification can be relevant to persons who live outside Hungary or who may never visit.

As its name suggests, New Vraja-dhāma is modelled after the original Vraja-dhāma, Bhauma Vṛndāvana, Kṛṣṇa’s eternal home as it appears on earth. The inspiration to establish New Vraja-dhāma came from my spiritual master, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, the founder-ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. In the 1960s in America, Śrīla Prabhupāda established New Vṛndāvana and envisioned it to be a self-sufficient community, dependent upon agriculture and cow protection, as well as a place of pilgrimage in the West. New Vraja-dhāma is therefore our humble attempt to fulfil the desire of His Divine Grace that such places of pilgrimage be established throughout the world.

In the introduction to this book and in the essay entitled The Truths of the Dhāma, the reader will find a detailed history of how and why New Vraja-dhāma came to be, along with a philosophical study of the spiritual principles that make it a holy place. I cannot overstate how important it is for the reader to carefully go through these parts of the book in order to clearly understand the spiritual foundations upon which New Vraja-dhāma and Nava-vraja-mahimā rest.

What benefit will those who do not visit New Vraja-dhāma gain from reading this book? The answer is threefold.

Nava-vraja-mahimā contains extensive and very detailed narrations of Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes at all the major places in Vṛndāvana, as well as at many lesser-known places. Extensive research went into compiling — from the Vedas, Upaniṣads, Purāṇas, Saṁhitās, and other Vedic histories, as well as from the commentaries of our previous ācāryas and other sources — the information it contains. Altogether, the text and the accompanying references offer the reader a unique opportunity to delve deeply into Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes in Bhauma and Goloka Vṛndāvana and better get to know the Supreme Lord and His loving associates.

Second, although the topographical orientation, distances, and occasionally the sequence of New Vraja-dhāma’s parikrama differ from the same in Bhauma Vṛndāvana, the book also serves as an in-depth guide for pilgrims to use in visiting the pastime places of Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s original earthly abode.

Third, through the glorification of New Vraja-dhāma, this book testifies to the greatness of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s achievement in spreading the potency of Vṛndāvana throughout the world.

Now, allow me to clarify a few points about certain expressions and literary devices used in the text, about the structure of the volumes, and about the actual parikrama route of New Vraja-dhāma.

The expression Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes in New Vraja-dhāma is not meant to imply that Kṛṣṇa manifests His eternal pastimes here in the way that He does, creation after creation, in Bhauma Vṛndāvana. Rather it means that the pastime places in New Vraja-dhāma correspond to the original places in Bhauma Vṛndāvana or Goloka Vṛndāvana. Largely due to the uncommon format of the text (which I will discuss elsewhere in this preface) and because of the correspondence between the pastime places in both dhāmas, it was sometimes necessary to refer to the pastimes associated with those places in a way that may make it sound as if they happened in New Vraja-dhāma.

If I say, for example, At this place, called Aghavana, Kṛṣṇa killed Aghāsura, it means Kṛṣṇa killed Aghāsura in the Aghavana of Bhauma Vṛndāvana, which is commemorated by the place of the same name here in New Vraja-dhāma. Similarly, phrases such as "At this place Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa enact Their rāsa dance should be taken to mean At the Rāsa-sthalī of Goloka Vṛndāvana, the divine couple enact Their eternal rāsa dance. The place called Rāsa-sthalī in New Vraja-dhāma commemorates that original place."

The reason I use such expressions, aside from literary necessity, is to emphasise the importance of New Vraja-dhāma and its stature as a place of pilgrimage. Again, the reader will find the philosophical and spiritual reasoning and supporting scriptural evidence for employing this convention in the introduction and the essay on dhāma-tattva that follow this preface.

Another literary device found in this book — as well as in other books describing the holy dhāma — is that I sometimes speak about New Vraja-dhāma as if I were directly seeing the unmanifest (aprakaṭa) abode and pastimes of the Lord. These expressions are not declarations of my existential position; rather, they are poetic expressions of my deep feelings for the subject matter and the places themselves. I qualify such statements here to avoid causing misunderstandings that might blur the line between the manifest and unmanifest features of the dhāma, merging them in a way that could be taken as contrary to authorised dhāma-tattva.

