Puri Ratha-yatra 2006

Harinama with HH Indradyumna Maharaja

This year's Puri Ratha-yatra was an amazing experience. HH Radhanath Swami came with a group of 2,000 devotees, mostly from Chowpatty. On Radhanath Maharaja's invitation a number of sannyasis and senior devotees were present including: HH Indradyumna Swami, HH Sacinandan Swami, HH Devamrita Swami, HH Bhakti Caru Swami, HH Candramauli Swami, HG Jananivas Prabhu, HG Pankajangri Prabhu, and HG Dharmatma Prabhu.

This year was very special for me, as I got to fulfill a long cherished desire to do some parikrama in Puri with HH Indradyumna Maharaja. We went with a small intimate group and Sri Prahlada Prabhu led harinama on our way to all of the places. Amongst the other devotees accompanying us were HG Dharmatma Prabhu, Narottam Das Thakur Prabhu, and Jayatam Sila Prabhu.

We started the parikrama with a visit to the ancient deity of Shyamakali. Shyamakali has been the official deity for the gajapati kings of Orissa for hundreds of years. Over her altar one can see the insignia of the royal family of Puri. Of course Kali is not the istadeva or deity of the heart of the gajapati kings. It is a tradition in India for the kings to worship Kali and take her blessings for their rule. Amongst other things, it encourages the citizens to be respectful to Krishna's devotees the devatas.

After Shyamakali, we went to the Asta-sambhu Mahadeva temple. This is another ancient temple connected with the Puri kings. The siva-lingas here are ones that were captured when the kings defeated opposing kingdoms. The Asta-sambhu temple is a small temple on the campus of the Sri Sri Radha Rasik Raj temple. These are the family deities of Maharaja Prataprarudra and were worshiped even before the time of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Also in this temple are Gaura Nitai deities that were personally installed by Maharaja Prataprarudra.

We next made our way through the small back streets to the Kunja Math where we had darsan of the deities of Sri Sri Radha Rasika Raya that were worshiped by Srila Rasikananda Prabhu. There is a very wonderful story about these deities.

Once Rasikananda Prabhu was on his way to Puri to attend the Ratha-yatra festival. On the way many people stopped him to take his darsan and blessings. Because of this he was late, and missed the pahandi ceremony, when Lord Jagannath comes out of the temple. That year an amazing thing happened; after Lord Jagannath was placed on the cart and everyone started to pull it, they found that they were unable to budge the cart. Just as during the time of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu when a similar thing happened, they got wrestlers to try to move the cart, but that didn't work, finally they engaged huge elephants to push the carts. But they still would not move.

That night the king of Puri had a dream. Lord Jagannath came to him and said, "I am waiting for my dear devotee Rasikananda Prabhu to come. You will not be able to move my cart until he arrives." Upon awakening the king immediately sent out messengers searching for the sadhu named Rasikananda. They found him a short distance away from Puri and escorted him to the carts. When Rasikananda Prabhu saw that the carts had not moved and he heard about the king's dream, he began to cry. He offered his prostrate obeisances to Lord Jagannath and then approached the cart. He no more than touched the cart, when it started moving on its own.

The king was highly impressed with the devotion of Rasikananda Prabhu and offered him whatever he would like. Rasik replied, "Maharaja, I am just a humble servant, there is nothing that I require from you. However, if you are willing, I would be very happy if you could give to us the deity known as Bhatta Krishna who resides in the Jagannath Mandir."

The king happily fulfilled Rasikananda Prabhu's request and also presented him with some property behind the Gambhira that had been used to grow flowers for Lord Jagannath's seva. Rasikananda installed Bhatta Krishna along with a deity of Radharani in a small temple there that is today known as the Kunja Math. In recognition of Srila Rasikananda Prabhu's worship the deities there are today known as Sri Sri Radha Rasik Ray.

After the Kunja Math we made our way through the alley behind the Gambhira. On the way we were blessed to meet up with HH Radhanath Maharaja and HH Devamrita Maharaja. After speaking with them for a few minutes we made our way to the temple of Sri Sri Radha Vrindavan Chandra the beloved deities of Srila Kanai Khuntia Prabhu the associate of Mahaprabhu. From there we had darsan of Sri Sri Radha Krishna the deities worshiped originally by the wife of Kashi Mishra. There are also wonderful stories about these two last deities, I won’t tell them now, perhaps in some later blog.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at the samadhi of Gangamata Goswamini. Now lying in disrepair, this important shrine has nearly been lost. It was only recently revealed to us by one of our panda friends in Puri.

