Prabodhananda Saraswati's reputation among Gaudiya Vaishnavas rests as much on his pen as on his life. His two best-known works, Sri Radha-rasa-sudha-nidhi and Sri Chaitanya-chandramrita, are still read, quoted and drawn on for song verses five centuries later, and Srila Prabhupada himself returned to both repeatedly in his own purports and lectures.
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| On Radha's glories | Sri Radha-rasa-sudha-nidhi |
| On Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu | Sri Chaitanya-chandramrita |
| On the holy land of Vraja | Sri Vrindavana-mahimamrita |
| Other works | Navadvipa-shataka, Sangita-Madhava, Sri Nityanandastakam, and commentaries on Shruti-stuti and the Gopala-tapani Upanishad |
| Quoted by Srila Prabhupada in | Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita and Srimad-Bhagavatam purports, and numerous recorded lectures |
Sri Radha-rasa-sudha-nidhi #
Sri Radha-rasa-sudha-nidhi means "the nectar-ocean of the rasa of Radha." It is a Sanskrit poem devoted entirely to Srimati Radharani's own transcendental beauty, character and moods of love for Krishna. Gaudiya writers describe it as unequalled among Prabodhananda's works for the sheer sweetness of its poetry, and its verses have supplied lyrics still used in devotional song today.
One honest complication is worth recording here. A 1992 academic study by J. K. Brzezinski, published in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, looks at a rival attribution current within the separate Radhavallabha sampradaya, founded by Sri Hita Harivamsa, a younger contemporary of Prabodhananda. That attribution credits the same work, at least in part, to Harivamsa rather than to Prabodhananda. Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition itself has never wavered on the point. Srila Prabhupada's own purports name Radha-rasa-sudha-nidhi as Prabodhananda's, alongside Sangita-Madhava, Vrindavana-shataka and Navadvipa-shataka, and that is the attribution followed here, though the wider scholarly record is not perfectly unanimous.
A related, more internal debate exists too. Some Gaudiya readers have noticed a tendency in Prabodhananda's poetry toward the svakiya conception of Radha and Krishna's love, the view that treats them as eternally married, rather than the parakiya mood most Gaudiya Vaishnavas consider the highest expression of Vraja-prema. Because of this, a few devotees have historically read his books with less enthusiasm than his other works might otherwise deserve. Later Gaudiya commentators, however, have generally set this concern aside as a matter of individual taste rather than doctrinal error, and still count Radha-rasa-sudha-nidhi among the tradition's finest devotional poetry.
Sri Chaitanya-chandramrita #
Sri Chaitanya-chandramrita means "the moonlight-nectar of Lord Chaitanya." It is a long devotional poem in praise of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and it is the single work of Prabodhananda's that Srila Prabhupada quoted most often.
Its most famous verse, kaivalyam narakayate, describes how, for a soul touched by Mahaprabhu's mercy, even liberation into impersonal Brahman looks like hell. The heavenly planets look like a flower imagined in an empty sky, and the poison fangs of the senses are pulled out. Srila Prabhupada quoted this verse in his purports to both Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita and Srimad-Bhagavatam, and explained it at length in at least one recorded lecture on the Nectar of Devotion.
A second verse from the same work, dante nidhaya trnakam, meaning "taking a straw between my teeth and falling at your feet a hundred times," describes the humble, non-confrontational mood Prabodhananda adopted when he approached learned men to speak to them about Krishna. Srila Prabhupada quoted this verse repeatedly across his own preaching career, as a model for how his own students should approach people with Krishna consciousness, through humility rather than argument or force.
In one 1972 lecture on the Nectar of Devotion, Srila Prabhupada worked through the kaivalyam narakayate verse phrase by phrase. He explained that the senses are compared there to serpents whose bite is deadly, but that for a devotee touched by Mahaprabhu's mercy, those same serpents' fangs have already been pulled out, protkhata-damstrayate, so that engaging the senses fully in Krishna's service holds no danger for such a soul.
Vrindavana-mahimamrita and the Rest #
Sri Vrindavana-mahimamrita, glorifying the holy land of Vrindavana itself, is counted among Prabodhananda's other major works, alongside the shorter Navadvipa-shataka in praise of Mahaprabhu's own birthplace, the musical drama Sangita-Madhava, and commentaries on the Shruti-stuti hymn of Srimad-Bhagavatam and on the Gopala-tapani Upanishad. One more of his compositions survives in an unexpected place. The songs section preserves his Sri Nityanandastakam, an eight-verse hymn with a few additional verses added later, glorifying Nityananda Prabhu as Mahaprabhu's constant companion and the deliverer of the fallen souls of this age. Devotees still sing it today.