When, in describing the dhāma, authors weave between manifest and unmanifest realities in this way, it often causes the features of the aprakaṭa realm or the pastimes Kṛṣṇa is relishing there to seem as if they are part of the world visible to conditioned souls. But devotees well versed in the principles of dhāma-tattva will have no difficulty following these transitions between the manifest and unmanifest realms, whereas others may either not notice them or find them confusing.

Our great ācāryas may express themselves in such ways due to the overwhelming bliss they feel at seeing the aprakaṭa-dhāma and the eternal pastimes going on there. Or, in the case of those who are not on the fully realised platform of our great ācāryas, authors may be making a conscious endeavour to emphasise the divinity that underlies the features of the dhāma that conditioned souls are able to perceive.

In writing Nava-vraja-mahimā, poetic inspiration would sometimes impel me to describe the features of the dhāma not in terms of what I was seeing with my eyes — for I cannot see that which is unmanifest — but in terms of the aprakaṭa counter-whole as I have heard about it from scripture and as I contemplate it in relation to New Vraja-dhāma. Readers who notice such expressions in the pages of this book should take them in this light, not as my personal realisation of the unmanifest dhāma in the way of the great ācāryas.

* * * *

Parikrama is the traditional way of visiting Vṛndāvana. When Kṛṣṇa sent Uddhava to Nandagrāma with messages for the Vraja-vāsīs, He directed His cousin along a specific route and pointed out places to note along the journey. Thus Uddhava relished parikrama by travelling from Mathurā to Nandagrāma, as did Kṛṣṇa by describing the journey to him.

On His only visit to Vṛndāvana, Caitanya Mahāprabhu spent the first month of His two-month stay touring through Vraja’s twelve forests. And even though Lord Caitanya is Kṛṣṇa Himself, He requested the help of a guide and followed the established route of His time.

With the rediscovery of Kṛṣṇa’s pastime places, the Vraja-maṇḍala parikrama has evolved into what is currently called caurāśī-krośa parikrama, or circumambulation of the one hundred and sixty-eight-mile dhāma, the longest version of which takes almost two months to complete. Today, often during the holy month of Kārttika, hundreds of devotees relish walking barefoot from place to place on ISKCON’s Vraja-maṇḍala parikrama, living in the meadows or fields of Vraja, and absorbed in hearing about Kṛṣṇa and chanting His names.

For Hungarian devotees who cannot go to Bhauma Vṛndāvana, who cannot stay there for thirty days or more, or who would like to go on parikrama every year but cannot afford to go to India so often, the Nava-vraja-maṇḍala parikrama is for them. Annually, members of the Hungarian yātrā visit selected places of New Vraja-dhāma over the course of several days, and as the dhāma is further developed and parikrama paths established, the guided tours will become more extensive. In addition, by using the separate book of maps provided with Nava-vraja-mahimā, devotees may go on parikrama at any time they want and thus relish the nectar of hearing Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes and serving His dhāma.

In this way, Nava-vraja-mahimā seeks to serve those devotees keen to visit Kṛṣṇa’s abode, both in Hungary and in India. And for devotees who are neither residents of nor pilgrims to one dhāma or the other, this work gives them the chance to visit Kṛṣṇa’s holy dhāma in their minds and thus bring the atmosphere of Vṛndāvana to wherever they reside.

Circumambulating the dhāma is a means of offering respect. It includes visiting pastimes places, remembering pastimes, bowing down, taking the dust from pastime places on one’s head, bathing in sacred waters, and performing nāma-saṅkīrtana. Many major places within the dhāma — Govardhana Hill, Vṛndāvana town, and Varṣāṇā amongst them — have their own parikrama routes. As far as possible, these places have been or will be represented in New Vraja-dhāma. There is never a dearth of transcendental diversion for the devout pilgrim!

At the time of writing this book, the main pastime places of New Vraja-dhāma have been established, whereas many parikrama paths and other secondary pastime places have been mapped out but not yet developed. These places — like the construction of a magnificent new temple for Rādhā-Śyāmasundara — remain part of future plans to develop New Vraja-dhāma.

