CC Madhya 13.119 – Giriraj Swami and Guru Prasad Swami—Purusottama-masa, Purusottama-ksetra

Giriraj Swami: Today we are preparing for the most auspicious celebration of Sri Jagannatha Ratha-yatra. His Holiness Guru Prasad Swami and I will be speaking a few words, I, about the period leading up to the Ratha-yatra, and Maharaja, about the Ratha-yatra itself.

The portion of the pastime of Lord Chaitanya with Lord Jagannatha that I will discuss pertains really to the fifteen-day period between Snana-yatra and Ratha-yatra. When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu first arrived in Jagannatha Puri He was most eager to see Lord Jagannatha. As many of you know, Lord Chaitanya is Krishna Himself but in the mood of Radharani, and in the mood of Radharani He was feeling separation from Krishna, and He knew Lord Jagannatha to be Krishna Himself, and so His mood of ecstatic separation was extremely intense. And when He finally entered the Jagannatha temple and saw the Lord of His life, He fainted and went into such a deep ecstasy that He appeared to be dead. There were practically no symptoms of life. And news spread. Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya who was the king’s priest and teacher came and held a cotton swab under that devotee’s nostrils and there was some slight movement and so he understood that the devotee was still alive. And then he had the body removed to his home.

Now I mentioned that historical fact to give you a sense of the deep love that Lord Chaitanya had in the mood of Radharani for Lord Jagannatha. And we read in the Bhāgavatam how the gopīs condemned the creator, Lord Brahma, for creating eyelids that would blink and obstruct their vision of the Lord and in that high state of ecstatic love that momentary blinking of the eyes felt like almost an eternity of separation from Krishna. 

So fifteen days before the Ratha-yatra is the Snana-yatra to which it is stated in shastra to be the appearance day of Lord Jagannatha and He is bathed in a public ceremony on a raised pavilion at the Jagannatha temple and after that He retires for two weeks to His private quarters during which time no devotees are able to have His darśana. According to one version, being bathed outdoors He catches a cold and is removed to His private quarters to convalesce and He is offered medicine in the form of fruit juices and during that time repairs are made to the Lord’s body.

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as you can imagine was overwhelmed with such feelings of separation that He could not bear to remain in Puri without having the darśana of Lord Jagannatha. So He would walk some miles to Alanatha which is a temple of four-handed Vishnu form of the Lord and He would spend the two weeks there. When He had the darśana of Alanatha He was in such ecstasy that His body melted the stone floor of the temple that gave the impression that His body left in the stone is still there at the temple.

Many years later Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura came there and one day he went into the woods. I don’t recall but he told his disciples he was going to heed the call of nature or whether they just assumed he was going to heed the call of nature but in any case he didn’t return and so the disciples went and looked for him and eventually they found him in a very ecstatic state. He was overcome by ecstasy and therefore he did not return.

So there is a mystery here which is how could Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu feel so much ecstasy seeing the four-handed Vishnu form when His exclusive, not exclusive of course—He loved Krishna in every shape and form but really His ardent love was for Krishna, the original Supreme Personality of Godhead in Vrindavan. Our acharyas have discovered a secret meaning to Lord Chaitanya’s visiting Alanatha or Brahmagiri and it could also relate to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura’s mood of ecstatic separation and that is that that four-armed form is not actually Vishnu but is Krishna. 

Do you have any idea of Krishna having four arms? When Krishna was enjoying the rasa dance at Govardhana, at one stage He disappeared and hid in the bushes. The Caitanya-caritāmṛta quotes the verses that explain that while He was hiding in the bushes the gopīs came looking for Him and He knew that they would find Him, He could see that their move was such that they would find Him, so as a joke He assumed a four-armed form and the gopīs seeing Him from a distance became very happy and they came rushing but when they got close they saw, “This is not Krishna; This is Lord Narayana. Oh, Lord Narayana.” So as a matter of formal respect they had offered namaskāra and they said, “Oh Lord Narayana, have You seen Krishna? We are looking for Krishna.” There was no answer so they left in Their mad search for Krishna. Then Srimati Radharani came and Krishna did the same thing, He manifested a four-armed form but in the face of Srimati Radharani’s overpowering love, He could not maintain His extra two arms, and He was forced by Her love to manifest His origin form as Krishna. So this pastime is one of many that demonstrate Srimati Radharani’s exalted position as the best of devotees, the best of all of the lovers of Krishna.