Click here to see photos of the deities and our parikrama

Vaishnava kripa prarthi,
Madhavananda Das

2006 Disappearance Festival: Summary

Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja, Bhubaneswar 1995

The 2006 Mayapur program for Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja’s disappearance festival was again a two day affair from the 18th to the 19th of February. It began with traditional Orissan style bhajans by Gour Govinda Maharaja’s cousin, Damodar Giri and the devotees from Maharaja’s village of Gadeigiri. This was followed by a premier of the first 30 minutes of a newly produced film of a darsan with Maharaja in Australia in 1992. This film produced by Gopal Jiu Publications and the Bhubaneswar Gour Govinda Swami tape ministry included the work of Bhakta Karlis who labored hard to insert English subtitles in the DVD presentation. It went over very big with the devotees, a crowd of around 100 watched transfixed as Gour Govinda Maharaja spoke strongly on the topic of guru-tattva. Following the film, Bhaktisvarup Damodar Maharaja offered the new booklet produced by Gopal Jiu Publications, “Auspicious Invocations”, to Gour Govinda Maharaja at his samadhi mandir.

The talks then went on for the next two evenings. The speakers this year included the following sanyasis: Bhaktisvarup Damodar Maharaja, Jayadvaita Maharaja, Gopal Krishna Goswami, Guru Prasad Maharaja, Sivarama Maharaja, and BB Govinda Maharaja who offered a heart rending kirtan for the remembrance of Gour Govinda Maharaja. Other speakers included, Visuddha Sattva Prabhu from South America, Devakinandan Prabhu from Mumbai, Rajendra Prabhu from Mayapur, Mother Ramaniya from Mayapur, Mother Lilavati from France, and Mother Prasanta from Vrindavan.

Puskaraksa Prabhu and his wife Lopamudra, in the name of Mrs Asima Mookerjee, sponsored an elaborate feast for the entire Mayapur community. Our heartfelt thanks to them. The feast was a highlight of the festival. Many vaishnavas came, including a few devotees from the Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mission branch of the Gaudiya Math. The mood at the feast was very joyful and there was wonderful camaraderie amongst the twenty-five devotees who volunteered to serve out the preparations.

Click here to see pictures from the festival

2006 Disappearance Festival: Remembrance Excerpts

Sri Damodar Giri and the kirtaniyas from Gadeigiri

The following are a few lightly edited excerpts from the talks:

Sri Srimad Bhaktisvarup Damodar Maharaja: My association with Gour Govinda Maharaja was primarily in 1977 when I was with Srila Prabhupada in Bhubaneswar for laying the foundation stone of the temple. I saw Maharaja staying in the hut, which is still there. He was serving Srila Prabhupada by doing translation work. He was humility personified. I always liked him, but our responsibilities were in different fields. So we didn’t get to often meet. But in the GBC meetings we always sat together.

When Maharaja came to South France we had dinner together and I asked him, “It seems like you have some difficulty with your body. You cannot walk freely. Doesn’t this journey give you some problem?”

He replied, “So long as I can preach; I can speak on Srimad Bhagavatam, it gives me unlimited pleasure, unlimited happiness.”

I told him that he had been given some special blessings by Srila Prabhupada. I admire your courage and your determination in order to carry out Prabhupada’s order in order to please him. Our exchanges were very informal.

One can say many things about Maharaja. He was a greatly advanced soul. One of the most qualities that I remember of Maharaja was his humility and his great attachment and determination to execute the orders Srila Prabhupada gave him. Following Prabhupada’s instruction he was continuously translating his books from English into Oriya. Because of his work, most of Prabhupada’s books are available in Oriya. These books are a very big source of inspiration for the Oriya devotees. When I’m traveling around the world today it’s very wonderful to find so many devotees reading the books, beautiful printed magazines, and email magazines that the devotees at Gopal Jiu Publications have been producing based on Maharaja’s lectures. These are an important source of inspiration for many, even for those who never met Maharaja. Just by reading these books they get inspired. Maharaja’s disciples who are carrying out his desire to make these lectures available are giving a very important contribution to our Krishna consciousness movement.

Sri Devakinanandan Prabhu: I first met Gour Govinda Maharaja sometime in the late 1970s. We were on a traveling party with Bhava-bhuti Prabhu. From Calcutta we went to Bhubaneswar. Maharaja was always very Krishna conscious, always thinking of Krishna. He wanted to talk about Krishna and he would do so very forcefully. In his talks, so many times the name of Krishna would appear. He used to repeat, “Krishna, Krishna”, many times. That is the symptom of his attachment to Krishna. He was very jubilant, very friendly. Maharaja was a great vaiñëava. He was always Krishna conscious, and he wanted to give everybody Krishna.

