Standard Prayers

This chapter is not a songbook section in the usual sense but a working set of the pranama mantras and invocatory prayers recited daily in Gaudiya Vaishnava temple programs, gathered here as a reference alongside the site's other, author-organised books. It opens with the guru-parampara in sequence: obeisance to one's own spiritual master, then in turn to Rupa Gosvami, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, Gaurakisora dasa Babaji, and Bhaktivinoda Thakura, before moving to the Pancha-tattva, Radha, and Krishna Themselves. The chapter also carries the maha-mantras — the Pancha-tattva mantra and the Hare Krishna maha-mantra — and several verses chanted before a Bhagavatam class or kirtana session in most Gaudiya temples, among them Ceto-darpana-marjanam, the opening verse of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's own Siksastaka as recorded in the Chaitanya-caritamrta. Where this site's other chapters gather songs by the poet who wrote them, this one gathers prayers by the role they play in daily worship — obeisance before instruction, invocation before kirtana.