So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in the mood of separation was seeing that four-handed Deity as Krishna hiding His other two arms. And it has been confirmed that the pujaris there actually worshiped the Deity as Krishna, that they recite the mantras to Krishna in the worship there.

Now every year for Ratha-yatra the devotees from Bengal would come to Puri, not just to observe the Ratha-yatra, but more particularly to see Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, but Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would be in such a mood of separation in Alanatha or Alalanatha that He didn’t want to go to Puri, He didn’t want to see anyone. And with great difficulties His intimate associates from Puri would come to Alanatha and bring Him back to Puri. And then in the company of the devotees from Bengal they would perform hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana, and in the hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu experienced the presence of Krishna and all His feelings of separation were dispelled. This is described in Caitanya-caritāmṛta. In the purport Srila Prabhupada says that any devotee who is suffering from separation from Krishna can experience the presence of Krishna through the holy name, through hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana.

So still that desire to see Krishna is there and so the Ratha-yatra is not just the festival of the chariots, just the festival, it is the festival of the chariots but it also marks the end of that period of separation and so it is a great occasion of jubilation for after being deprived of the Lord’s vision, darśana, for fifteen days, the Lord emerges from His private quarters and is again visible to the devotees.

So, this is just a background and now we will have the long awaited and much anticipated discussion of the Ratha-yatra itself from His Holiness Guru Prasad Swami.

Sri Jagannatha Swami ki jaya!
Ratha-yatra ki jaya!
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ki jaya!
Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!
Gaura-bhakta-vrnda ki jaya!
Hare Krishna.

Guru Prasad Swami: Hare Krishna. I thank Maharaja for that beautiful explanation of the ecstasy of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in separation. I chose to read one verse which I usually many times in Ratha-yatra festivals I read and it is on the board. It seems to be such a sacred verse that is it’s hidden from the vision of the devotees. [Maybe because of your devotion?] it will manifest. So this is Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā Thirteen, Text 119:

TEXT

ei-mata gaura-śyāme, doṅhe ṭhelāṭheli

svarathe śyāmere rākhe gaura mahā-balī

TRANSLATION

Thus there was a sort of competition between Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Lord Jagannātha in seeing who would lead, but Caitanya Mahāprabhu was so strong that He made Lord Jagannātha wait in His car.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

In his Anubhāṣya, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura describes the ecstasy of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu as follows. After giving up the company of the gopīs in Vṛndāvana, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the son of Mahārāja Nanda, engaged in His pastimes at Dvārakā. When Kṛṣṇa went to Kurukṣetra with His brother and sister and others from Dvārakā, He again met the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is rādhā-bhāva-dyuti-suvalita, that is, Kṛṣṇa Himself assuming the part of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī in order to understand Kṛṣṇa. Lord Jagannātha-deva is Kṛṣṇa, and Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mahāprabhu is Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī.

Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s leading Lord Jagannātha toward the Guṇḍicā temple corresponded to Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī’s leading Kṛṣṇa toward Vṛndāvana. Śrī Kṣetra, Jagannātha Purī, was taken as the kingdom of Dvārakā, the place where Kṛṣṇa enjoys supreme opulence. But He was being led by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu to Vṛndāvana, the simple village where all the inhabitants are filled with ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa. Śrī Kṣetra is a place of aiśvarya-līlā, just as Vṛndāvana is the place of mādhurya-līlā. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s following at the rear of the ratha indicated that Lord Jagannātha, Kṛṣṇa, was forgetting the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana. Although Kṛṣṇa neglected the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana, He could not forget them. Thus in His opulent Ratha-yātrā, He was returning to Vṛndāvana. In the role of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was examining whether the Lord still remembered the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana. When Caitanya Mahāprabhu fell behind the Ratha car, Jagannātha-deva, Kṛṣṇa Himself, understood the mind of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. Therefore, Jagannātha sometimes fell behind the dancing Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu to indicate to Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī that He had not forgotten. Thus Lord Jagannātha would stop the forward march of the ratha and wait at a standstill. In this way Lord Jagannātha agreed that without the ecstasy of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī He could not feel satisfied. While Jagannātha was thus waiting, Gaurasundara, Caitanya Mahāprabhu, in His ecstasy of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, immediately came forward to Kṛṣṇa. At such times, Lord Jagannātha would proceed ahead very slowly. These competitive exchanges were all part of the love affair between Kṛṣṇa and Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. In that competition between Lord Caitanya’s ecstasy for Jagannātha and Jagannātha’s ecstasy for Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, Caitanya Mahāprabhu emerged successful.

