Representing Vaishnava Kirtan

Vaishnava Kirtan or congregational chanting and singing of devotional melodies that exalt and honor the Supreme Lord, particularly Lord Krishna and Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, is a happy and spiritually uplifting Vaishnava traditional activity. Devotees gather to chant the Holy Names and experience the ecstasy of divine love throughout this practice, which is a lively and soul-stirring manifestation of devotion.

Little has so far been written on the "Prataparudradeva, the last great suryavamsi king of Orissa". For the first time in this work attempt has been made to throw new light on this field and thereby filling up a very major gap in the study of Orissan History. Salient Features (i) This illuminating volume leads to fascinating revelations about the life and activities of the great king Prataparudradeva. (ii) It constitutes a unique asset in understanding how Prataparudradeva who more or less through out his life had a fight and fight against adversaries from the North from the South and from the West with both Hindu and Muslim powers and proved himself as a great emperor of Orissa. Not only did he show his persistence to fight out the enemy but also in diplomatic skill he was found well conversant. (iii) In the field of religion his contribution was on less. He was a respector of all the religions and was tolerant to all religious sect. The most remarkable event in the field of religion during his rule was steady growth of Oriya Vaishnavism as well as Goudiya Vaishnavism under his patronage. (iv) Economic life of Orissa received new turn during his rule. He allowed the Portuguese trades to establish a settlement at Pipli in Balasore District (Orissa). The industries of Orissa got a boost because of the Portuguese demand. (v) He himself was a poet and great patronised of literature. His court was adorned with galaxy of very important poets. In his region the contributions of Panchasakha to the Oriya Literature paved the way for further prosperity in later period. The Panchasakha’s also initiated a reformist movement which sought to remove social barriers and minimized the existing social problem of inequality between man and man. (vi) He was strong and efficient administrator. The key note of his administrative system was to bring peace and prosperity of the people. (vii) If people suffered from the baneful effect of natural calamities life famine and draught he war alert to do his best for welfare of the suffering mass. Hope this book from a variety of stand points will be popular for the scholars, students and the public.

What role do pre-modern religious traditions play in the formation of modern secular identities? In Unforgetting Chaitanya, Varuni Bhatia examines late-nineteenth-century transformations of Bengali Vaishnavism-a vibrant and multifaceted religious tradition that traces its origins to the fifteenth century Krishna devotee Chaitanya (1486-1533). Drawing on an extensive body of hitherto unexamined archival material, Bhatia finds that both religious modernizers and secular voices among the Bengali middle-class invoked Chaitanya, portraying him simultaneously as a local hero, a Hindu reformer, and as God almighty. She argues that these claims should be understood in relation to the recovery of a "pure" Bengali culture and history in a period of nascent, but rising, anti-colonialism in the region. Who is a true Vaishnava? In the late nineteenth century, this question assumed urgency as debates around questions of authenticity appeared prominently in the Bengali public sphere. These debates went on for years, even decades, causing unbridgeable rifts in personal friendships and tarnishing reputations of established scholars. Underlying these debates was the question of authoritative Bengali Vaishnavism and its role in the long-term constitution of Bengali culture and society. At stake, argues Bhatia, was the very nature and composition of an indigenously-derived modernity inscribed through the politics of authenticity, which allowed an influential section of Hindu, upper-caste Bengalis to excavate their own explicitly Hindu pasts in order to find a people's history, a religious reformer, a casteless Hindu sect, the richest examples of Bengali literature, and a sophisticated expression of monotheistic religion.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Becoming Vaishnava in an Ideal Vedic City centers on a growing multinational community of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) devotees in Mayapur, West Bengal. While ISKCON’s history is often presented in terms of an Indian guru ‘transplanting’ Indian spirituality to the West, this book focusses on the efforts to bring ISKCON back to India. Paying particular attention to devotees’ failure to consistently live up to ISKCON’s ideals and the ongoing struggle to realize the utopian vision of an ‘ideal Vedic city’, this book argues that the anthropology of ethics must account for how moral systems accommodate the problem of moral failure.

Includes examples of Jarigan and related songs in original Bengali, with transliterations, English translations, and musical notations.