9th verse of Gurusastakam!

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna

Dear Devotees

 

I read this in a Deity worship manual:

 

<In Jayatirtha's old Arcana Paddhati book [the white one] there was a 9th verse

for the Gurvastaka Prayers, which goes like this:

 

srimad-guror astakam etad uccair

brahme muhurte pathati prayatnat

yas tena vrndavana-natha-saksat-

sevaiva labhya januso 'nta eva

 

"At the time of death, direct service to Krsna, the Lord of Vrndavana, is

obtained by that person who, with great care and attention, loudly recites this

beautiful prayer to the spiritual master in the brahma-muhurta."

 

[NOTE: The inclusion of this ninth verse at this point in the puja does not

necessarily imply that it should be used at other times when the chanting of

the Gurvastaka is called for][from the editors of Arcana-Paddhati]>

 

Can anyone please enlighten me about Jayatirtha and the old Arcana Paddhati book

and if you have ever heard this verse before in any of our scriptures?

 

your servant

Sacidevi dasi

[Guest guest]

Thankyou very much for the enlightening mail. It makes sense.

 

Regarding Jayatirtha and the old Arcana Paddhati book: I was more concerned as

to how the 9th verse came about since i have to write an article on the

Gurvastakam. I assume then that the 9th verse was written by Srila Visvanatha

Cakravarti Thakura. Coincidentally i just came across a kirtan book that has

the same 9th verse at the end. I never saw this 9th verse in any of our ISKCON

kirtan books so far.

Thanks for clearing the matter.

your servant

Sacidevi dasi

[Guest guest]

At 11:39 AM 2/18/2002 +0530, Abhijit/Shashika Chowdhary wrote:

 

Hare Krishna

Dear Devotees

 

I read this in a Deity worship manual:

 

<In Jayatirtha's old Arcana Paddhati book [the

white one] there was a 9th verse for the Gurvastaka Prayers, which goes

like this:

 

srimad-guror astakam etad uccair

brahme muhurte pathati prayatnat

yas tena vrndavana-natha-saksat-

sevaiva labhya januso 'nta eva

 

"At the time of death, direct service to

Krsna, the Lord of Vrndavana, is obtained by that person who, with great

care and attention, loudly recites this beautiful prayer to the spiritual

master in the brahma-muhurta."

 

[NOTE: The inclusion of this ninth verse at this

point in the puja does not necessarily imply that it should be used at

other times when the chanting of the Gurvastaka is called for][from the

editors of Arcana-Paddhati]>

 

Can anyone please enlighten me about Jayatirtha and

the old Arcana Paddhati book and if you have ever heard this verse before

in any of our scriptures?

This 9th verse of an astakam is the phala-stuti, a benediction from the

author describing the benefits, or fruit (phala) of chanting. This is a

common feature of the devotional poetry written by many of our acharyas.

For example, Srila Raghunatha das Gosvami describes the benefit of

chanting his Sri Govardhana-vasa-prarthana-dasakam:

rasada-dasakam-asya srila-govardhanasya

ksiti-dhara-kula-bhartur-yahprayatnadadhite

sa sapadi sukhade 'smin vasamasadaya saksac-

chubhada-yugala-seva-ratnam apnoti turnam

Whoever ardently meditates on these ten nectarean verses glorifying Srila

Govardhana, the master of mountains, will very quickly obtain blissful

residence near Govardhana, thereby obtaining the auspicious jewel of

direct service to Sri Radha-Krishna.

There are many more, and I'd guess Mukunda Datta prabhu has some to

share, too.

I'm not sure what you want to know about Jayatirtha or the old

archana-paddhati. He was a member of the GBC who took the responsibility

of trying to standardize Deity worship throughout ISKCON on the basis of

the Gaudiya standards.

Babhru das