COMMENT by Guru Prasad Swami

So this is the essence of the Ratha-yatra beautifully explained in a condensed form by Srila Prabhupada in his purport. This is what is actually going on. Of course before the advent of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu there was no understanding of what was going on otherwise than it was the Supreme Lord. Just like anyone who knows South India, practically every temple has a big ratha cart and they take the Deity out and devotees chant and dance in ecstasy, glorifying the Lord. But in Jagannatha Puri the same thing was there, and we know, especially here in Dallas, being the place where Gosvami Maharaja wrote his Jagannatha play of the pastimes of Indradyumna Maharaja and the whole pastime of him wanting to see the beauty of the Lord and from Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta the ecstasies of Sri Gopa-kumara when he actually arrived in Jagannatha Puri after becoming a king. . . he became a king, the king of Lord Vishnu’s kingdom, and then he realized kingly duties and devotional ecstasy don’t always go well together. They can but it is not so easy. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu of course, which is a whole other subject matter, demonstrated this again with King Pratāparudra, which is a whole other aspect of Ratha-yatra. It is an important aspect meaning that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu demonstrated that if there is no humility before the Lord then there is no possibility of really understanding and really seeing the Lord. Just like the Deities here, anyone can come in and see Them. Any restaurant customer can come in and they certainly will get some benefit but they most likely won’t understand who is this person. Suvasa: the most beautiful dresser, Krishna. So they will think, “This is just some rituals.” And they’ll just think, “Better I go eat.” Of course they will also get benefit from that.

But the Ratha-yatra was never fully understood until Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu enacted this pastime. Of course it was always going on but who could understand? Maybe a few devotees could understand but otherwise no one could understand. Before the advent of Sri Madhavendra Puri who could understand even the intimacies and the superexcellent quality of the pastimes of Radha and Krishna, the depth of their understanding. Some sampradāyas worshiping Krishna as a child, some sampradāyas worshiping Radha and Krishna without fully understanding the role of the gopīs, but Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu brought all of this into focus and lived it and experienced it. His ecstatic dancing, as Maharaja just explained, was the result of being again united with Lord Jagannatha, with Sri Krishna in the ecstasy. 

But the actual ecstasy of meeting is the meeting in Kurukshetra. When He first sees Lord Jagannatha He is in Kurukshetra, this whole pastime, which actually before this verse—there are a few verses back—the whole intimacy of the pastime begins to reveal itself when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu recites a verse explaining, “Now I want to enter into the. . .” First He was dancing in ecstasy. He was so happy to see Lord Krishna and Lord Jagannatha, He was dancing, jumping in the air so high and Lord Nityananda was running around trying to catch Him. He would jump so high that He had to try to. . . like a baseball try to position yourself so you can catch the Lord. Of course He was a much better catch. And one time He actually fell to the ground. The ground was shaking. And even when He was jumping it felt like earthquakes. Maybe at that time there was some seismic activity but it wasn’t volcanic shifting; it was Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s dancing in ecstasy. And His body perspiring, so much of blood was oozing out, tears streaming from His eyes and drenching everyone in the audience, feeling so much happiness. 

