Prema-vivarta is the only book Srila Jagadananda Pandita is known to have written. It is a real work of Gaudiya Vaishnava literature, valuable for its own sake, not just a curiosity attached to a famous name. In Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami praises it directly: "Anyone who hears about the loving exchanges between Jagadananda Pandita and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, or who reads Jagadananda's book Prema-vivarta, can understand what love is. Moreover, he achieves ecstatic love of Krishna." Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura's own commentary on that verse points out that the Bengali phrase prema-vivarta can be read in two ways at once. It can mean the confused, quarrelling changes that Jagadananda's love went through in his dealings with the Lord. It is also the literal title of the book he wrote about them. Both meanings are almost certainly meant together.
Why and How It Was Written #
Translators of Prema-vivarta say that Jagadananda wrote it at the request of fellow devotees. They give special credit to Svarupa Damodara Goswami for encouraging him to write down his memories for others to read. Jagadananda writes in a very personal way for this kind of literature. By one translation, he writes, "I write whatever comes to my mind about Gauranga's pastimes, whenever it does, even if it is out of sequence," and he describes the act of writing it in almost physical terms: "My mind cries, my heart cries, my eyes cry, and whenever something comes to mind, I write it down." This openness shows in the book's structure. It moves freely between his own memories and formal teaching, without much concern for strict order.
What the Book Actually Contains #
Prema-vivarta has twenty chapters in its standard form, and they fall roughly into three parts. The first several chapters explain core Gaudiya Vaishnava theology. They teach that Radha and Krishna are non-different, and that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is their combined, non-dual appearance. Then the book turns to Jagadananda's own memories of Mahaprabhu's childhood in Navadvipa. These include schoolyard quarrels, wrestling matches on the banks of the Ganges, and trips into the forests around Nadia with Mahaprabhu and Gadadhara Pandita. They also include pastimes that are recorded nowhere else. One is an account of Mahaprabhu freeing a celestial being who had been trapped for ages in the body of a crocodile in a Navadvipa lake. A long middle section then turns to philosophy in a more usual sense. It covers the nature of the soul, and the difference between genuine renunciation (yukta-vairagya) and its false, joyless imitation (phalgu-vairagya). It explains why birth and caste have nothing to do with real devotion. It also covers the company of saints and the different levels of Vaishnava practitioners, from beginner to perfected soul. The final chapters are almost entirely about the holy name: its power, the ten offenses against it, and how it stands above every other religious practice. In this way, a book that began as a set of personal memories closes with some of the tradition's most direct teaching on chanting.
There is one verse of Prema-vivarta that Srila Prabhupada quotes directly in his own published work. In all likelihood, he took it from this closing section. In his purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.13.8-9, he discusses how the holy name can free even the gravest sinner from reactions built up over many lifetimes. There Prabhupada writes, "Also, in the Prema-vivarta by Jagadananda Pandita it is said: eka krishna-name papira yata papa-ksaya, bahu janme sei papi karite naraya," and then he gives its meaning. As he renders it, by once chanting the Lord's holy name, a person can be freed from more sinful reactions than he could even manage to commit in many lifetimes. It is a small detail, but an important one. Nearly four and a half centuries after the book was written, one of Jagadananda's own verses was still doing exactly the work he wrote the book to do.
An Honest Note on His Birthplace #
The introductions to two different modern English translations of Prema-vivarta disagree about where Jagadananda Pandita actually came from. One, published by The Gaudiya Treasures of Bengal, states that "from this book, we come to know that Srila Jagadananda Pandita had been a resident of Kumarhatta (present-day Halisahar). He belonged to the same village as that of Shivananda Sena and Kavi Karnapura." Another modern edition instead places his early years at Kanchanpalli, a village south of Navadvipa, and adds that he received part of his spiritual education from Shivananda Sena. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita and the Chaitanya-Bhagavata passages quoted in other sources do not settle the question either way. No source explains why the two translations differ. So both claims are reported here and the question is left open, instead of choosing one as if it were certain.
