Haraye namaḥ, kṛṣṇa yādavāya namaḥ

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

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kīrtana Standards,” installment 30

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Another practice sometimes found in ISKCON kīrtanas is to chant, toward the end, these verses:

(hari) haraye namaḥ, kṛṣṇa yādavāya namaḥ
yādavāya mādhavāya keśavāya namaḥ
gopāla govinda rāma śrī-madhusūdana
giridhārī gopīnātha madana-mohana

Sometimes we then sing the next verse—śrī-caitanya-nityānanda śrī-advaita-sītā, and so on—and perhaps the next one, honoring the six Gosvāmīs.

This all comes from a bona fide song by Śrīla Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura. But why have these verses (rather than so many others) become customary to chant in kīrtana? I would suppose it’s because devotees are under the impression that Śrīla Prabhupāda asked us to chant them. This impression is false. I bring to your attention Śrīla Prabhupāda’s actual request:

We are already accustomed to chant these two mantras—śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda and Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. Now, after these, the other two lines—namely haraye namaḥ, kṛṣṇa yādavāya namaḥ/ gopāla govinda rāma śrī-madhusūdana—should be added, especially in Māyāpur. Chanting of these six lines should go on so perfectly well that no one there hears any vibration other than the chanting of the holy names of the Lord. That will make the center spiritually all-perfect.¹

As mentioned twice in Caitanya-caritāmṛta,² Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu personally chanted these two lines:

haraye namaḥ, kṛṣṇa yādavāya namaḥ
gopāla govinda rāma śrī-madhusūdana

And that is what Śrīla Prabhupāda said to add to the kīrtana: two lines, not four. (And not with hari in front of it as in the song.) The song by Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura, bona fide though it be, is not what Śrīla Prabhupāda asked us to chant.

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Notes:

1 Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi 17.123, purport

2 Ādi 17.122 and Madhya 25.64.