20221208 Svarūpa Dāmodara Points Out the Offense of the Poet and Provides Him the Remedy, Part 1

The following is a Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Book Compilation given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on December 08th,2022 in Śrī Dhāma Māyāpur, India.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ śrī caitanya iśvaram

Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

Hare Kṛṣṇa! Dear Devotees! Hare Kṛṣṇa! Hare Kṛṣṇa! Dear Devotees! Today we will continue with the compilation of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Book, Today's chapter is entitled as:

Svarūpa Dāmodara Points Out the Offense of the Poet and Provides Him the Remedy, Part 1
Under the section: How Pradyumna Miśra Received Instructions from Rāmānanda Rāya

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, 5.112

nāndīślokaḥ—
baṅgadeśīya viprakṛta śloka—

Translation: “The Supreme Personality of Godhead has assumed a golden complexion and has become the soul of the body named Lord Jagannātha, whose blooming lotus eyes are widely expanded. Thus He has appeared in Jagannātha Purī and brought dull matter to life. May that Lord, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya deva, bestow all good fortune upon you.”

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, 5.113

svarūpa-vyatīta sakalera praśaṁsāḥ—

śloka śuni’ sarva-loka tāhāre vākhāne
svarūpa kahe,—‘ei śloka karaha vyākhyāne’

Translation: When everyone present heard the verse, they all commended the poet, but Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī requested him, “Kindly explain this verse.”

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, 5.114

mūrkha-kavira śuddha-bhakti-siddhānta-viruddha māyāvāda-doṣaḥ—

kavi kahe,—‘jagannātha—sundara-śarīra
caitanya-gosāñi—śarīrī mahā-dhīra

Translation: The poet said, “Lord Jagannātha is a most beautiful body, and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who is exceptionally grave, is the owner of that body.

Purport: Śarīrī refers to a person who owns the śarīra, or body. As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā (2.13):

dehino ’smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati

“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.”

For the ordinary living being in material existence there is a division or distinction between the body and the owner of the body. In spiritual existence, however, there is no such distinction, for the body is the owner himself and the owner is the body itself. In spiritual existence, everything must be spiritual. Therefore there is no distinction between the body and its owner.

Jayapatākā Swami: The poet by making the distinction between Lord Jagannātha’s body and Lord Caitanya, he was committing aparādha. He was comparing Lord Jagannātha with an ordinary living entity.

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, 5.115

sahaje jaḍa-jagatera cetana karāite
nīlācale mahāprabhu hailā āvirbhūte

Translation: “Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu has appeared here in Nīlācala [Jagannātha Purī] to spiritualize the entire dull material world.”

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, 5.116

sakalera harṣa haileo jagad-guru vaiṣṇavācārya śrī-svarūpera krodha o śāstra-siddhānta-asidvārā kumata-chedana-rūpa dayāḥ—

śuniyā sabāra haila ānandita-mana
duḥkha pāñā svarūpa kahe sakrodha vacana

Translation: Hearing this, everyone present was greatly happy. But Svarūpa Dāmodara, who alone was very unhappy, began to speak in great anger.

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, 5.117

krodhera kāraṇa-nirddeśa—
(1) viṣṇute jīvabuddhi—nirayajanakaḥ—

“āre mūrkha, āpanāra kaili sarva-nāśa!
dui ta’ īśvare tora nāhika viśvāsa

Translation: “You are a fool,” he said. “You have brought ill fortune upon yourself, for you have no knowledge of the existence of the two Lords, Jagannātha deva and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, nor have you faith in Them.

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, 5.118

pūrṇānanda-cit-svarūpa jagannātha-rāya
tāṅre kaili jaḍa-naśvara-prākṛta-kāya!!

Translation: “Lord Jagannātha is completely spiritual and full of transcendental bliss, but you have compared Him to a dull, destructible body composed of the inert, external energy of the Lord.

