What we chant in ISKCON’s daily program (continued)
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Kīrtana Standards,” installment 31
Gurv-aṣṭakam
In the morning we chant Gurv-aṣṭakam, often followed at once by chanting of “Jaya Prabhupāda!”—as if the Gurv-aṣṭakam were meant exclusively for Śrīla Prabhupāda, which I humbly submit it is not.
These prayers are the Gurv-aṣṭakam, or Guru-aṣṭakam, the eight prayers to the guru. Your guru might be Śrīla Prabhupāda or else any one of our ISKCON initiating gurus. A few ISKCON members are even initiated by respectworthy devotees from outside of ISKCON. These days, most ISKCON devotees have not been initiated directly by Śrīla Prabhupāda. Most are his grand-disciples.1
And so when we chant the Gurv-aṣṭakam and then “Jaya Prabhupāda!” right after that – and sometimes, in fact, even in the middle of the song – how much thought are we putting into what we’re doing? All this seems to say that your “real” guru is Śrīla Prabhupāda and that this song is sung only for him.
Now, I have no problem if grand-disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda think of Śrīla Prabhupāda during the Gurv-aṣṭakam. He is their guru, as Śrīla Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Ṭhākura is also the guru of all of us, as are Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī and all the other sampradāya ācāryas. And Śrīla Prabhupāda is our founder-ācārya. So if devotees think of Śrīla Prabhupāda during the Gurv-aṣṭakam, fine.
But what if during the Gurv-aṣṭakam a devotee is actually meditating on his guru? Is that bad? Is he off-track? Philosophically deviant? Out of sync with the understanding we have in ISKCON? Are we crypto-ṛtviks, thinking that really everyone is a disciple of Śrīla Prabhupāda and that their own gurus don’t really count?
When I asked these questions in my seminar, I was merely going by an intuitive sense that the “Jaya Prabhupada!”s in the middle or at the end of the Gurv-astakam reflect a notion that this is “the Prabhupada song,” meant exclusively for Śrīla Prabhupāda alone. But soon my intuition was confirmed. In the same Bhāgavatam class where one of my godbrothers insisted that we always chant the names of the Deities because we’re personalists, he also said:
When we chant [the Gurv-aṣṭakam at] the maṅgala-ārati, that is Prabhupāda’s song. The maṅgala-ārati is not chanted to my guru, your guru, everybody’s guru. We’re chanting maṅgala-ārati for the samsthāpakācārya, the founder-ācārya for the next five thousand years.2
It’s wonderful that the speaker had such strong devotion to Śrīla Prabhupāda, but I’m not aware of any authoritative grounds on which we can insist that when we chant the Gurv-aṣṭakam at maṅgala-ārātrika this song must be meant exclusively for Śrīla Prabhupāda. And I would humbly submit that before we append “Jaya Prabhupāda!” to the Gurv-aṣṭakam or insert “Jaya Prabhupāda!” into the middle of it, we might first ask ourselves whether by doing so we are consciously or unconsciously declaring – with a fine sentiment but without support from spiritual authority – that Śrī Gurv-aṣṭakam, at least at the maṅgala-ārātrika, is exclusively “the Prabhupāda song.”
Yes, during the days when Śrīla Prabhupāda was the only guru of every devotee in ISKCON, the Gurv-aṣṭakam was “the Prabhupāda song.” We all chanted it only for him. But the days when he was the only guru in ISKCON are no longer with us. Life moves forward.
During the Gurv-aṣṭakam, devotees may think of their own guru, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Some kīrtana leaders end the Gurv-aṣṭakam with “Jaya Prabhupāda!” and then, taking other gurus into account, follow “Jaya Prabhupāda!” with “Jaya Gurudeva!” But as noted before, Śrīla Prabhupāda considered “Jaya Gurudeva!” impersonal.
The easy way to avoid these issues is simply to follow Śrīla Prabhupāda and do as he did. He chanted Śrī Gurv-aṣṭakam without adding any “Jaya!”s. He would end by singing the first verse again, and then sometimes by repeating its final line: vande guroḥ śrī-caraṇāravindam.
By the way: On the “Happening” album, produced in 1966 – the original vinyl recording of Śrīla Prabhupāda leading kīrtana – on one side Śrīla Prabhupāda chants the Gurv-aṣṭakam prayers in the morning tune. On this recording,3 for the fifth and sixth verses – beginning śrī-rādhikā-mādhavayor apāra and nikuñja-yūno rati-keli-siddhyai – Śrīla Prabhupāda extends the last note for the first line. So in the fifth verse we hear śrī-rādhikā-mādhavayor apāra-aa-aa.
Curiously, some kīrtana leaders have made it a tradition to extend these very same notes. This is not objectionable, but we might ask why we should do it. Śrīla Prabhupāda’s singing expressed the devotional feelings he had at those moments. Merely extending those same notes is unlikely to produce the same ecstasy. And in our call-and-response pattern of kīrtana, I’ve often heard extension of a note create confusion among the responders, who seem divided about whether they too should hold the note or just sing it normally. And so the timing goes out of whack, and the kīrtana becomes jumbled.
Also, a few notes on pronunciation:
In the fourth verse we should have catur-vidha-śrī-bhagavat-prasāda” and in the last verse yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādo.” (Memory device: “a” comes before “o.”)
Also in the fourth verse: We should have svādv-anna-tṛptān (matching sanghān) but kṛtvaiva tṛptiṁ.
In the last verse: In the second line be sure to start with yasyāprasādād, not yasya prasādād as in the first line. Otherwise you’ll be saying, in effect, “By his mercy one can make no spiritual advancement.”
Guru-pūjā
The song śrī-guru-carana padma may be sung for any bona fide Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava spiritual master. But the ISKCON ceremony we call guru-pūjā is actually not guru-pūjā, or worship of whoever your guru may be. Rather, it’s Prabhupāda-pūjā. This is the time when our whole temple community comes together to honor and worship our Founder-Ācārya, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. Whoever our gurus may be, we all gather around Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mūrti or picture, and we direct our worship exclusively toward him. At this time, unlimited enthusiastic chanting of “Jaya Prabhupāda! Jaya Prabhupāda!” is entirely appropriate.
Notes:
1 We can here leave aside a certain sect from Bengaluru which cherishes the notion that Śrīla Prabhupāda will directly initiate disciples for the next ten thousand years.
2 Class on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 9.10.14, Los Angeles.
3 CD 02-6.
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