19790913-Evening-Darshan-Calcutta-Ratha-Yatra-Description-Literal-Version

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The following is a class given by His Holiness, Jayapataka Swami Maharaja on September 13th, 1979 in Los Angeles, California.

Jayapataka Swami:

nama om visnu-padaya

krsna-presthaya bhu-tale

srimate bhaktivedanta-

svamin iti namine

namas te sarasvate deve

gaura-vani-pracarine

nirvisesa-sunyavadi-

pascatya-desa-tarine

[break]

sri-krsna-caitanya

prabhu-nityananda

sri-advaita gadadhara

srivasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna

krsna krsna hare hare/

hare rama hare rama

rama rama hare hare

nama-srestham manum api saci-putram atra svarupam

rupam tasyagrajam uru-purim mathurim gosthavatim

radha-kundam giri-varam aho radhika-madhavasam

yasya kripa prathita-krpaya sri-gurum tam nato 'smi

ajanu-lambita-bhujau kanakavadatau

sankirtanaika-pitarau kamalayataksau

visvambharau dvija-varau yuga-dharma-palau

vande jagat priya-karau karunavatarau

[break]

I would just like to mention some of the pastimes connected with the Calcutta ratha-yatra this year. Actually 1972 Srila Prabhupada… ’71 or ’72, started ratha-yatra in Calcutta. But, it was done in the back of a truck decorated like a float and pulled until two years ago, or one year ago… year before this year, and it was a very nice festival, till then. About 5-10,000 people would come: 20,000 sometimes.

Then, two years… then, one year ago we had uh, one devotee from New York made a New York… Jana… What’s that… what’s that devotee’s name? Ratha-yatra

Devotees: Jayananda

Jayapataka Swami: Jaya, Jayananda. One of his telescopic rathas, one that goes up and down. So last year there was, to some extent publicized in all the newspapers that this is going to be the first telescopic American Super-Ratha (devotees laugh) and the designer, he had never attended a ratha-yatra in India, so he didn’t really know what to expect he put a 5… although the ratha only weight three tons he put a five ton… five ton axle on the front wheels, and a rope hanging from the back so that in case you want to slow down you just pull in the back, and he had a string mechanism on the ground which one would manually turn this way or that way.

So he got the ratha to the front of the Calcutta temple a year ago and then when it came time for the rath yatra to start, the street in front of the Calcutta temple became packed. It’s a small street but it completely packed so much so that the pressure of the people knocked down a ten inch thick brick wall. (devotees laugh). and they were just packed in like a can of unmentionables. (devotees laugh)

So after Jagannatha, Subhadra, Balarama finally were taken to the ratha, after great difficulty. The man… the devotee who manufactured the ratha was already very nervous, and when it time came to pull the ratha the people… in India especially in Bengal, they love ratha-yatra. They don’t pull the ratha, (in a loud voice) they yank it, and run! So the ratha (devotees laugh), it was like that. The ratha jumped forward, and just headed straight towards those people, and the designer screamed that, “We are going to crush them!”, because he made big eight-foot wheels with no guard in front and it was heading… there was no way to steer the ratha. In fact as he was trying to steer it was already completely out of control. So by Krishna’s divine intervention, at that point the two front wheels bent in (devotees laugh)

Of course many people would say that the ratha at that point was a failure, especially the man who designed it, he completely cracked up. He said… (devotees laugh) He said that, “We can’t go ahead with it with it. Stop it. Don’t do it. It’s too dangerous, It can’t be done. It can’t be done. It’s not pos… there’s too many people.” But, in spite, we just had him go upstairs and lay down. (devotees laughing) and we got a tow-truck to come and with a crane, it lifted the front end up, then we put a few flowers on the tow-truck and they pulled the tow-truck, and they tied the rope to the tow-truck (devotees laughing).

So that was.. because there was a delay… so many people waiting, about 2-300,000 people came. It was a… it was a nice festival. We went… what happened you see, is that we had wanted that year to take Jagannatha to the biggest part in the whole city. And so we had approached the Minister of the municipality of Calcutta, Mr. Prasanta Sura. He is the... his name is Prasanta Sura, which is supposed to mean peaceful demigod, but we know him as Prasantasura (devotees laugh). More need not be said.