Purport: If one thinks that the form of Lord Jagannātha is an idol made of wood, he immediately brings ill fortune into his life. According to the direction of the Padma Purāṇa, arcye viṣṇau śilā-dhīḥ... yasya vā nārakī saḥ: “Anyone who considers the Deity in the temple to be made of stone or wood is a resident of hell.” Thus one who thinks that the body of Lord Jagannātha is made of matter and who distinguishes between Lord Jagannātha’s body and His soul is condemned, for he is an offender. A pure devotee who knows the science of Kṛṣṇa consciousness makes no distinction between Lord Jagannātha and His body. He knows that they are identical, just as Lord Kṛṣṇa and His soul are one and the same. When one’s eyes are purified by devotional service performed on the spiritual platform, one can actually envision Lord Jagannātha and His body as being completely spiritual. The advanced devotee, therefore, does not see the worshipable Deity as having a soul within a body like an ordinary human being. There is no distinction between the body and the soul of Lord Jagannātha, for Lord Jagannātha is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha, just as the body of Kṛṣṇa is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha. There is actually no difference between Lord Jagannātha and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, but the ignorant poet from Bengal applied a material distinction to the body of Lord Śrī Jagannātha.

Jayapatākā Swami: So, Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī is showing there is no distinction between the body of Lord Jagannatha and Lord Caitanya. He is saying we should not see the difference in the body of Lord Jagannātha and Lord Caitanya because they are completely spiritual. Therefore Lord Caitanya had asked for Svarūpa Dāmodara to check the poet's poetry first.

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, 5.119

pūrṇa-ṣaḍ-aiśvarya caitanya—svayaṁ bhagavān
tāṅre kaili kṣudra jīva sphuliṅga-samāna!!

Translation: “You have calculated Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, full in six opulences, to be on the level of an ordinary living being. Instead of knowing Him as the supreme fire, you have accepted Him as a spark.”

Purport: In the Upaniṣads it is said, yathāgner visphuliṅgā vyuccaranti: the living entities are like sparks of fire, and His Lordship the Supreme Personality of Godhead is considered the original great fire. When we hear this śruti-vākya, or message from the Vedas, we should understand the distinction between the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa and the living entities. A person under the control of the external energy, however, cannot understand that distinction. Such a person cannot understand that the Supreme Person is the original great fire, whereas the living entities are simply small fragmental parts of that Supreme Personality of Godhead.

As Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā (15.7):

mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ
manaḥ-ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛti-sthāni karṣati

“The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.”

There is a distinction between the body and the soul of the materially existing living being, but because Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Lord Jagannātha do not possess material bodies, there is no distinction between Their bodies and souls. On the spiritual platform, body and soul are identical; there is no distinction between them.

As stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.11.38):

“This is the divinity of the Personality of Godhead. He is not affected by the qualities of material nature, even though He is in contact with them. Similarly, the devotees who have taken shelter of the Lord cannot be influenced by the material qualities.”

His Lordship the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, is unaffected by the influence of the three modes of material nature. Indeed, His devotees are also unpolluted by the influence of the external energy because they engage in the service of His Lordship. Even the very body of a devotee becomes spiritualized, just as an iron rod put into fire becomes as qualified as fire because it becomes red hot and will immediately burn anything it touches. Therefore the poet from Bengal Therefore the poet from Bengal committed a great offense by treating Lord Jagannātha’s body and Lord Jagannātha, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as two different entities, material and spiritual, as if the Lord were an ordinary living being. The Lord is always the master of the material energy; therefore He is not doomed to be covered by the material energy like an ordinary living entity.

Jayapatākā Swami: So, the conditioned soul is a small spiritual living spark and it has a material body made of five gross elements and another subtle body has three subtle elements. But the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He is totally sac-cid-ānanda He does not have any material body. The Māyāvādī impersonalists say that Kṛṣṇa has taken a body in the mode of goodness, so they are committing this offense. So Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī is accusing the poet from Bengal of committing an offence.

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, 5.120

akṣajajñānī tarkapanthī bhaktisiddhāntānabhijñera kṛṣṇa-varṇana-ceṣṭā— duḥsāhasikatā

dui-ṭhāñi aparādhe pāibi durgati!
a-tattvajña ’tattva’ varṇe, tāra ei rīti!

Translation: Svarūpa Dāmodara continued, “Because you have committed an offense to Lord Jagannātha and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, you will attain a hellish destination. You do not know how to describe the Absolute Truth, but nevertheless you have tried to do so. Therefore you must be condemned.

