Śrī Prapanna-Jīvanāmṛtam

I'm beginning to work on a new version of Prapanna-jīvanāmṛtam.  I have no commercial purpose in mind for doing so. This is really for my own edification. I have no idea who might be reading this, but, in effect this blog exists really as a collection of my own notes on things I'm thinking about at the time. It's ephemeral, like a flower that blooms only for a day, a blog has meaning for a day or two and then the posts are generally forgotten. It's my intention to someday go back and revisit these blogs and perhaps data-mine what I've written for a future publication, but apart from that, I'm not sure what use they may have. I like to believe that the pieces I'm doing are a bit longer and more well-considered than "Facebook" posts.  But I hardly expect anything written here to last for a long time. 

Having said that, let me explain a bit about why I think a new translation is necessary. 

The translation that was done in the 1980s was a bit slap-dash and superficial, done by devotees with a superficial understanding of Sanskrit and very little Bengali. It was later re-written and edited, but still contains many stylistic and syntactic flaws to say nothing of interpretation and meaning. The literary thesis of the original translators was imperfect. The book itself forwards a certain number of exegetic conundrums. Its composer, Śrīdhara Mahārāja, wrote a compact thesis about "Surrender" and its meaning. The original book is contained in a few lines of Sanskrit, illustrated with a compendium of Sanskrit quotations.  And yet, since the audience for the original work largely consisted of Bengali Vaishnavas, the work was expanded upon by its author and by its editor, His Divine Grace, Bhakti Sundar Govinda Mahārāja. Since the Sanskrit sutras of the book are rather compact in their meaning, Govinda Mahārāja took great care to bring out the interpretation of these sutras in his own translation from Sanskrit to Bengali, done in close collaboration with the author, Śrīdhara Mahārāja. The two of them collaborated closely on the final work, and it may be said that the Bengali version of the Sanskrit sutras surpasses the original. A close reading of the work must take in both the original Sanskrit sutras as well as the  Bengali translation/commentary worked out as a collaborative effort between Śrīdhara Mahārāja and his greatest disciple Govinda Mahārāja. This is a subtle task. The original translators were wary of the Bengali translation/commentary done by the author and his disciple and stuck to the Sanskrit, feeling that the classic language was somehow more noble. Subsequent translators did their best to remediate the effect of this original thesis, but the damage was done, and much of the style and flavour of the Bengali version, as well as its meaning has been obscured.

 In addition, the original translators were determined to give the book a "high" style, along the lines of Victorian English with a Hindi accent. So, for example, simple ideas become elaborate. "karma" becomes "materialistic activities done with a furtive purpose in the world of action and reaction that bind one to the wheel of birth and death," vigraha becomes "The Supreme Personality of Godhead incarnate as the worshipable deities" and so on.

In part, this is a reaction to the style of Professor Nishikant Sannyal of Ravenshaw College, among whose works are "Shri Krishna Chaitanya" and "The Erotic Principle of Divine Love." Sannyal was responsible for editing and translating much of the work of Bhaktisiddhānta Saraswati Ṭhākura during the 1930s. At that time Gauḍiya Vaiṣṇavism was in ill repute as lacking in intellectual rigour. Sannyal set out to refute this point of view.  His language is abstruse and his arguments obscure.  For example,

"The materialistic demeanor cannot possibly stretch to the transcendental autocrat who is ever inviting the fallen conditioned souls to associate with Him through devotion or eternal serving mood. The phenomenal attractions are often found to tempt sentient beings to enjoy the variegated position which is opposed to undifferenced monism. People are so much apt to indulge in transitory speculations even when they are to educate themselves on a situation beyond their empiric area or experiencing jurisdiction. The esoteric aspect often knocks them to trace out immanence in their outward inspection of transitory and transformable things. This impulse moves them to fix the position of the immanent to an indeterminate impersonal entity, no clue of which could be discerned by moving earth and heaven through their organic senses."

