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As Lord Shree Krishna is the hero of Rupa Goswami’s Vidagdha Madhava ( Portrait of Lord Shree Krishna), so Shree Krishna’s 7th incarnation, Lord Rama, is the hero of Valmiki’s Ramayana epic, the denouement of which is celebrated at this time of year on the occasion of Diwali (the Festival of Lights). The Diwali festival

Arjundas Adhikari’s latest post in The European

For inspired mindful Hare Krishnaring Happily, those on the path of mindfulness these days are more and more possessed of the useful appreciation that efficiency and money aren’t everything that matters in life. I say useful, because whilst we’re all trying to get ahead, or even ‘getting ahead,’ there are inevitably times when we experience

The gorgeous blooming lotus-lily is emblematic of the seeker who dwells in the world, and yet is quite transcendental to it. A lotus-lily is called pankaja (panka – mud, ja – born of) for originating in a muddy river bed, with the wonder of its beauty belying the nature of the place in which it

A playhouse for mortals should be made sixty four cubits (thirty two yards) in length, and thirty two cubits (sixteen yards) in breadth. No one should build a playhouse bigger than this, because a play produced in a larger theatre will not be properly expressive. In a bigger playhouse, utterances will lose euphony due to

In parts of Asia there are artists working in boiler shops, who, for a mere $50 – $100 will rattle off a reproduction of one of Monet’s famous water-lily paintings in oils, in a matter of minutes. However, the subtlety of expression in the original painting, and the original’s power to emote, is unlikely to

Shree Krishna, while He was on earth some time back, turned out to be the greatest polymath, independent thinker and upholder of spiritual values the world had ever known. He also declared Himself to be the primeval cause of all causes; the one to take shelter of in difficult times. Said declaration is the ‘take

Lord Shree Krishna is referred to by numerous titles in both of Rupa Goswami’s Sanskrit plays, namely Vidagdha Madhava, a.k.a. A Portrait of Lord Shree Krishna, and Lalita Madhava. In the space of only a few exchanges of dialogue, Krishna may be referred to by a number of different names. The following nine names for

As already noted, there are two principal Sanskrit dramas written by Rupa Goswami, which are Vidagdha Madhava and Lalita Madhava. Titled, A Portrait of Lord Shree Krishna, Vidagdha Madhava has already been published by us in its English language version, while the second is work in progress as a translation. Lord Shree Krishna has many

Rupa Goswami’s great Sanskrit drama, Vidagdha Madhava, a.k.a. A Portrait of Lord Shree Krishna, is the story of an astonishing sapphire-blue complexioned youth whose business it was to mind His father’s great herd of cows in the forested realm of Vrindavan many thousands of years ago. The dominant characteristic of this brave, young handsome hero,

The word rupa in Sanskrit means beautiful, handsome or well-formed, and a cognate of rupa is the word rupaka, which means a thing that is imbued with sublime qualities, something as, for example, a beautifully composed drama. A drama that is not as well-crafted is called an uparupaka, or a secondary drama. That the name

The earliest Sanskrit dramas with the same theme as Vidagdha Madhava (aka, A Portrait of Lord Shree Krishna, translated from the Sanskrit by Arjundas Adhikari), viz. the pastimes of the incarnation of Lord Shree Krishna, were written by the playwright, Bhasa, in the 4th century BCE. His two principal plays are Balacharitam and Dutavakyam, which

Sanskrit Terms Relating to ‘actor’ In case there are any doubts Rupa Goswami didn’t intend his Sanskrit drama, Vidagdha Madhava, aka, A Portrait of Lord Shree Krishna, (translated into English by Arjundas Adhikari) to be staged, I would like to share a compilation of Sanskrit terms relating to dramaturgy. The list goes to show what

In Sanskrit, the word for ‘beholding’, or ‘seeing’, is darshan: As is clear in the above entry taken from Monier-Williams’ 1899 Sanskrit-English dictionary, the word darshan is indicative of ‘seeing’ in the sense of ‘perceiving’ as well as ‘observing’. Sight is generally limited to a certain range of light frequencies and the availability of sunlight,

Inasmuch as a little knowledge of British history comes in handy for an audience of a Shakespeare history play like Henry IV part 2, etc. contextual information is similarly vital for the full appreciation of a play that seriously deals with the subject of the pastimes of Lord Shree Krishna. It benefits an audience of

Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was the theologean who came up with the famous ontological argument. This argument proposes that God must exist. God is generally defined as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived of,” but some ‘being’ existing not only in the mind, but also in reality, would be greater than God.