(Originally delivered as five morning lectures on the Caitanya-caritāmṛta—the authoritative biography of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī—before the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, New York City, April 10–14, 1967.)
Five (CC Adi-lila)
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta
CC Preface and Introduction
In the pastimes of Lord Caitanya, Kṛṣṇa is manifested in five different features, known as the pañca-tattva, to whom Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja offers his obeisances in the fourteenth verse of the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Kṛṣṇa and His associates appear as devotees of the Supreme Lord in the form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu, Śrī Advaitācārya, Śrī Gadādhara Prabhu and Śrīvāsa Prabhu.
CC Adi-lila
Gauḍīya indicates the part of India between the southern side of the Himalayan Mountains and the northern part of the Vindhyā Hills, which is called Āryāvarta, or the Land of the Āryans. This portion of India is divided into five parts or provinces (Pañca-gauḍadeśa): Sārasvata (Kashmir and Punjab), Kānyakubja (Uttar Pradesh, including the modern city of Lucknow), Madhya-gauḍa (Madhya Pradesh), Maithila (Bihar and part of Bengal) and Utkala (part of Bengal and the whole of Orissa). Bengal is sometimes called Gauḍadeśa, partly because it forms a portion of Maithila and partly because the capital of the Hindu king Rāja Lakṣmaṇa Sena was known as Gauḍa. This old capital later came to be known as Gauḍapura and gradually Māyāpur.
The devotees of Orissa are called Uḍiyās, the devotees of Bengal are called Gauḍīyas, and the devotees of southern India are known as Drāviḍa devotees. As there are five provinces in Āryāvarta, so Dākṣiṇātya, southern India, is also divided into five provinces, which are called Pañca-draviḍa. The four Vaiṣṇava ācāryas who are the great authorities of the four Vaiṣṇava disciplic successions, as well as Śrīpāda Śaṅkarācārya of the Māyāvāda school, appeared in the Pañca-draviḍa provinces.
In these six verses I have described the truth about Lord Caitanya, whereas in the next five I have described the glory of Lord Nityānanda.
In the spiritual world there are five kinds of relationships with the Supreme Lord—śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya and mādhurya. The perverted reflections of these rasas are found in the material world. Land, home, furniture and other inert material objects are related in śānta, or the neutral and silent sense, whereas servants work in the dāsya relationship. The reciprocation between friends is called sakhya, the affection of a parent for a child is known as vātsalya, and the affairs of conjugal love constitute mādhurya. These five relationships in the material world are distorted reflections of the original, pure sentiments, which should be understood and perfected in relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master. In the material world the perverted rasas bring frustration. If these rasas are reestablished with Lord Kṛṣṇa, the result is eternal, blissful life.
Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Nityānanda Prabhu drive away the five kinds of ignorance of the conditioned souls. In the Mahābhārata, Udyoga-parva, Forty-third Chapter, these five kinds of ignorance are described. They are (1) accepting the body to be the self, (2) making material sense gratification one's standard of enjoyment, (3) being anxious due to material identification, (4) lamenting and (5) thinking that there is anything beyond the Absolute Truth. The teachings of Lord Caitanya eradicate these five kinds of ignorance. Whatever one sees or otherwise experiences one should know to be simply an exhibition of the Supreme Personality of Godhead's energy. Everything is a manifestation of Kṛṣṇa.
The serving spirit of the residents of the transcendental world is displayed in five varieties of relationships with the Supreme Lord, who is the central enjoyer. In the material world everyone is a self-centered enjoyer of mundane happiness and distress. One considers himself the lord of everything and tries to enjoy the illusory energy, but he is not successful because he is not independent: he is but a minute particle of the energy of Lord Saṅkarṣaṇa. All living beings exist under the control of the Supreme Lord, who is therefore called Nārāyaṇa.
The Lord is the reservoir of all cosmic manifestation, animate and inanimate. The advocates of Viśiṣṭādvaita-vāda philosophy explain the Vedānta-sūtra by saying that although the living entity has two kinds of bodies—subtle (consisting of mind, intelligence and false ego) and gross (consisting of the five basic elements)—and although he thus lives in three bodily dimensions (gross, subtle and spiritual), he is nevertheless a spiritual soul.
The Brahma-saṁhitā, Chapter Five, verse 46, states that the viṣṇu-tattva, or the principle of the Absolute Personality of Godhead, is like a lamp because the expansions equal their origin in all respects.
(1) Sarga: the first creation by Viṣṇu, the bringing forth of the five gross material elements, the five objects of sense perception, the ten senses, the mind, the intelligence, the false ego and the total material energy, or universal form.
Imperfect life is realized in material existence, in five different relationships we share with everyone within the material world: neutrality, servitorship, friendship, filial love and amorous love between husband and wife or lover and beloved. These five enjoyable relationships within the material world are perverted reflections of relationships with the Absolute Personality of Godhead in the transcendental nature. That Absolute Personality, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, descends to revive the five eternally existing relationships.
Special natural appreciation of the descriptions of a particular pastime of Godhead indicates the constitutional position of a living entity. Adoration, servitorship, friendship, parental affection and conjugal love are the five primary relationships with Kṛṣṇa. The highest perfectional stage of the conjugal relationship, enriched by many sentiments, gives the maximum relishable mellow to the devotee.
Rādhā-bhāva must be understood from the Gosvāmīs, those who are actually controllers of the senses. From such authorized sources it is to be known that the attitude of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī is the highest perfection of conjugal love, which is the highest of the five transcendental mellows, and it is the complete perfection of love of Kṛṣṇa.