While I am a great fan of Professor Sannyal's and have read his translations of Bhaktisiddhānta Saraswati's Bengali works again and again, one must understand that every prose style has its time and place and 1930s Gaudiya Matha english is no exception. 

While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, it is also a form of suicide. By imitating someone else's style, one loses one's own voice. I have seen this in those who set their life path on imitating their guru. This is fine as far as it goes, but it's very awkward to talk to a twenty-year old kid from New Jersey who acts as if he's really an 80 year old Bengali gentleman.  If it's important to speak from one's own realisation, writing with one's own voice is even more important.

Śrīla Śrīdhara Mahārāja had his own voice. He had his own style It was quite distinct from the style of Śrīla Prabhupāda, Bhaktivedānta Swāmi, or from Govinda Mahārāja. If Prabhupāda was a vast lake whose waters could refresh thousands, Śrīdhara Mahārāja was like a hidden mountain spring whose pure waters came from a deep underground source. Govinda Mahārāja was like a bubbling, joyful and inexhaustible fountain whose waters played in the sunshine, creating myriad rainbow effects.

It was my pleasure and duty to serve as Śrīdhara Mahārāja's editor in English while he was still living. As such I was responsible for curating his style. His English is noble. He knows how to express deep truths succinctly in language that is both philosophical and playful. He loved a good pun. "Is lava love?" he said one day, turning the expression over and over. In this way he coined the expression "Golden Volcano of Divine Love." He loved paradoxes: thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and would often spend days turning a pair of seemingly contradictory verses over in his mind until he came to a resolution as to their meaning. Later he would tell us of his discoveries, as if he had gone down into a hidden mine and found a jewel. He would describe the jewel to us, as if he held it in his hand, glowing with the enthusiasm of an old testament prophet.

 A translation of a work should do justice to the voice of the author. Constance Garnett, the 19th Century Victorian translator was often criticised for having made Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy sound like Charles Dickens at a tea party. The dour existential sarcasm of Dostoyevky's Underground Man became softened by her Victorian prose. She made Tolstoy speak as a refined member of Queen Victoria's court. Newer translators try to capture the sound and feel of Chekhov's Russian instead of forcing him to sound more "British."

 In the same way, Śrīdhara Mahārāja's elegant Sanskrit and Govinda Mahārāja's sweet Bengali suffer when translated into an English idiom filtered through Protestant philosophy, the King James Bible, and the many stylistic affectations of Western Sanskrit scholars. For example, it is possible to render Śrī Guru and Gaurāṅga as "Lord Chaitanya and the Spiritual Master," but I think something is lost. 

One of the big problems in translation here has to do with the amount of awe and reverence packed into some of the phraseology. Devotees of Krishna are partial to the idea of Reality the Beautiful.  So, for example, in Bhaktivinod Ṭhākura's seminal work, Śaranagati, which forms the basis for many of the conclusions of Prapanna-jivanāmṛtam, he addresses himself to Nanda-nandana, or "The son of Nanda." Nevertheless, translators insist that Bhaktivinoda is directing his prayers to "God," or "Lord," or "Oh, my Lord." But there is a distinct difference in tone when addressing someone as "Lord" and when addressing someone as "Son of Nanda." One is intimate and friendly and the other is filled with awe and reverence. Since the entire process of surrender as it is described here leaves awe and reverence behind, I feel it is inappropriate to translate "You" as "Oh my Lord," when it is clearly demonstrated that one is addressing the "Son of Nanda." 

This may seem a petty consideration, but in point of fact it really gets to the core of a lot of misconceptions about bhakti  and surrender, Śaranāgati, or Prapanna as it is called here.  Devotees of Krishna are not interested in prostrating themselves to "God," or "Lord" or the "Supreme, " but in a friendly, loving connection with the "son of Nanda." I understand that Western devotees coming from a Christian background are determined to show that Krishna and Christ are the same, but there is a many differences between the Christian conception and the Krishna conception.  And this is one of them. 

