Mantras in kīrtana

“Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kīrtana Standards,” installment 16

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Don’t concoct mantras

Apart from mantras picked up from Indian popular culture, the internet, or the street, we sometimes invent our own. Speaking in a lecture in Vrindāvan on November 2, 1976, Śrīla Prabhupāda said:

There are so many they have invented. Just like Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra is prescribed in the śāstras, and they have invented so many. Although there is the name of the Supreme Lord, still you have to follow the śāstra. If you say Rāma Rāma Rāma, Rādhe Rādhe Rādhe, Kṛṣṇa—there are so many inventions. That is also name, but you have to follow the śāstra. Śāstra says:

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

You have to take that. Not that you can say, nitai-gaura rādhe-śyāma, hare kṛṣṇa hare rāma. No. Why? Is there any in the śāstra? No, you have invented. What is the value of your invention? You are not perfect. But they like, that “It is my guru. I have got some followers, I invent some type of chanting.” This is nonsense. You must follow. Mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ. You cannot invent.¹

Don’t invent mantras for Deities

Permutations of the Deities’ names

Sometimes devotees sing kīrtanas in which they come up with mantras on the spot by repeating and transposing the names of a temple’s Deities. Śrīla Prabhupāda didn’t do this.

Jaya Sītā Rāma Lakṣman Hanumān

Even before the construction of the ISKCON temple in Juhu was completed and the Deities were installed, Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote:

For worshipping the Deities in Bombay, including Sita-Rama, there is absolutely no change in worship. Adopt the same method as in our Vrindaban centre, simply with 3 pujaris just like in Vrindaban. They are all Visnu-tattva, Ramacandra, Radha-Krsna, Gaura-Nitai. No additional kirtanas, simply do exactly as in Vrindaban.²

Yet these days in Mumbai (and other temples that have Deities of Sītā-Rāma) we hear in the kīrtana, “Jaya Sītā Rāma Lakṣman Hanumān.” This additional kīrtana has never been “what they do” in ISKCON Vrindāvan.

In my kīrtana seminars I have said that instead of “Jaya Sītā Rāma Lakṣman Hanumān” I could offer this new version: “Jaya Jaya Sītā Rāma, Jaya Lakṣman Hanumān.” It has all the names. It has a nice rhythm. It could quickly catch on. Why not? The answer is: Because it’s a concoction and because chanting it would go against Śrīla Prabhupāda’s explicit instructions above (“No additional kīrtanas”). For “Jaya Sītā Rāma Lakṣman Hanumān,” these same objections equally apply.³

Yet now the chanting of such additional kīrtanas has been going on so long that they have taken on the false appearance of being “what we’re supposed to do,” and one might misjudge giving them up to be a deviation.

Even bona fide mantras may not be for kīrtana

Havi Dāsa relates:

In 1975 in New York, Citsukhananda started a kirtana, and in the middle of the kirtana he started to sing, “Jaya Jaya Sri Caitanya Jaya Nityananda Jayadvaita Candra Jaya Gaura Bhakta Vrinda.” And Prabhupada immediately stopped him and asked him to chant Hare Krsna. “Don’t chant this. Chant Hare Krsna.”⁴

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Notes:

1 Lecture, Vrindāvan, November 2, 1976. Śrīla Prabhupāda similarly wrote: “One should not. . . manufacture different types of chanting. One should adhere seriously to the chanting of the holy name as recommended in the scriptures: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.” (Bhāgavatam 7.5.23‒24, purport)

2 Letter to Saurabha, June 7, 1976. Emphasis supplied. In I’ll Build You a Temple (p 368) Giriraj Swami tells us that Saurabha had written to Śrīla Prabhupāda “to clarify the standard of worship–whether there should be any change or any special arrangement, such as extra bhajans.” This was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s reply.

3 I’ve heard from Bhakti Gauravāni Swami that in some temples where Sītā-Rāma Deities are installed, the devotees chant “Jaya Sītā-Rāma, Jaya Sītā-Rāma, Jaya Sītā-Rāma Lakṣman Hanumān.” Another version I’ve heard is “Jaya Sītā-Rāma, Lakṣman Bhakta Hanumān.” Once we get started, there’s hardly a limit to the variations we can come up with. For my seminars I put together this little Hindi song:

lakṣman hanumān sītā rām
manogat mantra mera prān

Translation: “Lakṣman, Hanumān, Sītā-Rāma. A mentally concocted mantra is my life and soul.”

4 Havi Dasa, personal communication.