srivasa acarya & srinivasa acarya

[Guest guest]

Dravida Prabhu answered this question in 1993 as follows:

 

I thought I'd stick my two cents in on this

Srivasa-Srinivasa question. Here are some references in the

CC where Srivasa Thakura is called Srinivasa:

 

Adi 4.227, Adi 12.17 purp, Adi 13.3, Madhya 1.278-81,

Madhya 13.92-94, and Madhya 14.229.

 

I think the clincher that really sends us for a loop is

that Prabhupada sometimes adds the Acarya on to Srinivasa

(as in Adi 12.17, 13.3, and Mad 1.278-81) when the

reference is to Srivasa Thakura!

 

Someone in this discussion pointed out that Srivasa and

Srinivasa mean the same thing--the abode of the goddess of

fortune. This is the key to understanding the (to us)

confusion. We in the modern age want someone to have an

official monicker by which he or she is known, and then

maybe some shortenings or nicknames. But we insist that

there is a REAL name, or official name. But the

predecessors in our line didn't adhere to this too strictly.

I remember reading in the Govinda-lilamrta about

Kundavalli and Kundalata--same meaning, same person. And

of course Lord Caitanya and Lord Krsna have countless

names. Often in verse--either Saskrit or Bengali--a

different name will be used for poetic reasons. It appears

to me that Krsnadasa Kaviraja sometimes used Srinivasa for

Srivasa because he needed the extra syllable to fill out

the line!