Alongside Sri Chaitanya-mangala, Lochana Dasa Thakura composed many separate devotional songs, or padavali, in Bengali. By his own admission, he wrote these songs partly because of a worry about his own great book. Sri Chaitanya-mangala concentrates its praise on his guru Narahari Sarkara Thakura's closeness to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. It does not speak at equal length about Nityananda Prabhu's glories. Lochana Dasa Thakura worried that this might look like neglect. So he wrote a set of songs especially to glorify Nityananda Prabhu and make up for it. Two of these are Nitai Gunamani ("Nitai is the jewel of virtue") and Akrodha Paramananda ("Free from anger, the embodiment of supreme joy"). They describe Nityananda Prabhu wandering from door to door, giving the holy names to the fallen without asking who deserved them. Both are still sung in kirtana by Gaudiya Vaishnavas today.
| Detail | Description |
|---|---|
| Best-known songs | Parama Karuna, Nitai Gunamani, Akrodha Paramananda |
| Subjects | Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Nityananda Prabhu, Gauridasa Pandit |
| Other credited works | Prarthana, Durlabha-sara, Dhamali |
| Translations attributed to him | Ramananda Raya's Jagannatha-vallabha-nataka; the Rasa-panchadhyaya, in Bengali verse |
| In the Vaishnava Song Book | 12 songs catalogued under Locana Dasa Thakura in the /songs/ collection |
Parama Karuna and Srila Prabhupada's Purport #
Of all Lochana Dasa Thakura's songs, Parama Karuna, Pahu Dui Jana ("Supremely merciful are these two Lords, Nitai and Gauracandra") appears to have held a special place for Srila Prabhupada. In a recorded talk given in Los Angeles on 4 January 1969, Prabhupada sang the song in full and then went through it line by line. He introduced it simply: "This is a song by Locana dasa Thakura, a great devotee and acharya of the Gaudiya-sampradaya." He explained each line in turn. Nitai and Gauracandra, he said, are the most merciful of all incarnations, because they distribute love of God through the simple, joyful process of chanting and dancing, not through demanding philosophical study. He also explained that in the song's final verses, Lochana Dasa Thakura looks at himself. Lochana Dasa Thakura admits that he is caught in sense gratification, and that he fears Yamaraja's punishment for failing to take shelter of Nitai-Gauracandra's mercy. Prabhupada gave an entire recorded class to a single six-verse Bengali song. This itself shows how highly he regarded Lochana Dasa Thakura's devotional poetry.
A Teaching on Raganuga Bhakti #
Beyond songs of simple glorification, at least one of Lochana Dasa Thakura's compositions carries a specific teaching point. It concerns the raganuga bhakta, a devotee following the spontaneous devotional moods of Vraja, not the regulated path of vaidhi-bhakti. The song teaches that such a devotee should take shelter of Gadadhara Pandit in order to attain prema-bhakti for Radha and Govinda. In this song Gadadhara Pandit is addressed by the epithet Vrindavanishvari, queen of Vrindavana. This song stands alongside his songs of praise for Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Nityananda Prabhu, and Gauridasa Pandit. Together they show that Lochana Dasa Thakura's padavali did not only express devotion. Sometimes they also taught points of Gaudiya Vaishnava theology, quietly, in verses that could be sung, not in prose argument.
His Songs in the Vaishnava Song Book #
The Vaishnava Song Book preserves a dozen compositions catalogued under the name Locana Dasa Thakura. They include Nitai Guna Mani, Bhaja Bhaja Hari, Akrodha Paramananda, and Parama Karuna Pahu Dui Jana, among others. Several of them are the songs described above, and they are still sung in Gaudiya Vaishnava kirtana five centuries after they were written. Visitors who wish to read or hear these compositions in full can find them in the songs section.
Other Writings #
Beyond his devotional songs and Sri Chaitanya-mangala, tradition credits Lochana Dasa Thakura with several other works. They are Prarthana, a further collection of prayers; Durlabha-sara; and Dhamali. Tradition also credits him with Bengali verse translations of Ramananda Raya's Sanskrit drama Jagannatha-vallabha-nataka and of the Rasa-panchadhyaya, the five chapters of Srimad-Bhagavatam describing Krishna's rasa dance. Together with Sri Chaitanya-mangala, all this work makes Lochana Dasa Thakura one of the more productive writers of the generation that followed Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's own associates. In Srila Prabhupada's own estimate, he deserves to be counted alongside Narottama Dasa Thakura and Bhaktivinoda Thakura among the great song-composers of the Gaudiya Vaishnava line.
