“Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kīrtana Standards,” installment 15
We know what we are supposed to chant: the songs and mantras chanted by our previous ācāryas. Yet other things – new sounds, new mantras – find their way into our kīrtana. And once they’re in, they’re hard to root out. After a while, they’re “what we’ve always chanted,” “what we were taught,” “what everyone chants,” “what we’ve heard since we joined.”
In my kīrtana seminars I brought up examples of such catchy chants, and—sure enough—my students had heard them all.
For example:
Govinda bolo hari, gopāla bolo
Where does this come from? It’s certainly popular—an internet search yields lots of hits for it, and it seems a favorite among the followers of various Indian “godmen”—but we never heard Śrīla Prabhupāda chant it, nor does it appear in any of our books.
Śrīla Prabhupāda chanted:
govinda jaya jaya gopāla jaya jaya
rādhā-ramaṇa hari Govinda jaya jaya
But, sadly, that chant seems to have gone out of style. We hardly ever hear it.1
Another example:
Rādhārāṇī ki jaya, mahārāṇī ki jaya
Where does this come from? Not from Śrīla Prabhupāda nor from our previous ācāryas. We hear it in Vrindāvan, and we find it on popular websites. But what Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted us to chant is what was chanted by the ācāryas, not what we pick up from the internet or from the streets or sādhus of Vrindāvan.
And another:
Jaya rādha-ramaṇa haribol
Again, this invented pop bhajana gets lots of internet hits, and there’s an Indian quasi-spiritual group that chants it at the end of all their satsangs. But it’s yet another chant we never heard from the lips of Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Rādhe rādhe śyām mila de. (“O Rādhārāṇī, please introduce me to your Śyāma.”)
In a book compiling songs by Vaiṣṇava acāryas, this song is labeled “Traditional Gujarati chant.” (Which Vaiṣṇava ācārya?)
As we find in the Padma Purāṇa, sampradāya vihīnā ye mantrās te niṣphalā matāḥ: Any mantra not received from the sampradāya will be useless.
Yet another spurious chant goes back to ISKCON’s earliest days:
Gopāla gopāla devakīnandana gopāla
Describing kīrtanas held in 1967, Hayagrīva Dāsa fills us in:
Kirtan always begins with a rousing Hare Krishna. Then, after Swamiji’s lecture, we chant “Gopala, Gopala, Devakinandana Gopala.” We first heard this mantra sung by poet Ginsberg, and for a week Swamiji tolerates it. Then he calls me in.
“That is not a valid Vaishnava mantra,” he tells me. “You may change Devaki’s name for Yasoda’s. Yasoda and not Devaki is accepted as Krishna’s real mother because those vatsalya-rasa pastimes were carried on with her. But best not to chant that mantra at all because it’s not authorized.”
Still intent on some variety, we chant “Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram.”
“One Hare Krishna is worth two thousand Jai Ram’s,” Swamiji remarks. “So why are you wasting time?”
On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Mukunda gives music lessons, teaching different melodies for Hare Krishna. And there’s also “Govinda jai jai, Gopala jai jai, Radharamana Hari, Govinda jai jai,” which Swamiji sings so beautifully at kirtan and upstairs alone, playing harmonium, his voice full of devotion, alone with all the time in the world, time no more a factor than space.2
Relating some history from a bit later, Suhotra Swami wrote:
From somewhere Vishnujana picked up a Mira Bai song that goes, “Gopala, Gopala, Devakinandana Gopala; Gopala, Gopala, Yasodanandana Gopala.” Shrila Prabhupada told him to stop singing it. “It may have been sung by great devotees,” he said, “but it was not sung by great authorities.”3
Notes:
1 One can hear Śrīla Prabhupāda chant “Govinda Jaya Jaya” in recordings collected by the Bhaktivedanta Archives: CDV 11-3, CD 15-5, and CD 11-2.
2 The Hare Krishna Explosion, Chapter 9.
3 Quoted by Patita Pavana Dasa in “The Legend of Visnujana Maharaja.” I have not been able to confirm that this song has anything to do with Mira Bai.
You must be logged in to post a comment.