But then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu entered into the mood of Radharani in Kurukshetra by saying, seita parāṇa-nātha pāinu, that, “I am feeling so happy but now I have seen the Lord of My life who apparently had forgotten Me,” but, yāhā lāgī’ madana-dahane jhuri genu, “but because My heart was burning in separation, but now I am [joining the Lord?]” She was feeling such ecstasy. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was enacting that ecstasy.

But then when He said that He enters into another mood and only Svarupa Damodara could understand and he assisted Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Then He began with His arms to enact the pastime of again feeling separation, internal separation. And then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu began a series of prayers to Lord Jagannatha where He began by saying, anyera hṛdaya — mana. “For most people their mind and their heart is one otherwise whatever their mind contemplates the heart was there, but for Me, mora mana-vṛndāvana. My heart cannot be separated from Vrindavan. Just because My mind is here perceiving Krishna,. . .” and obviously perceiving that Krishna with four arms, not even four arms, but two arms, but with a helmet, chariot, elephants, soldiers, and She begins to feel again the separation, “I want to be in the calm, peaceful atmosphere of Vrindavan. How can I enjoy with Krishna when He is surrounded by soldiers and sitting on the chariot,” like Rukmini riding around with Krishna? She could not see, “How am I going to relate to Krishna?” And She began to again feel internal separation. And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu began to express this and He says, “My mind will only be satisfied therefore I beg You to go back to Vrindavan.” 

Then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in that mood begins to offer a series of prayers based on what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has said in Kurukshetra, what Krishna has said in Kurukshetra that, “All of You are seeing Me and you say that you realize that I am in your hearts. So just meditate on Me in your heart. No problem. And I’ll go back to Dvaraka and we’ll all be happy.” And then She makes Her objection, “You sent Uddhava with the same message but that message is useless. I have been trying to forgive You, constantly trying to forgive You and I can’t so what is the use of meditating on You. If I can’t forgive You, I am already meditating on You, what is the use of some yoga? And the gopīs, they meditate so profoundly on You that they don’t even have any material existence. Therefore, what is the use of liberation if there is no material existence?” So She said, “But in any case let’s say I die because You don’t want to go back to Vrindavan, I am not even thinking of My happiness, but what I am thinking of is when I see the face of Yasoda, Nanda Maharaja, and the other inhabitants of Vrindavan I can’t understand why do You want to kill Them. Is that Your desire because that is what You are doing.” Very heavy statement but Srimati Radharani via Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to Lord Jagannatha and Jagannatha is completely standing still at this point, just completely mesmerized by these prayers.

So then She concludes, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in the mood of Srimati Radharani concludes saying, “So please come back to Vrindavan.” And then Jagannatha begins to speak to Mahaprabhu. This is all going on, this is a drama, a transcendental mellow drama. Everybody is looking on, but practically no one can figure it out except for Svarupa Damodara. Everybody else is just bewildered as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is enacting this whole play and speaking. Of course they can’t see the speaking happening. It is just happening internally. And then Jagannatha begins to speak and He says, “Actually it is true, I have neglected You. I have been very neglectful but I have not forgotten the inhabitants of Vrindavan. Every day I meditate on the inhabitants of Vrindavan.” Of course this is fully revealed by Sanatana Gosvami in Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta—which we wouldn’t go into due to lack of time—how Krishna in Dvaraka began to remember Vrindavan with such intensity that He couldn’t even go to the assembly house as you should do daily. All His sixteen thousand one hundred and eight expanded forms would go into one form, He would go into the assembly, the Sudama assembly. He wouldn’t show up or He would show up later. He would just sit there and just stare. At night He would be reciting the names of the gopīs, of the cows, especially the gopīs, that was very disturbing for His wives which I think anyone would be disturbed if their husband was all of a sudden reciting someone else’s name in the middle of the night and your wife would be disturbed. 