So any way this was his… he was newly elected under the Com… uh, Communist Party of India, Marxist Branch, and uh, some devotees went and approached him. And uh, requested him. First they showed him pictures of New Dvaraka, and New York, and all the different temples and requested him to please… they preached to him he’s saying, “Very nice, very nice, very nice. Oh! This is being done! Oh!” In fact he was so open, that the people preaching to him taught that this person is going to become a life member, or something, so favorable, and uh, then after all the preaching, then they finally requested that “My Dear Sir, actually, all we want is that we want this park Desapriya Park for one week, for our ratha-yatra festival, and it requires your permission, so you please give us permission.”, and that Prasantasura, he said, “Don't bother! Don't bother! Don't waste your time. You can't have it.”

The devotees said… were shocked “Well, we’re doing so many nice work in Mayapura. We’re feeding so many people. We have cottage industry, gurukula, orphanage, this and… so many things. We just wanted to a ratha-yatra here, in Calcutta and use the park. So, then he said, “Whatever you’re doing in Mayapur, you do there! But don’t try to expand your activities in Calcutta. I will stop you.” And then we said, “Well… Why? I mean…”

“You have an ideology?”

“Yes. We have an ideology.”

“We also have an ideology. Our ideology is to stop your ideology from spreading. Now you can leave.”
So the devotees left pretty heavy-hearted. So, in spite of not getting a park, we took to Prabhupada’s Radha-Govinda Temple, where, when he was a child he worshiped Radha-Govinda. His father worshiped those Deities and we did a nice program. Every night, 3,000 people were coming, uh, sitting and listening, and turn over may be 8 to 10,000.

So this year, when it came the time for ratha-yatra preparations, we replaced the front wheels with big Mac axle, and we put air brakes on. In the back wheels, we put on special railway 50-ton brakes for stopping, when necessary, and the steering was done by a method of steering like a ship, with the big ships wheel by some… by a very special system which was very strong, and the steerer would stand up on top of the ratha cart and see, but… and then he would also control the air brakes. If any one screamed when they got under the wheel, (devotees laughing) he would put the brakes on. And two little dolls of g… were placed in front of the big wheels making it more difficult to people to stand in front of them.

So the ratha was all ready. Then it came the time to get a park. So this time when we went to see, we found out that the minister… the minister of municipality, he had become… he had when supervising the garbage cleanup in Calcutta, he got attacked by the garbage men because he was yelling at ‘em and half of his body become paralyzed, and he had to go to America for treatment. Of course for someone from that particular ideology to go to America for treatment is ludicrous...

Anyway. So we approached the commissioner… the secretary of the government, and asked. He said, “The minister left standing orders you can’t have these two parks, Desapriya and the main Maiden.”

“So we have other parks?”

“Why not?”

The commissioner didn’t know all the particular things. So, then we took… in North Calcutta, in the mostly densely populated part of Calcutta, the Shyama Park. That part of Calcutta is between 5 and 7 times more dense, per square kilometer than New York City although those buildings are not over four story. People live 10 in a room. Very old district of Calcutta, most densely populated area, so they agreed. They gave us. And the route went for 9 kilometers, about 6 miles through the biggest and main streets of Calcutta.

So all the big businessmen in Calcutta were kind enough to donate hording space, and all the big billboards for one month, free. We put up 20 billboards in DayGlo paint (devotees laughing) with special black lights sent from Australia (devotees laughing). One of them was right in front of the government headquarters, in front of the municipality minister’s office, so when we returned from America (devotees laughing). Big, you know, letters that go, big and get small… you know, very cinema type letters (devotees laughing) “Ratha Yatra!” with big Jagannatha, and picture of so many devotees from all different nations, pulling Him.

So, the whole town was just talking “Ratha Yatra! Ratha Yatra! Ratha Yatra! Ratha Yatra!” and all them… everyone was requesting that this had to be bigger than the Jaganatha Puri that Bengal had no big ratha-yatra “Why they are keeping it only in Orissa?” So the enthusiasm become so great, every newspaper covered front page articles with pictures of the ratha, a week and 10 days before the ratha-yatra the telescopic technological wonder-ratha was being created by different American and European devotees along with the Indians.