Sri Srimad Jayadvaita Swami: Seeing the video of Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja. I was remembering how he had given up his connection with material life and was searching for a spiritual master. He himself had become a sadhu, giving up his family life and was wondering place to place and came to Vrindavan. Naturally he must have come in touch with so many gurus, so many swamis, so many sadhus. But he rejected them. “This person is a cheater. That person is a Mayavadi. They are not pure devotees of Krishna.” So he was rejecting, he wasn’t finding what he was looking for. Then he came to Vrindavan and by the arrangement of Krishna he came in touch with Srila Prabhupada. There he saw, “Yes this is what I’m looking for.” And he surrendered to Srila Prabhupada and became engaged in Prabhupada’s service. It means that his whole program of life was Krishna consciousness. Of course he appeared in a Krishna conscious environment -- with kirtan, with Bhagavatam -- he grew up with all of these things. Then he came in touch with Prabhupada, then he was really serving Bhagavatam by that translation work by preaching and by service up to the end.

Sri Rajendra Prabhu: Srila Prabhupada has a wonderful disciple in His Divine Grace Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja. He was a great inspiration for me in my life. He accepted the order of his spiritual master as his life and soul and didn’t consider anything else. I never saw in anybody other than Srila Prabhupada such surrendered devotional service as I did with Gour Govinda Maharaja.

Click here to see pictures from the festival

Helpers and Details of the 2006 Disappearance Festival for Srila Gour Govinda Swami

Vidvan Gauranga Prabhu and other devotees helping to serve out the feast for Srila Gour Govinda Swami's Disappearance festival

We haven’t updated the blog for several months. We hope to catch up a little with the following entry and intend to start posting regularly.

The following blog is a list of the devotees who helped to put this festival together. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped make it a success.

2006 Festival Committee:

Madhavananda Das: Director, Program Emcee

Bhakta Pradosh: General Manager

Samba Das: VIP reception for the men

Damini Dasi: VIP reception for the ladies

Anupama Das: Visiting guest

Madanalasa Dasi: Visiting guest

This committee met a few days before the festival and again a few days after to discuss how to make things better for next year. This was the first year that we had the association of Samba Prabhu and Anupama Prabhu and his wife Madanalasa. With his friends amongst the senior devotees and his good sense of vaishnava etiquette Samba’s presence made a great difference. Anupama and Madanalasa took videos and photographs of the program and had many good suggestions for how to organize things. It was wonderful having their input; we hope that they will come every year.

Other assistance was kindly given by:

Bhakta Karlis: Photography and MP3 recordings

Bhakta Jason Rapp: General assistance

Amrita Charana Das: General assistance

Bhakta Bipin: General assistance

Bhagavan Das: Cooking and pujari-seva for Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja’s puspa samadhi.

Suprasad Das: Cooking and pujari-seva for Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja’s puspa samadhi.

Long before the festival started, Bhakta Karlis was hard at work here in Bhubaneswar producing a high quality DVD video production with English subtitles of a lecture by Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja. During the festival in Mayapur he was in charge of operating the DVD player to show the video and he also managed to take pictures and making recordings of the talks and bhajans. Aside from all of that he also found time to occasionally help with the book table. He was very professional in his work, a dear friend, and a great help. Another dear friend, the gentle Bhakta Jason was also running around, helping to take care of the guests. He was also fanning them on stage for some time to keep the mosquitoes away. Amrita Charan Prabhu, and Bhakta Bipin also helped in many ways, by cleaning, helping decorate the pandal and the samadhi, bringing prasadam, serving out the devotees and many other things. They worked very hard and were integral in the success of the festival. Lastly but not least, Bhagavan and Suprasad Prabhus worked very hard cooking, and doing all of the puja for Maharaja’s puspa samadhi Our sincere appreciation for the efforts of all these devotees, without whose input this program would not have taken place.

Donors:

The following devotees kindly contributed and supported the festival this year:

Bhakta Krishna Murthi, Bhaktin Cindy, Dhanya Dasi, Madhava Pandit and Deva Deva Dasi, Matheesha, Purusottam Tirtha and Sita Devi Dasi, Puskaraksa and Lopamudra (sponsored the entire feast), Radha Nama, Sarva Drk, Tota Gopinath, Vaidehi Mutylal.

Feast Servers:

Our thanks to the following devotees who volunteered to serve out the feast in honor of Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Maharaja:

Akincana Das, Anupama Das, Bhakta Antonio, Bhakta Barry, Bhakta Damodar, Bhakta Mahendra, Bhakta Pradosh, Bhakta Ruben, Bhakta Sergio, Damini Dasi, Gopijanavallabha Das, Gopijanavallabha Das, Gunarnava Das, Jaya Gopal Das, Kalavati Dasi, Krishna Kishore Das, Krishna Mishra Das, Lilavati Dasi, Madanalasa Dasi, Madhavananda Das, Nilambara Krishna Das, Sadashiva Kaviraj Das, Sri Chaitanya Das, Suprasad Das, Vidvan Gauranga Das.

Preparations for the feast included:

Sukta, Dahl, Khir, Curd Subji, Lemon Drink, Plain rice, Puris, Pasta, a second Subji, Pakoras, Fancy Rice, Sweet Yoghurt.

Click here to see pictures from the festival

Click here to download a copy of the festival financial report