So Krishna explained, “I’ve never forgotten. As a matter of fact, in a dilemma I prayed to Lord Narayana. . .” because He is the [s?] form of Krishna, Srimati Radharani doesn’t see Him as God, “and He granted Me a very special boon that every day I can go to Vrindavan and be with You and therefore I have maintained My life and You have maintained Your life. Unfortunately, that boon didn’t cover everyone. All the other inhabitants, they didn’t get this direct association but rest assured I just need a few more days, there are just three or four demons left, because the reason I left you was I didn’t want all these [devotees?] to be disturbed by these demons because of Me. So now I will just finish off these last demons and I’ll be right back to Vrindavan.”

And then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu became satisfied and the Ratha-yatra continued and sometimes the cart moved slowly with this whole pastime being enacted again and again by Mahaprabhu. And at one point the cart stopped and no one could move it and Pratāparudra brought in the elephants, dozens of elephants trying to pull the cart, everybody pushing, but nobody could move it. And then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu went to the back of the cart, touched it with His head, and it began to move. And then He began to dance. As quickly as Lord Chaitanya would dance in front of the cart Lord Jagannatha would follow Him. 

As Srila Prabhupada says here, ultimately Srimati Radharani, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, is victorious, and this is the really essence of Ratha-yatra. Of course there are many aspects to Ratha-yatra that we won’t have time to get into today, but this is what we should try to remember when we are going out in the Ratha-yatra festival, we are bringing Sri Jagannatha who has been, He has been associating with the goddess of fortune, giving her great pleasure, because He is always doing His kingly duty to His devotees of giving them His darśana and He is away from her. Only at night when the curtains are closed she gets some mercy but in this [time? night?] she gets so much mercy. And then He says, “I am just going out to see My devotees.” And then He is gone for a long time. Finally, she has to send her soldiers to go figure out what is going on, what is happening with her husband. 

He is gone to Vrindavan. It is a whole pastime, a whole other story. But the point is that we should understand this is the meaning of Lord Chaitanya’s smile. That smile was described by Nanda Gopa-kumara as being waves of effulgence coming from the ecstasy that the Lord was thinking about when He was meditating on His Vrindavan pastime. Who could even smile like that where the corners of your mouth practically come up to your eyes? Who can smile like that? 

So that is the degree, that is the amount of happiness and bliss that Lord Jagannatha is feeling. But as the Lord said to the devotees after meeting with them again and seeing their devotion and their dedication, “I cannot repay you.” So the Lord Himself, although He tries to give the devotees as much ecstasy as possible in this form of Jagannatha, the devotee can actually feel more ecstasy. This is the advantage of being a devotee. Of course we can’t be the Lord anyway. There is only one thing, you either be a devotee, active devotee or a passive devotee, meaning you forget everything for millenniums. But the devotee has the advantage that the Lord. . . the devotees are unlimited but they are not as unlimited as Krishna. So how much can the Lord take from an individual but how much can an individual take from the unlimited Ananta, how much bliss. 

So His smile is emanating oceans, waves of transcendental bliss. His eyes are like the sun and the moon coming up over the ocean of transcendental ecstasy of devotional service. His head with jeweled tilaka. . . So when we see Lord Jagannatha’s face, then this is what we are supposed to remember. We have been separated for such a long time, such separation which is given by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in His Śikṣāṣṭaka as being, Srila Prabhupada says twelve years or more, but millenniums. As Maharaja mentioned just the blinking of the eyes is intolerable to the gopīs. So we may not be quite on that platform but certainly two weeks is definitely too much time to be separated from the Lord. Actually Mahaprabhu, He was feeling such great separation that when the Lord was given His bhoga just before going out, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu just came to the head priest and said, “I have to see Lord Jagannatha.” He had to see Him even before the Ratha-yatra started and He went into His. . . He had carte blanche, whatever He wanted to do, Pratāparudra said to the head priest, “Whatever He wants to do He can do.” So He went in with some of His intimate devotees and stood there for hours just drinking in the nectar of Lord Jagannatha’s face. I mentioned that sometimes we come before the Lord and we just get our five minutes and then we’ll go away. “Now let me get down to the real business,” like, “Let me make some money,” “Let me do this,” “Let me do that.” But Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was just the opposite, He saw Lord Jagannatha’s face. . . even with Jagannatha, when He would see Jagannatha in the temple He would see Krishna playing His flute.