Gaura-nityananda bol...what Prabhupada did

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Excerpts from Kirtan Rules by Harikesa prabhu

 

GAURA NITYANANDA BOL...

 

There are two stories relating to the singing of the mantra "gaur nityananda

bol, hari bol" & etc. The first relates to a time when Prabhupada stopped a

kirtan in England when this mantra was being sung, and the second time when

Prabhupada stopped a mangal aratika kirtan in Vrindavan. Since I was

directly involved in the second instance and only heard about the first, I

will only relate the second story.

 

One morning in the winter of 1975, after the temple was opened, Ananda

prabhu was leading the kirtan. Ananda prabhu was a godbrother of Srila

Prabhupada who had been living in our temple for many years, humbly engeged

in serving the devotees with great love and devotion. He was the personal

cook of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and was extremely expert in

preparing emergency medicinal herbs when the need arose (as when Saurabh das

was bitten by a scorpion but was saved by Ananda prabhu's timely herb

application). He was also an enthusiastic kirtan leader. Srila Prabhupada

was in his room as usual during the mangal aratika kirtan and I was in the

room next to his waiting [for] some order or command. I was not to be

disappointed. The kirtan was loud and the speakers, combined with the

reverberation of the hall, projected the sound into Prabhupada's room with

great ease. Prabhupada called me into his room. I already knew what was

going to happen since I was trained by him the previous year and know his

standards for kirtan. Ananda prabhu was chanting "gaur nityananda bol" &

etc. I knew that this was not what should happen, but I was Prabhupada's

servant at this time and not the president any longer.

 

Much to my surprise he more or less (again, sorry) said the following. <<Go

to the temple room and stop him from singing the kirtan. Tell him that this

is your temple and that you will lead the kirtans the way you want.>> Well,

this was quite a shock. It was the first time that I ever had to stop one of

his own godbrothers from singing a kirtan, but I dutifully marched off to

the temple room to fulfill the order. I was not at all feeling good about

this as I was afraid of making some offense or being crass or crude about

it. Being fallen I just couldn't bring myself to say it exactly as

Prabhupada had said it, but I managed to mutter out some words to the effect

that Prabhupada didn't want this mantra in the temple and that would he

please chant Hare Krsna instead? This made a little scene with the devotees

not understanding what was taking place, so I managed to explain something

to some others since the kirtan was still taking place without interruption,

but soon the kirtan was stopped and taken over by others.

 

Prabhupada was never abrasive towards others and especially I had never seen

him act like this in the temple, but he was so determined that the kirtan

standard be maintained and not changed by the introduction of "other"

mantras which were commonly heard in other temples and maths, that he send

me to stop his own godbrother from singing in the temple. This incident

impressed me greatly as to his determination in this regard.

 

BHAJA SRI KRSNA CAITANYA...

 

There is one other kirtan factor which is extremely significant and which

should definitely be discassed in such an article. In June of 1977 Srila

Prabhupada was not very pleased with the kirtans of the group in the asrama

next to us. There kirtans were taking place with the following speculated

mantra, "(bhaja) nitai gaura radhe syama (japa) Hare Krsna Hare Ram" which

especially got on one's nerves if he had to live on the side of the building

which faced their asrama. Prabhupada wanted that all mantras be bona fide so

he requested the devotees to stop chanting the word "bhaja" before our

Panca-tattva maha mantra since the word actually is not part of the mantra.

There is no word which prefaces the mantrawhich specifically reads "sri

Krsna caitanya prabhu nityananda sri advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura

bhakta vrinda." This mantra can be read in either Bengali or Sanskrit

letters on the walls of every temple in Vrindavan or Bengal as it is one of

the two essential mantras for Gaudiya Vaisnavas.

 

Then Prabhupada thought about using some mantra from the Caitanya-caritamrta

which he considered might go, "jaya sri Krsna caitanya prabhu nityananda,

jayadvaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura bhakta vrinda" so he had his servants

and sanskritists look it up to see if they could find it. After a thorough

search they realized that there was no mantra like that and that the closest

mantra was "jaya sri Krsna caitanya prabhu nityananda, jayadvaita candra

jaya gaura bhakta vrinda" which was not what Prabhupada wanted and therefore

was not the change which was to take place. Howover, Prabhupada insisted on

the change from "bhaja" to "jaya" to difinitively delineate us from the

other chanters across the road. When he was asked about the change from "sri

advaita" to "jaya advaita" he simply said, "sri advaita, jaya advaita,what

is the difference?"

 

Now on the basis of this the devotees of the world were told that Prabhupada

definetely wanted that we chant "jaya advaita" instead of "sri advaita" and

that this should happen immediately. Sinse I was in Vrindavan at the time

and heard this incident immediately after it happened in the room of

Prabhupada from one of the sanskritists who were engaged in the search, I

knew that this was not actually the case, and that the purpose of the

changes were mainly to stop the chanting of "bhaja" in order to make a

distinction between us and the speculated mantra chanters.

 

GAURA GAURA GAURA...

 

Although the Vrindavan temple was opened in March of 1975, Srila Prabhupada

had started establishing the standards of its functioning in the previous

year. He was concentrating his energies on creating the proper Deity,

kitchen, and economic standards. At this time Srila Prabhupada asked me to

be the president of the temple. He was personally instructing me in various

aspects of the management. Since we are writing about Srila Prabhupada's

standard for kirtan, I would like to recount his specific instructions in

regards to the standards for kirtan which he wanted me to rigidly enforce.

As far as standards go, his instructions could not have been more specific.

The exact cause of these instructions was a kirtan in the temple led by

Bharadvaja das, the night before.

 

Srila Prabhupada had been in the habit of attending our nightly kirtans and

classes due to his being sickly and unable to speak. That evening Bharadvaja

chose to sing a song (which he said he got from a book by Gopal Bhatta

Goswami) which was a variation on the mantra "krsna krsna krsna krsna krsna

krsna krsna he," but instead of it being for Krsna, Krsna was replaced with

Gaura, so that the mantra went, "gaura gaura gaura gaura gaura gaura gaura

he" & etc. Srila Prabhupada disliked this extremely, so much so that the

next morning he called me into his room and wanted from me an explanation of

why Bharadvaja was chanting like that. I could not give a proper explanation

at that moment, but Prabhupada said that he never wanted to hear that again

in the temple and that I should never allow such kinds of "speculation" in

kirtan. He then went on to specifically describe how kirtan should be done.