Matchless Srila Prabhupada
Beginning of December 2007, Sanaka-sanatana Prabhu and myself joined the annual Go-mela in Tirupati, although my actual purpose to travel that far South was to join the padayatra team, preaching in the nearby state of Tamil Nadu. I then participated for 6 days in their program, something that I periodically do, because it always has a purifying effect on my consciousness. What follows is a sharing of realization from the recent padayatra experience.
At present, Tamil Nadu has an atheistic Government that pushes Economic reform. Several time I witnessed a cramped truckload of bulls and cows heading towards the border to Kerala. Farmers sell the animals they consider useless and use the money to pay off the tractor. Another unpleasant observation is the prominence of western style burial grounds at the edge of many villages. It means that people are being converted, away from their own non-violent mode of live toward a belief system that sanctions violence, both to animals, and as recorded in a long and sad history, also to humans. It is rather shocking to observe these two trends. South India, especially Tamil Nadu, has such a wealth of Vaisnava traditions. The devotees on Padayatra are focused on distributing books and they also distribute the English translation of King Kulashekara’s “Mukunda Mala Stotra”. Whenever I found a chance, sometimes whilst riding on the bull cart or then in the early afternoon, after arriving at a new spot, I absorbed myself into his prayer. The introduction reads: Of the many hundreds of poetic Sanskrit stotras-songs of glorification offered to the Supreme Lord, His devotees, and the holy places of His pastimes—King Kulashekhara's Mukunda-mälä-stotra is one of the most perennially famous. Some say that its author conceived it as a garland (mälä) of verses offered for Lord Krishna's

pleasure. It has long been dear to Vaisnavas of all schools, and our own spiritual master, Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda, frequently enjoyed citing certain favorite stanzas from it.
King Kulashekhara was part of the Sri-sampradäya, the Vaisnava school founded by Lord Vishnu's divine consort, Sri. This school's most prominent representative, Rämänuja Äcärya (eleventh century), built on the work of his predecessors Nätha Muni and Yämuna Äcärya and established the systematic philosophy of Sri Vaisnavism. But these äcäryas came in an already old tradition, that of the ecstatic mystic poets called Älvärs. The twelve Älvärs appeared at various times in South India, in the area roughly corresponding to present-day Tamil Nadu. According to the tradition of the Çré Vaiñëavas, the earliest Älvärs lived more than five thousand years ago, at the start of the present age, Kali-yuga, while the most recent lived in the first millennium A.D.
King Kulashekara addresses the Lord as devo devaké-nandanah, as the Supreme Lord and son of Mother Devaki. So, here we have a person with the highest realization of the personal feature of the Absolute Truth. We have a thousand year long traditions of worship of such exalted souls and then, on the other hand, the recent development of atheism, materialism and conversion of large number of ignorant people into some violent organisation. Indisputably, unless the movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu comes to the rescue of this people, there is no hope.

 

The local representatives of Vaisnavism seem to be helpless in preventing this development. I noticed that after my stay on padayatra, when I spend some days in Urupi, the headquarters of Sripad Madhavacarya: One of the original Math, huge in size and many classrooms to train their own people, and with much land for cultivation, is abandoned. A second one, beautifully located on the riverside, is still running, but has only a tiny number of students. They have not yet taken up the preaching spirit that our devotees have on padayatra and might never do. Our devotees, daily, as soon the ratha starts, books in their hands, approach whoever they meet to give the person a chance to review is/ or her spiritual consciousness.
The padayatra pamphlet states how Srila Prabhupada conceived of this travelling bullock program. In addition, Srila Prabhupada imbibed in us that mood of preaching through book distribution. Daily 300-400 books go out in Tamil Nadu and the people come to realize how unwise it is to accept political leaders who insult their very own ancestors by declaring them to be mistaken in their beliefs. When I am on padayatra, I discover from anew how this book distribution is so essential to change the history of humankind. It also makes a devotee engaged in this service joyful, because they know that these books contain unique mercy from a matchless Srila Prabhupada. To be a tool in the mercy distribution is the perfection of life.

Sankirtana das