(7/8) At Nanda Maharaj's Palace

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nandotsav Festival, Tarakeswar
24 August 2019, morning, part 7
Translated from Bengali

Sukadev Goswami told Pariksit Maharaj:

O King, when Nanda Maharaj got a son, he was overjoyed and invited all brahmans to his house. He bathed and dressed Krishna, decorating Him with many fine ornaments. He then offered worship and prayers to his ancestors and distributed a million cows to brahmans.

I told you earlier today that it was a hundred thousand cows, but here it says that he distributed a million cows. [To the dozing off pujari.] O round-the-clock ringer-of-the-bell! Are you so hungry that you are falling asleep now? You ring the bell the whole day and sleep during the class! Do not sleep. [Devotees laugh. His Divine Grace smiles, having achieved the required effect – everybody is now alert.]

Nanda Maharaj distributed a million cows decorated with gold ornaments along with seven hills of grains brought on gold dishes. Come with us to Vrindavan and you will see the place where Nanda Maharaj lived and performed this ceremony – everybody calls it now the Chaurasi Khamba temple (a temple with eighty-four pillars). The eighty-four pillars of Nanda Maharaj's house that date back all the way to Dvapar-yuga are still there! The mystery is this place is such that nobody can count the number of the pillars there – if you try to do it, you will not be able to count all of them. Somebody counts and gets eighty-two pillars, somebody gets eighty-three pillars, and somebody counts and gets even eighty-five pillars. Nobody can count these eighty-four pillars. [Indistinct: A devotee mentions some legend or 'news' about the temple.] I do not know these things; demons can say anything they like.

So, Nanda Maharaj distributed enormous amounts of gifts to brahmans. The house was filled with brahmans and many other guests, and there were band parties loudly playing sweet music and dancers performing beautiful dances. Nanda Maharaj's palace had many rooms and courtyards, and all the places were lavishly decorated with sandalwood and other fragrant powders as well as banana palm stems and leaves. Nanda Maharaj also had all his cows decorated beautifully with turmeric. (There are still many cows living at the place – whenever they come, we feed them with some bananas or biscuits. Sometimes they also come and eat garlands from our necks. The place is enormous.)

When all the local cowherd men heard the news that Nanda Maharaj had got a son, they were very happy and immediately told about it to their wives and children. Dressing themselves up, they then came all together to Nanda Maharaj's palace to see Gopal. Everybody brought for the baby whatever they had at home – fruit, sweets, sandesh, kachoris, laddus. When gopis heard that Mother Yasoda had got a son, they all dressed up and came to see the baby.

Gopis means elder ladies. There are three kinds of ladies living in Vrindavan: gopis, sakhis and manjaris. Those who are married and are a little older are called gopis; those who are about the same age as Krishna are called sakhis; and those who younger are called manjaris. So, all the gopis came to Mother Yasoda with many kinds of presentations for the boy and the new parents.

When they came, they saw baby Krishna decorated with a beautiful necklace on His neck, with His curly hair looking like a mountain of kusuma flowers, and in His ears there were radiant earrings swinging and playing at His sides. All the ladies were enchanted by His beauty and hurried to see Him – it was as if all denizens of heaven assembled there at once. Coming to the holy house of Nanda Maharaj, all the ladies took bunches of grass and, touching the baby on the head with that auspicious grass and palms, blessed Him, 'May You live a long and auspicious life!'

The Chaurasi Khamba Temple: the house of Nanda Maharaj.
(Photograph from Sri Vrindavan Parikrama in 2019)

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Size: 44 Mb
Length: 91 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Glorious Service Festival
2) Internal Appearance of Lord Krishna
3) Pure Eyes of Pure Hearts
4) External and Internal Culture
5) Lord of Lords, God of Gods
6) Kamsa's Crippled Ploy
7) At Nanda Maharaj's Palace
8) Nanda Maharaj Meets Vasudev