So, finally what happened was the employees of the government, they became so anxious to go to ratha-yatra and the government didn't give a holiday for rath-yatra, that they made a ultimatum two days before ratha-yatra that, “If you don’t give us a holiday we’re walking right out of work.” Devotees: Jaya! Jayapataka Swami: So then, the government, the day before the ratha-yatra, passed a order that from 2:00 on, there will be a holiday for ratha-yatra, so they wouldn't lose the whole day from their workers. This was the first time in history of Calcutta that a holiday ever appeared for ratha-yatra.

So, then time came and the ratha cart was in front of the temple. This year there was so many people the whole 9 km path was packed on both sides, waiting from 11 in the morning for the ratha to come and there was at least 300,000 people was waiting at the temple for the start of the ratha-yatra. Of course, this year we were prepared. So Jagannatha was taken out of His uhm, room, put on the palanquin and then rows of devotees… the first row of so many devotees with gongs imitates gong sounds playing the gongs and bobbing like this, and then another row of about 20 camaras fanners fanning furiously in front of Jagannatha then behind, big fan going and Jagannatha is taken dancing (devotees laugh) down to the chariot.

So, in this way Jagannatha, Subhadra, Balarama… Balarama, Subhadra, Jagannatha they entered their cart, one cart and it was time for the ratha-yatra to start, so 20 different sankirtan groups came from Mayapura, Haridaspur, different villages and then we had 20,000 sa… prasadam packets and vans. So we had a 4 Mercedes Vans, Prabhupada’s cars and few other vehicles and the 20 sankirtan parties, they stretched out in front of the cart to form nearly a one-mile parade length, and then with space for the people to pull and then roaming sankirtan party also, apart from the ones carrying the flags and the villagers.

So then when it was time to start of course the same thing happened the people (speaking loudly) pull, but this time put on the air brake (laughter) and then don’t know what happened. So we had to develop a system of red and green flags because they were pulling and we were braking, it was becoming very difficult. So when we’d hold up the green flag, that means pull, we’d hold up the red flag, then in front the devotees would stand with sticks. When it was time for them to not pull they would remind them (devotees laughing).

So then with, “Jaya Jagannatha, Jaya Jagannatha, Jaya Subhadra, Jai Balarama, Hari bol!” The ratha-yatra was off. We went for the first about 2 kilometers with this crowd and the police were beside us and they ha… ke… made us stand one side of the 4 lane road, and kept traffic coming on the other side and the people were in front and on the side but traffic was coming on the other side. When we got down to the main 6 lane road the only one in Calcutta, the Caurangi, in front of the esplanade, at that point there were so many people, that there was no more two lanes of traffic. Simply the whole road was packed from one building to the other. All 6 lanes, plus side, what… everything, completely packed. So, from one mile up they simply diverted the traffic, and gave up.

Devotees: Jaya! (laughing)

Jayapataka Swami: So, then at that point, we were right in the middle. We put the… while we were putting the top down for the tram lines, then we start to throw white nakuldanas: little white sweet sugar candy prasadams, and we were demanding of all the people, “Everyone you must chant (loudly) Hare Krishna! Jay Jagannatha!” Then all of… “Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!” They’d raise their hands. We’d throw the prasad there was no way to give there was all just an ocean of people, and the people, they would dive and pick the prasadam off the ground and eat it, and scream “More prasada, prasada! Jaya Jagannatha! Hare Krishna! (devotees laughing)

So then we put down the… after the top was down we put down the red flag and pulled up the green flag, but then in the back, there was some boy who was still throwing prasad. The rule is once the chariot, the ratha moves, all prasada-throwing stop, but he was getting into it. So, one lady had dived under the rath to get a piece of prasada the pshew, the rath takes off. She screams, so we put on the brakes, but she already was completely rolled over, but then she uh, fortunately was right in the very middle of the 12 foot, 16 foot-wide ratha, and the wheels didn’t roll over her. She came out completely shaking gasps, but she was unhurt, by Jagannatha’s mercy.

So then the festival continued and as it was going on, the people everyone was trying to get and touch the rope. It was… everyone they know that simply touch the rope, must touch the rope, then you… no more birth and death. So, everyone is rushing up, trying to get that rope (devotees laughing) but the rope was only 50 feet long, so the people are just fighting. Little old ladies would come, trying to get the rope and it was such a seen that regularly people trying to get the rope there was such a rush, they’d fall down in front of the wheels, people have to just drag them out just before they get crushed, and the people every time you say “go.” they just (loud voice) pull! Run! (devotees laughing)

So it was becoming so difficult, and finally after 4 hours, we had gone 6 kilometers, or about 4 miles. 2 miles to go it was already 7:00 at night (devotees laughing) so we started at 3 and it was 7, so we put the generator and a light inside the ratha, so the whole ratha just illuminated like a transcendental effulgent form with Jagannatha, with big spotlights on Him, and the wonderful thing about this that Calcutta, there’s something called load shedding. You won’t know what this, you have never experienced this in America for more than 12 hours in the past 10 years.

There, the system is that, the demand of electricity is about 400 megawatts and the supply is about 120, so they, and that’s when they’re doing good. Usually they only can give 60 or 80, so that means that 1/8th of the time you get electricity. The rest of the time you’re just turned off from the powerhouse. So, that happened. At this time, the whole road al street lights, all whole houses completely black, simply Jagannatha’s cart was lit. It looked so beautiful, so then we were… at this point it was so packed, we just, just… complete… from that point on, was just solid people that the police, they all ran away (devotees laughing) they completely disappeared. Up to that time they would dance a little bit and pull the ratha this time they just saw so many people, a few ran back in the paddy wagon and sat, and the rest just disappeared somewhere.

So, at about 7:30 we were going along, suddenly, the air brakes are run by a big air tank, the air tank runs out. So there’s was no way to brake, and the people are completely insane, at that point. At that, it was not possible to do very much kirtana at point because it’s just so packed in, so what happened is that we have to change. We had a spare tank. We have to change it right in the middle of the road there so the people they wouldn’t stop pulling. We, “Please, stop pulling!” and suddenly someone would just go “Jaya Jagannatha!” and start pulling (devotees laughing)we said “Stop, stop!” it just couldn’t contain so finally we decided that we have to take the ropes away from them and put them under the cart we were taking the ropes away they were not letting us go we were pleading them “We’ll give them back to you. Don’t worry, just for a few minutes.”

So there was one die-hard who wouldn’t let go, so they just yanked it out of his hands. He became very angry and he uh, punched the devotee for taking away the rope from him, so then at that point, another devotee just happened to move him a few inches away which at that particular point was, say about half a million people packed in and, that type of situation could develop into one a which would be enough to send shudders down your back.

So just at that moment out of nowhere there was in a, in a, in a park nearby this guy was completely insane, was trying to cause some kind of disturbance out of nowhere this huge, white brahma bull appeared and just ran into the crowd vroom vroomjust throwing people 10 feet, 12 feet, left and right and when it… it threw that guy 16 feet in the air * phew *, like a doll and just mowing down to the people you just see the people go. There was nowhere they could run. He just run through, just having complete bliss. (devotees laughing) Crushing the people. So he made about one run this way, one run… then, finally he left the uh, trail.

Any way everything became peaceful after that (devotees laughing), so we got everyone chanting Hare Krishna, and throwing out the way candies and every one was alright, meanwhile they was changing the air… this, you know the modern technology, always troubles, so they were changing the air tank, so then what they decided that, so many people on the so this time it was 8:00 at night and was just unmanageable so they decided only to left out only 25 feet of rope by… with 25 feet of rope they won’t be able to pull so much. But, of course some e people would say it was successful, in my opinion it would... had its disadvantages because what happened was the 25 feet of rope the people in this time become so anxious to pull the Jagannatha, that 3 times as many people tried to pull the rope although it was only half the size, about 20 feet at best, and because the cart, 50 feet high the big 8 loo… foot wheels, when you’re right in front of the cart, as soon as they (loudly speaking) yank it, then it would lurch forward. They were immediately panic and just run (devotees laugh) drop the rope and run, afraid that the whole thing would just crush them.

