Nava-vraja-mahimā — Volume Two, Part One

Śivarāma Swami

Nava-vraja-mahimā

Volume Two

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 978-615-80553-3-8

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 FIVE

Kāmyavana

CHAPTER SIX

Ṭeṛh-kadamba, Yāvaṭā, Saṅketa, and Bahulāvana

CHAPTER SEVEN

Varṣāṇā

CHAPTER EIGHT

Umrao

APPENDIX 7

The Concealed Meaning of the Gopīs’ Talks

APPENDIX 8

Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira’s Answers to Yamarāja’s Questions

APPENDIX 9

Parikrama as an Uddīpana for Pure Devotion

APPENDIX 10

Kaṁsa Becomes a Gopī

APPENDIX 11

Meeting and Separation in Unwedded Love

APPENDIX 12

Qualities in the Gopīs’ Forms That Invoke Ecstatic Love in Kṛṣṇa

APPENDIX 13

The Pastime at Pīlī-pokharā

APPENDIX 14

Who Is Candrakānti and What Were Her Teachings?

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