Sri Caitanya-bhagavata

Cb Madhya-khaṇḍa and planning the Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura kirtan program

Haribol everyone. Please accept my praṇāma.

Right now I'm sitting in a program at Suvarṇa-vihāra Gauḍīya Maṭha in Godruma. This is my first time making a Vine of Devotion post from my phone. :)

By the mercy of Śrī Śrī Guru and Gaurāṅga, we recently completed the Ādi-khaṇḍa during our daily readings of Caitanya-bhāgavata a few days ago, and today, we completed a three-day reading of Śrīla Bhakti Pramoda Purī Gosvāmī Mahārāja's summary of it. Tomorrow, we will begin the Madhya-khaṇḍa, where we will finally delve into Śrīman Mahāprabhu's saṅkīrtana pastimes.

If you're interested in joining our daily readings, you can find the details on how and when to participate, as well as a list of topics and YouTube links for previous sessions on the Caitanya-bhāgavata page.

I'll be sharing the resources we've been using for our readings, such as maṅgalacaraṇas, chapters, and more, on that page when I return home this evening.

During our evening kirtans last night, while singing Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura's songs, I was imagining how nice it would be to through his songs one by one every day with all of you, and I started to become even more settled on starting this program once we've completed Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata.

For fun, I crunched some numbers and came up with some potential start dates:

It took us 70 days to complete the Ādi-khaṇḍa of Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata. Following the same pace, we'd need 89 days for the Madhya-khaṇḍa, 47 days for the Antya-khaṇḍa, and 7 days for the summaries, totaling 143 days. If read without missing a single day, we'd finish Caitanya-bhāgavata on March 5, 2024.

Of course, we won't follow this schedule because of the many huge festival tithis when we'll have special readings for those days. We could try to complete it on Gaura Pūrṇimā, which falls on March 25, giving us an extra 20 days for the special-tithi readings. But I think that may not be enough. So maybe we could aim for the appearance day of Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura, the grand-uncle of Śrīla Vṛndāvana dāsa Ṭhākura, which falls on April 2. That would give 28 days for the tithi readings.

Another idea is to take a more comfortable pace and complete it on Śrīla Vṛndāvana dāsa Ṭhākura's disappearance day, which is 1 1/2 months after Gaura Pūrṇimā. This way, we would also have time to read our Śrīla Gurudeva's Dāmodaraṣṭakam book during Kārtik, among other things. About five days after Śrīla Vṛndāvana dāsa Ṭhākura's disappearance day is the appearance day of Śrī Gadādhara Paṇḍita, which would be an ideal occasion to commence a daily Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura kirtan program.

Sorry if that was a bit overwhelming with information! I love brainstorming program ideas, and I wanted to share this in case it sparks your interest as well. Your thoughts and ideas are highly appreciated, so please feel free to share them in the comments.

Okay, arati is just now beginning here at Suvarna Vihara Gauḍīya Maṭha. Here’s a picture of Śrī Śrī Gaura Rādhā Mādhava right now: