Śrī Upadeśāmṛta of Śrīla Rūpa Goswāmī

translated by Swami Bhaktivijñāna Giri

In 1898 Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura wrote a short Bengali commentary on Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Upadeśāmṛta, entitled Pīyuṣa-varṣiṇī (“A Shower of Nectar”). Serialised in the ninth volume of Sajjana Toṣaṇī, it includes the Sanskrit commentary of Śrī Rādhā-ramaṇa Gosvāmī alongside eleven Bengali verses with prose explanations by Bhaktivinoda himself, known as the Upadeśāmṛta Bhāṣā.

The story of how Bhaktivinoda came to publish this text is itself noteworthy. In the early 1890s he travelled to Vraja-maṇḍala in search of works by the Gosvāmīs, and in the library of Vanamāli Lāla Gosvāmī at the Rādhā-ramaṇa Temple he discovered a manuscript of Śrī Rūpa’s Upadeśāmṛta. Vanamāli Gosvāmī graciously provided a handwritten copy so that Bhaktivinoda could distribute the text widely. His disciple Prabhunātha was especially dear to Bhaktivinoda, and so he dedicated his commentary to both guru and disciple — as recorded in the verse at the conclusion of the work.