Weekly Caitanya-bhāgavata reading premieres in ONE HOUR! ⏳

Śrīla Vṛndāvana dāsa Ṭhākura ki jaya! Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata ki jaya!

Today, on the auspicious appearance day of Śrīla Vṛndāvana dāsa Ṭhākura, we are commencing our weekly reading of Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata.

The video will premiere on the Vine of Devotion YouTube channel in one hour, 7:30 am (India time). If you'd like to join when the video goes live, then we can recite the verses of Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata together, even though we may be in different parts of the world. I'll also be there with others in the live YouTube chat. (Of course, the video will still be there if you aren't able to join in live.)

In this reading, we will go through half of the first chapter, entitled Śrī Gaura-līlā-sūtra, or A Summary of Gaura's Pastimes. The topics of this first half (verses 1–89) are as follows:

Verses 1–5 • Maṅgalācaraṇa
6–10 • The author first offers obeisance to the devotees before offering obeisance to the Lord.
11–21 • Obeisances to Śrī Nityānanda, Balarāma, Ananta-śeṣa.
22–42 • The glories of Śrī Baladeva’s rāsa-līlā.
43–47 • The various forms in which Baladeva serves the Lord.
48–66 • How the Lord’s devotees, especially Śrī Nārada, worship and glorify Anantadeva.
67–75 • How Anantadeva chants the glories of Kṛṣṇa with each of His thousands of mouths.
76–83 • The author’s prayer to the Vaiṣṇavas that he may worship Nityānanda Balarāma.
84–87 • The author writes only what he has heard from the devotees and what has been inspired by Śrī Caitanya.
88–89 • The pastimes of Śrī Caitanya are divided into Ādi-khaṇḍa, Madhya-khaṇḍa, and Antya-khaṇḍa.

On the coming Sunday morning (or Saturday evening for those of you on the other side of the world), we will go through the rest of the verses in which Śrīla Vṛndāvana dāsa Ṭhākura gives a synopsis of all the līlās that he will describe in the three parts of Śrī Caitanya-bhāgavata: the Ādi-khaṇḍa, Madhya-khaṇḍa and Antya-khaṇḍa.

Fun fact: My mobile data has been extremely slow where I'm staying in Kolkata. I started uploading this first video at 11:00 pm with upload speeds fluctuating between 0.10–0.80 Mbps. The upload only just now finished at 6:30 am on the dot, literally the minute I'm clicking send on this post. 😆  Hopefully the video processing will be finished before 7:30 am!

I hope to see you there!

Aspiring to please Śrīla Gurudeva and the Vaiṣṇavas,
–Madhukar das