English
Topic: The importance of writing and distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books
Speaker : Vedanta Caitanya Prabhu
Hare Krishna
om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya.
nama om vishnu-padaya krishna-preshthaya bhu-tale
srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine
namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracharine
nirvishesha-shunyavadi-pashchatya-desha tarine
sri-krsna-caitanya prabhu-nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrnda
hare krsna hare krsna, krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama, rama rama hare hare
Hare Krishna. Welcome to all the Vaisnavas present here. First of all we pay our humble obeisances unto the lotus feet of our spiritual master. Also our humble obeisances unto the lotus feet of all the Vaisnavas. Hare Krishna.
Today I would like to discuss Sankirtana and how to spread the message of the holy name.
I will speak on where, why and how book distribution started. The foundation for book distribution that we are performing in ISKCON now, actually started around five hundred years ago. The main disciples of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the six Goswamis were given four main instructions by the Lord and one of those was book distribution.
They personally studied the scriptures, taking the main essence of those scriptures and compiling the bhakti sastras. They also installed deities and arranged for Their worship by building temples for this purpose. They uncovered many pastime places of Sri Krishna in Vrindavan.
That is why our six Goswamis spent most of their time in compiling many books. If we look at the scriptures in our Gaudiya Vaisnava lineage we will see that our acaryas have contributed around five hundred books. They have written so many that we don’t even know all the names. Caitanya Mahaprabhu put most emphasis on writing of the books and that is the core reason why the Goswamis spent most of their time writing.
It took them so much time to write these books that they would not always get time to sleep at night. Sometimes if they did sleep, then in two or three days they may have slept for an hour or so. In this way they spent most of their time in writing scriptures. The books they wrote formed a foundation for all of humankind to come.
These very books are the means for humankind to pave their way in devotional service for many thousands of years to come. Caitanya Mahaprabhu always had this very vision in mind from the very beginning and that is why Caitanya Mahaprabhu had the Goswamis write these books. One of the Goswamis who was the youngest of them all, who was also the last one to join, was Srila Jiva Goswami. When the rest of the five Goswamis had left this mortal plane, Srila Jiva Goswami was the only one left and he became the leader of the whole Gaudiya Vaisnava Sampradaya. He was expanding this movement.
Srinivas Acarya who is known as one of our main acaryas after the six Goswamis, Narottama Dasa Thakura and Syamananda Pandit were three disciples of different spiritual masters. The spiritual masters of all three of these great personalities sent them individually to Srila Jiva Goswami to learn the Gaudiya Vaisnava literature and then preach.
In Vrindavan dhama under the guidance of Srila Jiva Goswami, these three acaryas studied many books in accordance with our Gaudiya Vaisnava lineage. After studying these books, Jiva Goswami gave them orders by telling them, ‘You have studied and understood these scriptures and therefore now distribute this wealth of knowledge that Rupa Goswami, Sanatana Goswami and Raghunath das Goswami have left with us.’ This wealth is the Gaudiya Vaisnava literature.
Jiva Goswami sent the three acaryas to go together and distribute this wealth. This was the first travelling sankirtana book distribution party. Srinivas Acarya, Syamananda Pandit and Narottama Dasa Thakura were in this party. There were no busses at that time, so the three of them loaded all the books onto a bullock cart. They left from Vrindavan to preach the contents of these holy literatures.
Just imagine what it meant to distribute a book in those days. To give somebody a book meant that whether that book had 700 slokas or 8000 slokas, all the slokas would have be hand written. First of all, one had to hand write the whole book and then distribute the other copy. It is not as easy as taking a book from the temple gift shop for 200 rupees and distributing it.
Now it is a different thing whereby hundreds and thousands of books are printed. But in those days they would have to be copied by hand and then given away. The whole affair of distributing books was a costly affair. The ink was expensive and paper was needed. Money needed to be invested. This was very important, because these books were later to become the foundation for the whole human civilisation for thousands and thousands of years to come.
In this way our three acaryas started this book distribution movement which is the foundation of our movement. Then Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura and Baladeva Vidyabhushana wrote commentaries on many scriptures. Commentary on Bhagavad-gita was written by Baladeva Vidyabhushana and Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura.
Based on these two commentaries, Srila Prabhupada wrote his Bhagavad-gita purports, mainly taking the commentary of Srila Baladeva Vidyabhushana. Srila Prabhupada appreciated this commentary. His inclination was more towards this commentary because Baladeva Vidyabhushana would focus more on the philosophy whereas Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura would speak on rasa or the mellows of devotional service.
When you listen to Srila Prabhupada’s lectures, he places more emphasis on the absolute truth and devotional service, just like Srila Baladeva Vidyabhushana. Both these acaryas have written many books. After this Bhaktivinoda Thakur has written books is a very wonderful and great manner.
Please bear in mind that Bhaktivinoda Thakur was a householder with ten children and a big responsibility in his profession as a magistrate. Despite all these responsibilities, Bhaktivinoda Thakur has written over one hundred books. Just think how difficult it is to write even one page. One has to put so much intelligence into writing. Even one page and one has to think so much about what to write. In this way Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura wrote over one hundred books and wrote thousands of Vaisnava bhajans. Today we know just a few of his bhajans that we may sing. How many fit in the Vaisnava song book? But he wrote thousands of Vaisnava bhajans and he would take long leave from his work at times for one or two months. During that break period he would further the preaching mission of Gaudiya Vaisnavism. Prabhupada said that in terms of preaching, Bhaktivinoda Thakur would go out with the sankirtana party and distribute pamphlets that he had printed beforehand. These pamphlets would contain the truth of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and also information of Sankirtana which Bhaktivinoda Thakur had written.
Bhaktivinoda Thakur was also writing a magazine at that time which he called “The Harmonist” which Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja took over along with two or three other magazines that Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja was writing at the same time. Bhaktivinoda Thakur also wrote books and would then send them to libraries. I heard that after many years, in the same year,1896, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur sent a book to a western country and someone read that book and many decades later this person joined ISKCON.
In this way Bhaktivinoda Thakur would put his books in public libraries and one of his main books is Sri Chaitanya: His Life and Precepts. This is a very important book of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur. This is the book he sent to an overseas library in 1896, which is significant because that was the year Srila Prabhupada was born.
In this way Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s message was going out of India for the first time and it is significant that this was happening in the same year as Srila Prabhupada’s birth. This cannot be a coincidence that Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s teachings went out of India. In this way we can see that Bhaktivinoda Thakur preached vigorously through pamphlets, magazines and writing books and sending them to various places.
After this, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja was there and he was involved in books from childhood. At the age of around four or five he had memorised all Bhagavad-gita slokas and at around six or seven years of age Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur would proofread all the books written by Bhaktivinoda Thakur. That is why we say that from childhood he was involved with spiritual books.
That is also why Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja would give much emphasis on book printing and reading those books in the future. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja would have three magazines going on at one time, Sajjana-toshani and two others. Once a person asked Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja, ‘You are doing this so often. Every fortnight you are publishing a magazine. What is the need for this?’ Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja answered, “Look, just in this one city every single day there are so many newspapers that are printed. Just in one day in one small city there are so many newspapers everyday. Just imagine how much you could print in relation to the eternal spiritual sky, which is unlimited. If I could get a chance I would print a magazine every second which I cannot do at present, because I do not have that kind of money. We have so much information on spiritual matters that we can print a magazine every second.”
Just see the desire of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja who would always give great importance to having a printing press. Upon getting that press, he named it the Brhat Mrdanga. This is because the sound of one mrdanga can reach inside one room, but brhat means very large. A large mrdanga does not only reach one city or country, but its sound can permeate throughout the whole world. If it is played over here, it will be heard all over the world, because these books can reach all the way to America or anywhere else through sound. That is why Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaja called his press Brhat Mrdanga. He loved printing and distributing books so much that he would keep the printing press right in front of the altar where the deities were. This was because the Lord would then be able to look at the printing press and the books would be printed in front of the deities. In this way Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja gave so much importance to printing books that even on Ekadasi he would tell his disciples, ‘Rather than sitting here doing bhajan, it would be better to go out and distribute books.’
He would give more importance to distribution of books. Once when there was a problem within the temple, he told our Srila Prabhupada at one point when they met ‘Now the Math is on fire, meaning there are misunderstandings with infighting going on. If I had the opportunity, then I could sell the marble of the temple building and print books.’
