Chanting Śrīla Prabhupāda’s praṇāma mantras

What we chant in ISKCON’s daily program (continued)

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kīrtana Standards,” installment 32

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What are the words?

First of all, we should get the mantras right. Either namas te sārasvate devam or namas te sārasvate deve would be correct. But Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote to Pradyumna that deve would be the most fitting word,¹ so the BBT and ISKCON have adopted that as the standard.

And as Śrīla Prabhupāda instructed, “You should pronounce it sārasvate, not sarasvatī. Sarasvatī is my spiritual master. So his disciple is [offered respects with] sārasvate.”² Note the long ā, and e not ī.

In pāścātya-deśa, the c is pronounced like the ch in chair or the c in ciao or DaVinci. So: pAsh-chA-tya.

Now that we know “what,” let us move on to when.

Chanting at maṅgala-ārātrika

I’ve been asked in my seminar whether I would chant Śrīla Prabhupāda’s praṇāma mantra after the Gurv-aṣṭakam prayers.

Let us start here. As far as I recall, when Śrīla Prabhupāda chanted “saṁsāra-dāvā” he would continue straight into the chanting of śrī kṛṣṇa-caitanya and Hare Kṛṣṇa, without first chanting the praṇāma mantra to his guru mahārāja.³ Or sometimes perhaps he would first chant the entire maṅgala-caraṇa, then saṁsāra-dāvā, śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya, and Hare Kṛṣṇa.⁴ Therefore if one simply chants the Gurv-aṣṭakam, followed directly by śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya and Hare Kṛṣṇa, one is not doing anything different from what our founder-ācārya did: saṁsāra-dāvā, śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya, Hare Krishna, nothing else.

Personally, when I lead kīrtana I chant Śrīla Prabhupāda’s praṇāma mantra. After all, Śrīla Prabhupāda is the founder-ācārya of ISKCON. But philosophically, or in terms of the tradition, if one chants saṁsāra-dāvā, śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya, Hare Kṛṣṇa, nothing else, one is not doing anything wrong. And I know at least one brave godbrother who does exactly that.

Jumping over?

But there’s something else done that, again, I think is not carefully thought out. Sometimes we hear a kīrtana leader start the maṅgala-ārātrika with Śrīla Prabhupāda’s praṇāma mantra. What’s happening here? If we’re not directly Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disciple, what’s happening is that first we’re chanting the praṇāma mantra to our guru’s spiritual master and then we’re leading the maṅgala-ārātrika. And what happened to our guru? Are we “jumping over”?

Now, there are reasons why the kīrtana leader doesn’t chant the praṇāma mantra to his guru. There was a time in ISKCON when we had “zonal gurus” and even if the “local guru” wasn’t your guru you had to chant his mantra. You could be his godbrother, but “to set an example for everyone else” you had to chant his mantra. After a while, senior devotees came to see this as so intolerably oppressive and so out of line with Śrīla Prabhupāda’s teachings that finally all such protocols went out the window. As a result, now in the kīrtana we don’t chant any mantra for our guru; we chant only Śrīla Prabhupāda’s. Even though it might be proper for a kīrtana leader to first offer respects to his guru in some way, we don’t do that, because of our ISKCON history and our ISKCON cultural sensitivities. This is understandable, and I see no reason to argue against it.

But when a disciple chants Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mantra first, what is happening? The disciple is beginning the kīrtana by first offering obeisances not to his own spiritual master but to his guru’s spiritual master, or even to his guru’s grand-spiritual master. When we think about it, according to tradition this is not quite right. The tradition is that first, before we do anything, we offer our respects to our own spiritual master. So at Naimiṣāraṇya, for example, before Sūta Gosvāmī answers the questions of the sages, he first offers his respects to his spiritual master, Śukadeva Gosvāmī.⁵ Then he offers obeisances to the Lord, to Sarasvatī, to Śrīla Vyāsadeva, and so on. But first his own spiritual master. That is the ancient traditional system.⁶ Before speaking, before leading kīrtana, before doing anything, we offer our obeisances to our spiritual master.

What should we do?

So now what should we do? On one hand we have this tradition, and on the other we have ISKCON with its history and its sensitivities and its multiple gurus and their disciples. My humble suggestion would be that if we’re going to chant Śrīla Prabhupāda’s praṇāma mantra, first we should chant Sri Gurv-aṣṭakam and then Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mantra, with the understanding, for successive generations, that the Gurv-aṣṭakam is for our guru (and his guru and so on) and, in his own exalted place in that line, for our founder-ācārya, Śrīla Prabhupāda. This may not be quite the same as beginning by chanting our guru’s mantra, but given the Society we live in and its history and the feelings of the devotees, this would work.

In sum: Rather than chant Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mantra at the very beginning of the maṅgala-ārātrika, before the Gurv-aṣṭakam, we can chant it after the Gurv-aṣṭakam, so that those who may not be Śrīla Prabhupāda’s direct disciples can first offer obeisances to their guru and then to our founder-ācārya, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

At sandhyā-ārātrika

A student at my kīrtana seminar asked, What about the sandhyā-ārātrika, when Śrī Gurv-aṣṭakam isn’t chanted? What should we do then?

If I were a grand-disciple of Śrīla Prabhupāda and I were the kīrtana leader, I would think, “It’s my duty to offer my respects to my guru before I begin the kīrtana.” So I might begin by chanting oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya. . . , without expecting the other devotees to respond. Or if I were brave I might first chant the mantra for my guru mahārāja, again on my own, not expecting the other devotees to respond. Someone else might have a different approach. In this regard, devotees may take guidance from their own spiritual masters and the prevailing ISKCON laws.

On other occasions

Apart from formal ceremonies, we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa in public venues, we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa at home programs, we sit and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa in temples. What then? Again, it is an established Vaiṣṇava principle that one should first offer respects to one’s own guru. So what should we do? For such occasions, my godbrother Locanānanda Dāsa has suggested that “before we begin to chant, all disciples and grand disciples first prayerfully recite together the two lines of Guru Pranama with folded hands, beginning with ‘om ajnana timirandhasya. . . ,’ right before chanting Srila Prabhupada’s pranama mantras.”⁷ Someone else might have a different suggestion, but this one, in my view, fits admirably well.

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Notes:

1 Letter to Pradyumna, April 9, 1970.

2 Lecture, August 10, 1971, London.

3 Satsvarūpa Dāsa Goswami’s recollection matches mine.

4 Though I’ve heard a recording of Śrīla Prahupāda chanting this way in the morning tune, Satsvarūpa Mahārāja and I both remember that this is not what he regularly chanted in the morning. Satsvarūpa Mahārāja was quite sure about this point. (Personal interview with Satsvarūpa Dāsa Goswami, September 17, 2021.)

5 Yaṁ pravrajantam anupetam apeta-kṛtyaṁ, etc. Bhāgavatam 1.2.2‒3.

6 “Regarding the means of worship, our Vaisnava process is first offer respects to the Spiritual Master, then Lord Caitanya, and then Lord Krsna.” Śrīla Prabhupāda letter to Tamal Krishna, May 15 1970.

7 Personal communication, October 21, 2021.