Purport: The brāhmaṇa poet from Bengal was an offender in the estimation of Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī, for although the poet had no knowledge of the Absolute Truth, he had nevertheless tried to describe it. The Bengali poet was an offender to both Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Lord Jagannātha. Because he had made a distinction between Lord Jagannātha’s body and His soul and because he had indicated that Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was different from Lord Jagannātha, he had committed offenses to Them both. A-tattva-jña refers to one who has no knowledge of the Absolute Truth or who worships his own body as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If an ahaṅgrahopāsaka-māyāvādī, a person engaged in fruitive activities or a person interested only in sense gratification describes the Absolute Truth, he immediately becomes an offender.

Jayapatākā Swami: So, to describe the Absolute Truth one needs to be a tattvajña, a person who knows the Absolute Truth. If he doesn’t know then he is bound to commit offense, if he tried to describe the Absolute Truth. He thinks that the Absoulte Truth is like a conditioned soul.

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, 5.121

(2) īśvarera dehadehi-bheda-nirddeśarūpa aparādhai pramādaḥ—

āra eka kariyācha parama ‘pramāda’!
deha-dehi-bheda īśvare kaile ‘aparādha’!

Translation: “You are in complete illusion, for you have distinguished between the body and the soul of His Lordship [Lord Jagannātha or Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu]. That is a great offense.

Purport: When one differentiates between the body and the soul of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he immediately becomes an offender. Because the living entities in the material world are generally covered by material bodies, the body and the soul of an ordinary human being cannot be identical. The Supreme Lord bestows the fruits of one’s activities, for He is the Lord of the results of fruitive action. He is also the cause of all causes, and He is the master of the material energy. Therefore He is supreme. An ordinary living being, however, in his material condition, experiences the results of his own fruitive activities and therefore falls under their influence. Even in the liberated stage of brahma-bhūta identification, he engages in rendering service to His Lordship. Thus there are distinctions between an ordinary human being and the Supreme Lord. Karmīs and jñānīs who ignore these distinctions are offenders against the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

An ordinary human being is prone to be subjugated by the material energy, whereas His Lordship the Supreme Personality of Godhead — Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Lord Kṛṣṇa or Lord Jagannātha — is always the master of the material energy and is therefore never subject to its influence. His Lordship the Supreme Personality of Godhead has an unlimited spiritual identity, never to be broken, whereas the consciousness of the living entity is limited and fragmented. The living entities are fragmental portions of the Supreme Personality of Godhead eternally (mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ). It is not that they are covered by the material energy in conditioned life but become one with the Supreme Personality of Godhead when freed from the influence of material energy. Such an idea is offensive.

According to the considerations of Māyāvādī fools, the Supreme Personality of Godhead accepts a material body when He appears in the material world. A Vaiṣṇava, however, knows perfectly well that for Kṛṣṇa, Lord Jagannātha or Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu — unlike for ordinary human beings — there is no distinction between the body and the soul. Even in the material world His Lordship retains His spiritual identity; therefore Lord Kṛṣṇa exhibited all opulences even in His childhood body. There is no distinction between the body and the soul of Kṛṣṇa; whether He is in His childhood body or His youthful body, He is always identical with His body. Even though Kṛṣṇa appears like an ordinary human being, He is never subjected to the rules and regulations of the material world. He is svarāṭ, or fully independent. He can appear in the material world, but contrary to the offensive conclusion of the Māyāvāda school, He has no material body. In this connection one may again refer to the above-mentioned verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.11.38):

The Supreme Person has an eternal spiritual body. If one tries to distinguish between the body and the soul of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he commits a great offense.

Jayapatākā Swami: In the Brahmā Saṁhitā it is said that Kṛṣṇa form is sac-cid-ānanda. In the Ṛg Veda it also says Kṛṣṇa has the qualities of sac-cid-ānanda, He is always spiritual, He never becomes God, He is always God.

Thus ends the chapter entitled, Svarūpa Dāmodara Points Out the Offense of the Poet and Provides Him the Remedy, Part 1
Under the section: How Pradyumna Miśra Received Instructions from Rāmānanda Rāya