This is because Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaja gave more importance to books than the temples. This is the very thing that Srila Prabhupada also did. Once Gopal Krishna Goswami Maharaja wrote a letter to Srila Prabhupada saying that he needed some money to open a temple America. He was requesting a loan from BBT. Prabhupada asked his secretary what the state of the fund was and the secretary said that if they were to give the loan to Gopal Krishna Maharaja then their book printing project would have to be delayed. It would take two to three months to get more money for the printing once they gave it to the temple project.
Then Srila Prabhupada immediately said no to giving Gopal Krishna Maharaja for the loan from BBT. He told Maharaja that he could not have a loan at the moment. ‘First books, then temples. First print books and after that we shall see about opening temples.’ This means that we cannot delay book printing and distribution under any situation. This is the first priority, Prabhupada clearly said this. He would give a lot of emphasis to this principle and the first instruction that Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja had given Srila Prabhupada was to preach Krishna consciousness in the western countries in English.
Secondly Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja told Srila Prabhupada to print and distribute books. These were the two main instructions Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja gave Srila Prabhupada and who upon the basis of these two instructions, first of all founded ISKCON and secondly, the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. Now Srila Prabhupada could have brought both of these projects under one banner, but he separated them for a very instructive reason.
It could be that at any time, ISKCON may have to close for whatever reason, but the BBT should always keep running. BBT should not stop and the printing and distribution of books must always continue under any circumstance. If BBT continues despite ISKCON closing, in the future another person can re establish ISKCON again. This is what Prabhupada was thinking. One time Srila Prabhupada gave a statement, “If even one person has a set of my books, even if the whole of ISKCON closes, that person is enough to establish the whole of ISKCON again. Purely because he has a set of the books, he will be able to do this task. This is how important these books are.” Srila Prabhupada personally said this and then he went on to say, ‘Every gentleman should have a full set of my books.’
This is the desire of Srila Prabhupada and it is not possible for any other product to bring about a revolution in the way Srila Prabhupada’s books do. Similarly, quite some time ago there was no communism in Russia. It was on the verge of happening. At that time there was a lot of disturbance in Russia and many people speaking in support of communism were jailed.
You may have all heard of Marx who was a promoter of communism and he is also the founder of communism. He was put into jail with a lot restrictions on him, but his sister or maybe it was his wife, used to meet him in jail everyday. What Karl Marx did was to take black paper from her and write something on it and then give it back to her.
She would then take away that black paper and the police would see this paper. They thought it was just plain black paper, nothing important. Therefore they continued to let this lady come and meet him. What Karl Marx was doing was used that he was taking lemon juice, using it as ink to write on the black paper about communism.
When you use lemon juice to write on black paper, you can’t see that writing. But when you put that paper slightly close to a small burning fire, a little far a then those letters become visible. In this way Karl Marx was writing many magazines which were being distributed throughout the whole country.
People in power who were against communism were not able to understand where the general public were getting such strong feelings from. They were certainly being influenced, but it could not be understood how this was happening. There were no lectures or talks happening to promote communism and these magazines were being distributed privately.
These magazines, or you can say sheets were being distributed in such a great way that Karl Marx was able to defeat the government even whilst sitting inside a jail cell. The whole government failed on the basis of the magazines that were written in a prison cell. After the fall of the government, Russia became a communist country and Karl Marx was released. In this way, we can see that books can change a whole government and influence people in such a great way.
This is what Karl Marx did. We can learn from this that it is possible to start a revolution through book distribution and that is why Srila Prabhupada said, “These books are like time bombs. You all just plan where to put them.” Prabhupada had set these books up in different places like time bombs, because he knew about the revolution Karl Marx had bought about just through books.
Even today after ISKCON has become such a great body and so famous and successful, these books are still the basis and they are priceless for the further success of our movement. Our acaryas, Srila Prabhupada, the Goswamis and whoever I have spoken of and those acaryas after Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and all those who are here today and whoever will come in the future, they all have only one desire. That desire is for us to distribute books, more and more in greater ways. In these two months especially there is great endeavour on the part of the devotees to distribute these books and this marathon will go on till 15 January. This is for those devotees who have an intense need to distribute to a great degree.
Then on 29 January there is an award distribution ceremony for all the temples in India. At the end of the ceremony we always announce which temple in India is the top temple for book distribution this year and which individuals distributed the most books. In this way all the announcements are made on this day. So it depends on all of you whether we will reach a certain target or not. Thank you to all of you for your patience. Hare Krishna.