And so they were going like this. They’d run grab the rope, pull it, it and as soon… it just jumped forward about 60 miles an hour, and they would all scream and run up on all sides. This time, we were giving… Jagannatha was getting such a jerky ride, and the little old ladies were trying to get their hands on the rope, but there is no hope, so they were just touching the ratha, wheels, anything they can get to, and uh… so then about 20 brahmacaris got in front of the pullers and as they were pulling, they… we were pushing them in the other way to slow them down. So they’d be pushing , pulling we will be pushing them, back holding them back from pulling so fast. In this way, we were trying to control but as they would over power the devotees many times.

But, somehow or another, we were able to gradually forward. So, there’s so many people right in the middle of the road. We had forgotten that there was a boulevard, but they couldn’t see, because it was just solid people, so we were smashed right into the curb, broke down the iron fence (devotees laughing), and uh, smas… the concrete and the curb, so again we docked up and we had to have people go with and… and like… with big flags and feelers because like going through water. You couldn’t see anythi… where the road was where the side was there was no way to see. All you can see is peoples’ heads. There’s no way to tell, especially at night.

So, finally they edged their way and we were going and the people… this time everyone was chanting Hare Krishna, and dancing. The… all the young men just started dancing in circles and chanting, and we were… continued on. Finally we made the last turn ended up on this very big road, and all these people were waiting. It was 9:30 at night they’d been waiting there since 2:00 in the afternoon and they were just packed up.

The police said that it was the biggest procession they had ever seen in their lives, that no President of India, no Prime Minister no one had ever had that big a procession and uh, they… All India Radio said that 3 million people attended. The police said that… they said about 2 million. I don’t know who is right, but I have no way of saying how many people were there, it was ju… uncountable.

So then we took the Deities. We took the cart, another 3 blocks to where a big pandal was. There we had a pandal 250-feet long, by uh, 120-feet wide. So there we were supposed to take the ratha off the road… keep it on the road, but just… completely, the whole… everyone was just chanting and Ja… there was no way to get the Jagannatha to the pandal, so we decided to take the cart off the road.

So the police they were so cooperative. They took sledge hammers and smashed the wall around the park so that the cart could go inside the park

Devotees: (laughing) Jaya!

Jayapataka Swami: …when we told them we’d pay the… to fix it up later, so they immediately broke the wall, and then we, after much maneuvering, which took about a hour, we got the cart inside the park and then put Jagannatha in His temple.

Jaya Jagannatha, Subhadra Balarama, ki Jaya!

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapataka Swami: Rukmini Dvarakadisa ki Jaya!

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapataka Swami: Nitai Gaura Guru Gaurangadeva ki Jaya!

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapataka Swami: So that was the basic procession. We left out a few things, but… then for 8 days, we had a pandal program there, every night about a turnover of 40 to 50,000 people were coming. At one time 8 to 10,000 would sit, except one night it was raining so only 5,000 sat and they would stay for 12 uhm… 6:00 till 10:00 four hour program every night. Half hour of lecture by Subag, Hiranyagarbha Swami or Bhakti Caru Swami, different Swamijis, Bhakti… different Swamis, and then there’d be an arati-kirtana, some bhajanas.

First, lecture, arati-kirtana… first, I will give the main lecture in Bengali for about a hour, then the Gurukula did drama. They did 3 different dramas, repeated twice, and one night there was just movies. After each drama there would be a movie. They did Prahlada, Dhruva and Mrigari the Hunter. These are the 3 dramas they did.

They only practiced for about 4 days on the Dhruva play, but the uh, acting was so nice, that when Dhruva Maharaja came and met his mother after she was exiled in the forest, just after she was praying to Krishna, that how unfortunate she was that uh… but she took it all as his… her test… his test that uh, she was the unfavored wife and uh, therefore could not properly… her son couldn’t get proper recognition, or whatever and then he came, th… that mood… that scene they did was so moving, the people started to cry… Most of the people there started to cry on two different occasions of the play, and uh, everyone was completely silent and listening so attentively to the… to everything that was going on.

We had… we had brought 300 japa malas there one night, and then I just suggested the people that they could purchase the japa malas and boys went out in the crowd, and immediately, within 15 minutes they were all sold out. The people were so eager.

