By Mahanidhi Swami
I. Gauranga’s Mrdanga: Pranams and Practice
In Sharanagati, Srila BhaktivinodaThakura reveals the impact of the mrdanga mellows and Gaurakirtana upon his heart:
mṛdaṅga-vadya, śunitemana, abasarasadāyāce.
gaura-vihita, kīrtanaśunī, ānandehṛdoyanāce
“My mind ever longs for the opportunity to hear the music of the mṛdaṅga. Upon hearing the kind of kīrtana ordained by Lord Gauracandra, my heart dances in ecstasy.” (Śaraṇāgati)
Mrdanga Obeisances (ŚrīKhol-Praṇāms)
Before playing the khol (mrdanga), one must offer obeisances to the demigod of the instrument [yantrādhiṣṭitadevatā], and then offer respects to the mrdanga instrument by chanting the following prayers or others:
mṛdaṅgabrahmā-rūpāya, lāvaṇyaṁ rasa-mādhurī
sahasra-guṇa-saṁyuktaṁ, mṛdaṅgāyanamonāmaḥ
“Unto the supreme brahma formed as the clay drum infused with the mellow sweetness of graceful enchantment, and endowed with thousands of transcendental qualities, I bow down again and again to the mṛdaṅga.”
namojagannāthasūtāya, namomṛdaṅganāmaḥ
lāvaṇyaṁ rasa mādhurī, sahasraguṇasaṁyuktaṁ
namomṛdaṅgāyanamonāmaḥ, namobaladevayonamonāmaḥ
“I offer my respectful obeisances unto the son of Śrī Jagannātha Miśra [Śr īCaitanya Mahāprabhu]. I offer my obeisances unto the mṛdaṅga, from which sweet and nectarean sound emanates. I offer my obeisances again and again unto the mṛdaṅga which has thousands of good qualities. And I offer my obeisances unto Lord Baladeva, who assumes the form of the mṛdaṅga to serve Lord Caitanya.”
After offering obeisances, one should practice the varṇas, or specific letters of the alphabet that correspond to particular hand and finger strokes upon the heads of the drum. One should articulate the musical sounds ‘ka’ ‘ga’ ‘gha’ and so on with the voice, while hitting the drum to produce the corresponding sounds. This exercise must be performed before playing anything else. Just as a singer has to regularly practice singing the scale “sāriga,” similarly it is necessary for a mṛdaṅga player to regularly practice the vaṛnas. With much practice in this system and by guru-kṛpā one can learn to produce very sweet music. Then devotees will declare, “It is just like the khol is talking!”
II. Hand Cymbals Karatāl
During saṅkīrtana, the karatālsring out their famous “one-two-three’ rhythm, which conveys the following three messages to the devotees:
1) I will be victorious over death.
2) I will be victorious over Yamarāja.
3) I will very happily be victorious over all his servants. By hearing the sound of the karatāls from afar, these three (death, Yamarāja and his servants) certainly do not come anywhere near the performers of the kīrtana.
III. Horn Viṣāna
When devotion arises during nāma-saṅkīrtana, it acts like a fire to burn to ashes the impurities within the mind. Thereafter, the auspicious horn blasts away this filthy residue by the sound issuing forth from the path of its tube.
IV. Clap for Krishna (Kara-tālī)
Many birds of sin reside in the tree of the body. But as soon as they hear hand clapping in kirtana, they immediately fly away. In the Dvārakā-mahātmya, Narada Muni asserts, “From the body of any person who claps and dances before the Deity, showing manifestations of ecstasy, all the birds of sinful activities fly away upward.” Just as by clapping the hands one can cause many birds to fly away, similarly the birds of all sinful activities which are sitting on the body can be made to fly away simply by dancing and clapping the hands before the Deity of Kṛṣṇa.” (Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu)
V. Dancing and Rolling on the Ground (Nṛtya and Lunthan)
Small children are prone to catch the attention of their fathers. For example, a kid will hold his arms up in the air, dance around while calling out to the father, who will then respond by placing the kid on his lap and caressing him lovingly. But if the father does not respond right away, the child cries and rolls on the ground. The father cannot bear to see this, so he will immediately pick up the child. In this mood, dancing and rolling on the ground are an integral part of the performance of saṅkīrtana. They are meant to petition the favor of the all-merciful Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Father.
Of course, this does not mean that devotees should abandon all sense of proper decorum, cry like banshees, and roll madly down the public sidewalk on street saṅkīrtana. In certain appropriate settings, however, such as Navadvīpa Dhāma parikramā, devotees may, if they truly feel inspired, spontaneously cry out in ecstasy “Hariiiiiibol!” and madly roll in the dust of the Dhāma. Remember that in the beginning, Mahāprabhu held His nocturnal kīrtana parties behind locked doors in Śrīvāsa Ācārya’s house to prevent the faithless from offending the devotees by misunderstanding their emotional outbursts and personal kirtanaeuphorias.
A devotee’s enthusiastic dancing in kirtana pleases Sri Krishna and creates auspiciousness for the world. This point is confirmed in Padma Purāṇa and Hari-bhakti-sudhodaya [20.68]:
“O king, when Krishna’s devotees dance, their footsteps crush the inauspiciousness of the earth; their glances destroy the inauspiciousness of the ten directions; and their upraised arms push away the inauspiciousness of the demigods’ planets.”
On the freighter just before arriving in America to start his world conquering Harinama Sankirtana movement, Srila Prabhupada opened his humble heart to his Lord Damodara:
“O Lord, I am just like a puppet in Your hands. So if You have brought me [to America] here to dance, then make me dance, make me dance. O Lord, make me dance as You like.”
In the Dvārakā-mahātmya,Bhagavan Sri Krishna Himself describes the importance of dancing before the Deity: “A person who feels profound devotional ecstasy while dancing before My Deity form, and who manifests different features of bodily expression can burn away all the accumulated sinful reactions he has stocked up for many, many thousands of years.” (Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu)
(An excerpt from Appreciating Navadvipa Dhama by Mahanidhi Swami)
Sri Harinama Sankirtana ki jai!
Nitai Gaura Premanande ki Jai...
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