So I think it's important to eliminate the artificially stilted "awe and reverence" stylistic considerations from a real translation of Śrīdhara Mahārāja's elegant treatise on surrender and want to do my best to return to his personal style, which was erudite and poetic. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Saraswati praised Śrīdhara Mahārāja for his "happy style," and I want to try to bring that out in this new attempt at translating the work.

So, I hope you enjoy my humble attempt. If there's anything worthwhile or sweet here, it comes from above. Anything petty or contaminated, it's probably mine. Still, as I said, I'm trying to write for my own purification and in the service of my guru mahārāja. If you like what you read, please share it with your friends. There's no commercial purpose to any of this, no advertisements, no grab for donations. Thanks again.

BVM

श्री प्रपन्न-जीबनामृतम्

Śrī Prapanna-Jīvanāmṛtam

प्रथमो ऽध्यायः

Prathamo’dhyāyaḥ

First Chapter

उपक्रमामृतम्

Upakramāmṛtam:

Preamble to āmṛta

अथ मङ्गलाचरनम्

atha maṅgalācaranam

Invocatión

1

श्री गुरु-गौर-गन्धर्ब्बा-गोबिन्दाङ्घ्रीन् गनैः सह ।

बन्दे प्रसादतो येशां सर्ब्बारम्हाः शुभाङ्करः ॥१॥

śrī guru-gaura-gandharvvā-gobindāṅghrīn ganaiḥ saha

vande prasādato yeśāṁ sarvvāramhāḥ śubhāṅkaraḥ [1]

My respects to Śrī Guru and to Gaura-Gandharva-Giridhari and the rest. By their grace everything will be successful and beautiful. (1)

2

गौर-बाग्-बिग्रहं बन्दे गौराङ्गं गौर-बैभवम्

गौर-सङ्कीर्तनोन्मत्तं गौर-कारुण्य-सुन्दरम्॥२॥

gaura-vāg-vigrahaṁ vande gaurāṅgaṁ gaura-vaibhavam

gaura-saṅkīrtanonmattaṃ gaura-kāruṇya-sundaram [2]

I bow before the Deity of Śrī Gaura, who is his very expression on this earth, who expands in the form of the saṅkirtan movement, as the message of Śrī Gauraṅga, as well as in the form of his golden mercy, reality the beautiful. (2)

3

गुरु रूप-हरिं गौरं राधा-रुचि-रुचाचृतम् ।

नित्यं नौमि नबद्बीपे नामकिर्तननर्त्तनैः ॥३॥

guru rūpa-hariṁ gauraṃ rādhā-ruci-rucācṛtam

nityaṁ naumi nabadbīpe nāmakirtananarttanaiḥ [3]

I sing of Śrī Guru and His Grace, and of Śrī Rūpa.  I sing of the heart and halo of Śrī Rādhā and of Śrī Gaura, who being the Golden Volcano of Divine Love, is himself engaged in the Search for Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Reality the Beautiful, wrapped in the golden glow and mood of Śrī Rādhā. Śrī Gaura has descended upon the holy place called Nabadwīpa for eternal nāma-kirtana.

4

श्रीमत्-प्रभु-पदाम्भोज मधुपेभ्यो नम् नहः ।

तृप्यन्तु कृपया ते ‘त्र प्रपन्न-जिवनामृते ॥४॥

śrīmat-prabhu-padāmbhoja madhupebhyo nam nahaḥ

tṛpyantu kṛpayā te ‘tra prapanna-jivanāmṛte [4]

I humble fall before those who served at the lotus feet of my prabhu, my gurudeva, my prabhupāda.  Like bees who extract honey from the lotus, those great sādhus extracted nectar from the words of my gurudeva, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Saraswati Ṭhākura Prabhupāda. As they are expert in extracting nectar, it is my fervent prayer that by their mercy they will be able to extract something sweet from this book, which I have called Prapanna-jivanāmṛta.  As they are great surrendered souls, I hope that this book will be nectar in their lives, for the intention of the book is to provide nectar for the lives of such surrendered souls. (4)