Vrindavan, 2015.11.22 (VT): I have been regularly attending Abhishek Goswami’s Vrindavan Prakash Mahotsav and enjoying the different presentations of Krishna bhakti.
As a person of Western origin, I have been thinking intensely about the idea of “Krishna West” for some time now, which means attempting to understand the process of religious conversion and what makes possible the transplanting or importing of a cultural or religious tradition from one civilization or society to another.
ISKCON’s Hridayananda Maharaj, with whom the Krishna West idea is associated, correctly states that every major world religion has succeeded in spreading by being able to adapt to the time and place. There may be many strategies about how that is to be done, and this is the detail in which the devil resides.
Those who are purists or traditionalists wish to keep the pristine original ritual and social forms of the religion at whatever cost, without recognizing the sheer impossibility of such exact replication. Innovators who think they can improvise without having reached a very deep level of spiritual realization are bulls in a china shop.
Observing the sankirtan or bhajan performers who have come from different parts of India to the Mahotsava, one can see how the basic concepts of Vaishnavism take on regional cultural forms, especially the use of the vernacular languages, gives each of them its own unique flavor.
Perhaps no other group is greater proof of this than the Manipuri dancers and singers, whose presentation of Gauranga and Radha-Krishna lila is unique and yet as evocative of rasa as anything in the Bengali tradition from which it took birth.
I have never been to Manipur, but these singers give me a feeling for a much more sophisticated civilization than I would have expected from that somewhat remote and landlocked country, which is often associated with “aboriginal” levels of culture.
Of course we cannot understand what the Manipuris are saying, as they do not translate, but the frequent mentions of Gauranga’s name, or those of Radha and Krishna — along with their graceful movements and tone of voice — reveal a geat deal of their subject.
The Manipuri women have a delicacy of manner, expression and movement — at least on stage — that are far more subtle, graceful and refined than that of most Western people. It makes me wonder about what the state of their civilization was prior to the coming of the followers of Narottam Das Thakur, who initiated the king Bhagyachandra in the second half of the 18th century. Apparently other versions of Vaishnavism were already implanted in Manipur prior to his conversion to the madhura bhakti rasa.
The Rasa Lila as presented on Sunday is based on the original Manipuri rasa lila, which was conceived and composed by Bhagyachandra himself and first performed in 1779 on Karttik Purnima.
It seems to me that any indigenous culture will actually be closer in spirit to the religion of Chaitanya Vaishnavism, in which song and dance and the celebration of Radha and Krishna’s love as well as becoming absorbed in the devotional mood of Gauranga himself are the simple pathway prescribed for the development of faith, but faith is the one ingredient that modern society seems to have succeeded in neutralizing.
Manipuri culture has had about 250 years to assimilate Chaitanya Vaishnavism. The Western world has only had 50, but I think that we still have a long way to go in adapting to the rasa, what to speak of effectively expressing it artistically.
It is time for English language poetry, song and dance to reveal the rasa of the lilas of Gauranga and Braja. All the philosophy and appeals to authority in the world are no substitute for touching hearts with bhakti rasa.
Translation from one culture to another lies in understanding its essence or rasa. The Gaudiya Vaishnava rasa is extremely simple and yet complex. The genius who has not only been able to experience that rasa through sadhana and then is talented enough in the arts to be able to drench the minds of Westerners with madhura bhakti rasa, when they are so caught up in the intricacies of dry knowledge and the glittering distractions of modernity and sense gratification, has yet to appear. It is first necessary to recognize that this is the task.
The Mahotsava was conceived to show how the 500 years of Mahaprabhu has resulted in the spreading of sankirtan and the idea of Braj into various different cultural worlds. But by revealing to the residents of Braj themselves what Braj has become in the eyes of others around the world, it may show us the way forward for Vrindavan in this new age of globalization.
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