CC Madhya 15.42 (1975)
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Below is the 1996 edition text, ready to be substituted with the 1975 one using the compile form.
TEXT 42
- nityānande ājñā dila,—‘yāha gauḍa-deśe
- anargala prema-bhakti kariha prakāśe
SYNONYMS
nityānande—unto Nityānanda Prabhu; ājñā dila—Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu ordered; yāha gauḍa-deśe—go to Gauḍa-deśa (Bengal); anargala—without restriction; prema-bhakti—devotional service in love of Godhead; kariha prakāśe—manifest.
TRANSLATION
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu ordered Nityānanda Prabhu, “Go to Bengal and, without restriction, manifest devotional service to the Lord, Kṛṣṇa consciousness.”
PURPORT
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu thus ordered Nityānanda Prabhu to deliver all the Bengalis to devotional service. In the Bhagavad-gītā (BG 9.32) the Lord says:
- māṁ hi pārtha vyapāśritya ye ‘pi syuḥ pāpa-yonayaḥ
- striyo vaiśyās tathā śūdrās te ‘pi yānti parāṁ gatim
“O son of Pṛthā, those who take shelter in Me, though they be of lower birth—women, vaiśyas [merchants], and śūdras [workers]—can attain the supreme destination.” Whoever takes to Kṛṣṇa consciousness and follows the regulative principles can return home, back to Godhead.
In his Anubhāṣya, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura writes, “There is a class of so-called devotees called prākṛta-sahajiyās who think that Nityānanda Prabhu is an ordinary human being. They have spread the news that Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu ordered Nityānanda Prabhu to return to Bengal from Orissa just to marry and beget children. This is certainly a great offense against Nityānanda Prabhu.” Such an offense is called pāṣaṇḍa-buddhi, or an atheistic remark. Offenders consider Nityānanda Prabhu to be like one of them, an ordinary human being. They do not know of Nityānanda Prabhu’s identity with the viṣṇu-tattva. Thinking Nityānanda Prabhu to be an ordinary human being is the business of mental speculators known as kuṇapātma-vādīs. These people accept the material body, which is a bag of three material elements (kuṇape tri-dhātuke), as themselves. They think that Nityānanda Prabhu’s body was similarly material and that it was meant for sense gratification. Whoever thinks in this way is a candidate for the darkest regions of hell. Those who hanker after women and money, who are self-interested and have the mentality of merchants, can certainly discover many things with their fertile brains and speak against the authorized revealed scriptures. They also engage in some moneymaking businesses to cheat innocent people, and they try to support their business programs by making such offensive statements. Actually Nityānanda Prabhu, being the expansion of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, is the most munificent incarnation. No one should consider Him an ordinary human being or an entity like the prajāpatis, who were ordered by Brahmā to increase generations. Nityānanda Prabhu should not be considered instrumental for sense gratification. Although professional so-called preachers support this idea, such statements are not found in any authorized revealed scriptures. Actually there is no support for these statements made by sahajiyās or other professional distributors of kṛṣṇa-bhakti.