Furthermore, pure devotees never forsake the loving service of Lord Kṛṣṇa to aspire for their own personal pleasure through the five kinds of liberation.
It is said that the gopīs are divided into five groups, namely the sakhīs, nitya-sakhīs, prāṇa-sakhīs, priya-sakhīs and parama-preṣṭha-sakhīs. All these fair-complexioned associates of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, the Queen of Vṛndāvana-dhāma, are expert artists in evoking erotic sentiments in Kṛṣṇa.
I have described the glory of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya in six verses. Now, in five verses I shall describe the glory of Lord Nityānanda.
Lord Balarāma is the original Saṅkarṣaṇa. He assumes five other forms to serve Lord Kṛṣṇa.
According to expert opinion, Balarāma, as the chief of the original quadruple forms, is also the original Saṅkarṣaṇa. Balarāma, the first expansion of Kṛṣṇa, expands Himself in five forms: (1) Mahā-saṅkarṣaṇa, (2) Kāraṇābdhiśāyī, (3) Garbhodakaśāyī, (4) Kṣīrodakaśāyī, and (5) Śeṣa. These five plenary portions are responsible for both the spiritual and material cosmic manifestations. In these five forms Lord Balarāma assists Lord Kṛṣṇa in His activities.
According to Sāṅkhya philosophy, the material cosmos is composed of twenty-four elements: the five gross material elements, the three subtle material elements, the five knowledge-acquiring senses, the five active senses, the five objects of sense pleasure, and the mahat-tattva (the total material energy). Empiric philosophers, unable to go beyond these elements, speculate that anything beyond them must be avyakta, or inexplicable.
No material planet, even Satyaloka, is comparable in quality to the spiritual planets, where the five inherent qualities of the material world—namely ignorance, misery, egoism, anger and envy—are completely absent.
The conditioned vital force, the subtle material ingredients called the dravya, and material nature (which is the field of activity where the false ego acts as the soul), as well as the eleven senses and five elements (earth, water, fire, air and ether), which are the sixteen ingredients of the body—these are the ingredient aspect of māyā.
Impersonalists are against the worship of the Lord's form in the temple, and there is even a group of people who pass as Hindus but condemn such worship. Their so-called acceptance of the Vedas has no meaning, for all the ācāryas, even the impersonalist Śaṅkarācārya, have recommended the worship of the transcendental form of the Lord. Impersonalists like Śaṅkarācārya recommend the worship of five forms, known as pañcopāsanā, which include Lord Viṣṇu.
In five verses I have described the principle of Lord Nityānanda. Then in the following two verses I describe the glories of Śrī Advaita Ācārya.
The ego produces the five objects of sense perception, which produce the ten senses (five for acquiring knowledge and five for working), the mind and the five gross elements. Counting the puruṣa, or the enjoyer, with these twenty-four elements, there are twenty-five different truths. The nonmanifested stage of these twenty-five elementary truths is called prakṛti, or material nature.
The Sāṅkhya philosophy regards the total energy (mahat-tattva), the false ego and the five objects of sense perception as the seven diverse manifestations of material nature, which has two features, known as the material cause and efficient cause. The puruṣa, the enjoyer, is without transformation, whereas material nature is always subject to transformation.
There are eleven expansions of Rudra, or Lord Śiva. They are as follows: Ajaikapāt, Ahibradhna, Virūpākṣa, Raivata, Hara, Bahurūpa, Devaśreṣṭha Tryambaka, Sāvitra, Jayanta, Pināki and Aparājita. Besides these expansions there are eight forms of Rudra called earth, water, fire, air, sky, the sun, the moon and soma-yājī. Generally all these Rudras have five faces, three eyes and ten arms. Sometimes it is found that Rudra is compared to Brahmā and considered a living entity. But when Rudra is explained to be a partial expansion of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he is compared to Śeṣa.
Thus in two verses I have described the truth concerning Advaita Ācārya. Now, O devotees, please hear about the five truths (pañca-tattva).
In the First Chapter of the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi-līlā, the author, Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī, has described the initiator spiritual master and the instructor spiritual master in the verse beginning with the words vande gurūn īśa-bhaktān īśam īśāvatārakān (CC Adi 1.1). In that verse there are six transcendental subject matters, of which the truth regarding the spiritual master has already been described. Now the author will describe the other five tattvas (truths), namely, īśa-tattva (the Supreme Lord), His expansion tattva, His incarnation tattva, His energy tattva and His devotee tattva.
These five tattvas incarnate with Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and thus the Lord executes His saṅkīrtana movement with great pleasure.
Spiritually there are no differences between these five tattvas, for on the transcendental platform everything is absolute. Yet there are also varieties in the spiritual world, and in order to taste these spiritual varieties one should distinguish between them.
In his Anubhāṣya commentary Śrī Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura describes the Pañca-tattva as follows: The supreme energetic, the Personality of Godhead, manifesting in order to enjoy five kinds of pastimes, appears as the members of the Pañca-tattva. Actually there is no difference between them because they are situated on the absolute platform, but they manifest different spiritual varieties as a challenge to the impersonalists to taste different kinds of spiritual humors (rasas).
Page Title: | Five (CC Adi-lila) |
Compiler: | Visnu Murti |
Created: | 11 of Sep, 2010 |
Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=77, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=0, Let=0 |
No. of Quotes: | 77 |