Of all the songs Govinda Dasa Kaviraja wrote, one reached Vrindavana from Bengal in his own lifetime, and it has travelled far ever since. It begins bhajahu re mana, sri nanda-nandana abhaya-caranaravinda re, which means "O mind, just worship the lotus feet of the son of Nanda, which make one fearless." Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita records that after composing it, Govinda Dasa sent the song to Srila Jiva Goswami. By then Jiva Goswami was established in Vrindavana as one of the Six Goswamis who were setting Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's teaching in clear order. Jiva Goswami was so pleased with what he read that he wrote back. He urged Govinda Dasa to keep composing kirtanas of the same standard and to send them on to Vrindavana. Tradition holds that this exchange, and Jiva Goswami's clear regard for his poetic skill, earned Govinda Dasa the title Kaviraja, "king of poets."
What the Song Says #
Bhajahu Re Mana speaks, as its opening word suggests, to the poet's own mind, not directly to Krishna. This is unusual, and it gives the whole song a very personal feeling. Govinda Dasa pictures his mind worn out by years of chasing passing happiness. It has gone without sleep through cold and heat, wind and rain, wearing itself out in the service of "wicked and miserly men" for the smallest return. Again and again, he gives the tired mind one remedy. It should take shelter of the lotus feet of the son of Nanda. These feet are abhaya, fearless, because nothing that has once taken shelter there has anything left to fear. He also reminds his mind that it cannot do this training alone. It depends on durlabha manava-janama sat-sange, the rare human birth used in the association of saintly persons. The song closes on a personal note in the bhanita line, the line that names its author. There Govinda Dasa asks simply to hear Krishna's glories, chant them, remember them always, and offer his very self in service.
Srila Prabhupada's Two Purports #
Srila Prabhupada returned to this song more than once. In a purport recorded in San Francisco on 16 March 1967, he explained the wordplay in Govinda Dasa's own name, "Govinda, Krishna, and dasa means servant," and then went through the song's warning. The song warns that a human life spent chasing fear and passing pleasure, without the association of devotees, wastes the rarest chance a soul can be given. Five years later, in Los Angeles on 27 May 1972, he returned to the same pada. He explained why Govinda Dasa addresses Krishna as "Nanda-nandana" and not directly by name. Prabhupada explained that approaching the Lord through His relationship with a devotee pleases Him more than a plain, direct address. He then quoted a verse from Srimad-Bhagavatam. It describes how, for one who takes shelter of Krishna's lotus feet, every step in this material world is no longer dangerous. With that verse he made, in Sanskrit, the very same point that Govinda Dasa's Bengali pada had already made four centuries earlier: fix the mind at Krishna's feet, and there is nothing left to fear. Here an acharya giving purports came back to one sixteenth-century Bengali pada on two separate occasions, five years apart. This tells us something about how deeply this small song had settled into Gaudiya Vaishnava devotional life by the twentieth century.
An Honest Note on the Title Itself #
Kaviraja is not a title unique to Govinda Dasa. Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami, the author of Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita itself, carried the same title. In Bengali the word is also the ordinary term for a hereditary Ayurvedic physician. This fits, since some sources describe Govinda Dasa's own family as belonging to that profession (see Srikhanda, Family, and the Turn to Vaishnavism). Chaitanya-charitamrita itself uses the word in both senses in different places. Its account of Jiva Goswami's praise says that Govinda Dasa's title came from his poetry. But a separate verse elsewhere in the text uses "kavirajas" simply to mean physicians, when it counts members of his family circle among Nityananda Prabhu's followers. For Govinda Dasa Kaviraja himself, Chaitanya-charitamrita explains the title by his poetic excellence, as Jiva Goswami judged it. That explanation is followed here. But the word also carried a second meaning, linked to the family trade, and we have not tried to fully separate that meaning from the poetic one.
