Jayadvaita Swami

“Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kīrtana Standards,” installment 39 In ISKCON kīrtanas in recent years, particularly at large events, one feature that has come into vogue is long musical breaks, in which a musician, with a saxophone or what have you, plays a few bars of the melody and improvises on them while everyone else looks on in appreciation. Perhaps because this might make some devotees feel uncomfortable (Where is Kṛṣṇa? Where is the mantra?), the devotees in the kīrtana often provide an explicitly divine overlay by calling out “Rādhe! Rādhe!” and then, in response, “Śyām! Śyām!” for as … [Read more...] about Long musical breaks

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kīrtana Standards,” installment 38 In accordance with śāstra and Vaiṣṇava tradition, Śrīla Prabhupāda had us chant the Dāmodaraṣṭaka every day during the month of Karttika. Some decades after Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disappearance, the chanting of the Gopī-gītā—the songs sung by the gopīs—was somehow introduced at ISKCON Vrindāvan as an additional daily Karttika function. During Śrīla Prabhupāda’s presence, this was never done. These most sacred and intimate songs are of course entirely authorized, but the Bhāgavatam offers so many prayers we could chant—prayers … [Read more...] about Gopī-gītā for Karttika

What we chant in ISKCON’s daily program (continued) Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kīrtana Standards,” installment 37 In my seminar on kīrtana standards, devotees have sometimes asked about ākharas. Bhakti Vikāsa Swami explains: Ākharas are lines added to songs for poetical effect. They are commonly used in Bengali kirtana to repeat or explain a point already made. They sometimes take the form of long poetical digressions. There are many standard ākharas for well-known Bengali songs. In ISKCON, only two simple ākharas are common: the lines gaurangera arotika sobha jaga jana mana lobha … [Read more...] about Ākharas (Added lines of elaboration)

What we chant in ISKCON’s daily program (continued) Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kīrtana Standards,” installment 36 The Prema-Dhvani (“Sounds of love”) are glorifications typically called out (in Hindi, by the way) at the end of a kīrtana. Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura includes one version of the Prema-dhvani in his Gītāvalī.1 And here is the way Śrīla Prabhupāda nearly always recited the Prema-dhvani:2 jaya oṁ viṣṇu-pāda paramahaṁsa parivrājakācārya aṣṭottara-śata śrī śrīmad bhaktisiddhānta sarasvatī gosvāmī prabhupāda kī jaya ananta-koṭi vaiṣṇava-vṛnda kī jaya nāmācārya śrīla … [Read more...] about Prema-dhvani

What we chant in ISKCON’s daily program (continued) Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kīrtana Standards,” installment 35 In the tulasī praṇāma, in the line vṛndāyai tulasī-devyai, the right word is devyai, not devī or devai. And the often-heard nivedena is a mispronunciation of nivedana, which denotes a request or appeal. Similarly, adhikoro is an attempted Bengali pronunciation that gets things only half right. What we want is adhikāro. And should we say kṛṣṇa-bhakti or viṣṇu-bhakti? The way Śrīla Prabhupāda gave us the mantra (in a letter to Govinda Dāsī dated April 7, 1970), it’s … [Read more...] about Tulasī Worship