One night, I was giving a lecture, and… You see, I had a… when I would gave lecture, I would do quizzes. I would ask the people questions like “A human birth… A animal birth plus dharma, religion, combined equals human birth. So what is human birth without dharma… equal?” Then everyone raised their hands “Pasu, Pasu! Animal, Animal! About a 100 people raised their hands, and screaming “Animal! Animal! Animal!” And whoever I would think did it first… gave the correct answer first, I would throw them a mango. (devotees laughing) so the people, the whole lecture…

Devotees: Oh! (laughing)

Jayapataka Swami: …they’d simply be listening, so attentively. Any time I would just throw a question. I’d just throw a question anytime that, “What is the purpose of life?” Then someone just immediately… Even I would… I would sometimes, just… in the lecture, I would just ask rhetorical questions just to get the people exited without giving a mango.

So about after 6th or 7th night I had finished a lecture, but that night, I had been lecturing very strongly against this type of mayavadi philosophy of “Whatever you want, do it.” And about bogus sannyasis who are not recognized in the scriptures, that everyone has to speak from the sastra, so in the very end I just said… I asked a question about this… the philosophy yatha mata tatha pata which is a famous saying by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa… aparamahamsa, and uh, I was about a inch off my seat that night, at that particular time I just said that what scripture says that whatever you do you reach the same goal?” “What scripture?” I just screamed out. Not that I expected an answer. I was just saying it that there’s no scripture that says this. So I was saying… but all the people were completely conditioned to this, somebody jumped up and said “Ramakrishna! Where’s my mango?” and after 8 years of… just for some reason, at that particular point just everything I had in me against the… the ill effects of Ramakrishna’s preaching in India, for about 5 minutes I just blasted him, that, “What has Ramakrishna done in the past 80 years?” That, “He may be a sadhu, but if he doesn't… if anything he said isn’t in the sastra, then we reject it.”, and a few things like that.

So after I said that, after I cooled down, I realized that they might burn the pandal down. I was af… I mean… Generally speaking that was… be what would happen. Instead about 10 people got up, and said “What did you say? What did you say?”, and I became very afraid, that, “Oh what’s going to happen? What did I do?” But all the people… it was like a yoga-maya they didn’t even hear what I said. They didn’t even… only a few people… other people, they stopped them and said, “Why you are disturbing? They’re doing such a nice program, nice lecture, nice ratha-yatra, nice drama, nice play. Why you are disturbing? Even if he said something you don’t like, you should never… you should not disturb, which is unheard of in Bengal, unheard of.

So it was… somehow or other, by Krishna’s mercy… I’ll never do it again, (devotees laugh) but uh, if… I mean… I wasn’t… I’m not in control at that particular point. Anyways, by Krishna’s mercy, we could see that people were so favorable, so in this way we had our first ratha yatra, in a super big way.

Next year we want to try to have three carts and many festivals. Of course we get the inspiration when we hear about the Los Angeles Ratha-yatra. I actually wanted to come to the Los… Rasa Angeles ratha-yatra, this year but Ramesvara ordered me to go to New Vrindavan which I probably would have enjoyed coming to ratha-yatra more and shared the wonderful experience with all of you but uh, maybe next year, I’ll be so fortunate. So, that is the kind of ratha-yatra that happens in Calcutta, and in India, but uh, that year in Jagannatha Puri, there only had 400,000 people attend. So we more than doubled and tripled… we at least 4 timed them in attendance by any… the minimum estimates, and so Prabhupada had said he wanted it to become the biggest ratha-yatra in India, and we can see that by his blessings, that this is going to definitely be true.

Already people are preparing… The people writing in for booths so they can sell uh… they be in front of the… in front of our pandal there was about 50 people selling… it was like a carnival. They’re selling balloons, ice cream, potato chips, soda, anything… little toys. It’s like a whole bazar, opened up right in front of it, amongst which our book distributors had the prime spots for their book booths and other things. But it was such a festival, just spontaneous.

So this will increase every year, by Lord Caitanya’s mercy. Now that once they given us this park, I don’t think they can refuse us next year. The local people gave a lot of help.

So that is the basic…

[end of recording]

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Transcribed by Pranasakhi Lasika devi dasi