Let me now describe the book’s structure.

As already mentioned, this book is written in the form of my own parikrama, which is actually a compilation of multiple parikramas I made of New Vraja-dhāma, some encompassing the entirety of the dhāma, others only of places especially dear to me.

In the course of describing my parikrama, there were times at which deep philosophical topics or lengthy pastimes came up that required explanations so extensive that to describe them properly would have broken the flow of the narration. These explanations became essays that are now appendices at the end of each volume. I request my reader not to neglect these appendices — nor the endnotes that accompany each chapter, for that matter — as readers are sometimes wont to do. They comprise roughly one third of the book’s total content and are instrumental in bringing the reader to a balanced understanding of its message. Designated stanzas in the running text direct the reader to these appendices at the proper times.

In addition to the parikrama and appendices, the ten final chapters of Nava-vraja-mahimā are dedicated to directly glorifying Rādhā-Śyāmasundara, the presiding Deities of New Vraja-dhāma. In these chapters I exalt Their Lordships through the meditations that arise as I chant the Gāyatrī mantras and the mahā-mantra and from my direct service to Them on the altar. This last section of the book therefore contains in-depth analyses of the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava dīkṣā-mantras as well as the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. In this way the book has three parts: parikrama, appendices, and direct glorification of Rādhā-Śyāmasundara.

The running text that forms the bulk of the book, comprised of the parikrama and the praises of Rādhā-Śyāma, is written in three-line prose stanzas. It is pleasant to look at and easy to read, but it was a challenge to write, edit, and lay out on the page. This challenge led us to adopt certain conventions, such as mixing Sanskrit verses with English translations within a single stanza, or having longer verses straddle more than one stanza. However, we feel confident that the book’s format will enable you to relish the topic all the more.

From the outset I wanted Nava-vraja-mahimā to be well illustrated to give windows into Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes and to contribute to the overall purpose of the work — to increase the reader’s attachment to the Lord. I hope this has been achieved to your satisfaction. In Śrī Kṛṣṇa-saṁhitā (9.16), Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura writes, By seeing pictures of Kṛṣṇa or by repeatedly hearing descriptions of Kṛṣṇa from persons who have seen Him, one’s greed for attaining Kṛṣṇa increases unlimitedly.

To assist you in navigating through the unfamiliar names of pastime places and the variances in the locations of these places in New Vraja-dhāma and Bhauma Vṛndāvana, each chapter also includes a map or maps of the area it describes.

Altogether there are eight volumes of text. The set is complete with a ninth volume solely dedicated to maps of the various holy places of both New Vraja-dhāma and Bhauma Vṛndāvana, along with short descriptions of each pastime place. Devotees can take this map book with them to follow the parikrama routes in both dhāmas and have a reminder of Kṛṣṇa’s activities there.

Nava-vraja-mahimā is meant to serve as a companion for devotees who want to take full advantage of the presence of Vṛndāvana in Hungary and to develop their relationship with its presiding Deities, Rādhā-Śyāmasundara. Furthermore, it is meant to encourage devotees anywhere in the world to worship their local Deities with devotion and recognise the Vaikuṇṭha nature of those Deities’ abodes. It is my hope as the author that this work will serve these purposes in some small way and thus bring pleasure to devotees, for my own access to the dhāma will be possible only by the good wishes of the Vaiṣṇavas.

In conclusion, I request the reader, wherever he or she may reside, to consider that in its essence this book praises the same dhāma and the same Kṛṣṇa that are there in their own hearts, and which are thus very near and dear to them. It is in this way that our journey around New Vraja-dhāma through the pages of this book is synonymous with our own inner journey back to Godhead.

The journey through Nava-vraja-mahimā is a long one. The book spans over five thousand pages and took five years to write. Therein I have tried my best to portray the truths of Vṛndāvana as they are recorded in scriptures and narrated by perfect devotees like Śrīla Prabhupāda. Sadly, I remain a conditioned soul and thus am prone to make mistakes. If my readers find mistakes within the pages of this book, I ask them to tolerate such faults in the way they do the pebbles