Volume 3 - Prabhupada Books

(continued from front flap)
Madhya-lila (the middle period), the
longest of the three, is a detailed narration of
Sri Caitanya's extensive and eventful travels
throughout India as a renounced mendicant,
teacher, philosopher, spiritual preceptor and
mystic. Finally, Antya-lila (the final period)
concerns the last eighteen years of Caitanya
Mahaprabhu's manifest presence, spent in
semiseclusion in jagannatha Puri, Orissa.
During these final years, Sri Caitanya drifted
deeper and deeper into trances of spiritual
ecstasy unparalleled in all of religious and
literary history, Eastern or Western.
, Kr�Qadasa Kaviraja Gosvami, the author of
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, was a great saint and
a confidential disciple and student of
Raghunatha dasa Gosvami, the renowned
ascetic saint who was one of the most inti­
mate disciples of Sri Caitanya. He com­
menced work on the text while in his late
nineties and in failing health, as he vividly
describes in the text itself: "I have now be­
come too old and disturbed in invalidity.
While writing, my hands tremble. I cannot
remember anything, nor can I see or hear
properly. Still I write, and this is a great
wonder." That he nevertheless completed,
under such debilitating conditions, the
greatest literary gem of medieval India is
surely one of the wonders of literary history.
The English translation and commentary is
the work of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhakti­
vedanta Swami Prabhupada, the world's
most distinguished scholar and teacher of
Indian religious and philosophical thought.
He himself is a disciplic descendant of Sri
Caitanya, and his intimate familiarity with
the precepts of Caitanya Mahaprabhu emi­
nently qualifies him to present this impor­
tant classic to the English-speaking world.
The ease and clarity with which he ex­
pounds upon Sri Caitanya's precepts lures
even a reader totally unfamiliar with Indian
religious tradition into a genuine under­
standing and appreciation of this profound
and monumental work.
The entire text, with commentary, pre­
sented in seventeen lavishly illustrated
volumes by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust,
represents a contribution of major impor­
tance to the intellectual, cultural and
spiritual life of contemporary man.