Hare Krishna Mantra in Govardhan Rag from Nandini Nandana's Janmashthami celebration in Fukuoka Japan, 2015.

Govardhana Rag

Vic DiCara - Vocals, Guitar
Gavin Van Vlack - Guitar
Shaun Ross - Bass
Alan Cage - Drums

Prayer For The Dead - The Projectors

Banishing Shadows - The Projectors

The Lac House Burns - The Projectors

Talk by Vraja Kishor das, given on December 21, 2015 at Jhadu Thakur's home in San Diego, CA. Discusses what God is, if God has form and personality. If God is concerned with pleasure and happiness. And why God would be romantic, and like to dance.

Does God Dance

Sandhi’s about how sounds combine So bring in the beat and let the vowels rhyme

A makes everyone stronger
The rest only make themselves longer. 

The others, well they merely step down
Into their semi-vowelized sound

But outdoors, E and AI won’t conform They hide their vowelized form

And if meeting with A, they won’t shrink.
Instead, A will disappear with a wink. 

Yooooooo. Now bring out them basic “stop” consonants, and throw in the H…

Stops without voice are like me and you 
We get what we lack when we meet a sādhu 

H acts voiceless when it looks behind
To add the voice of any stop that it can find

T has got to be the hardest sound around
So ways to make soft more abundantly abound

Before stopping on the palate-roof, T transforms,
To the very same sound, it completely conforms

But, if that palate sound is S, then they both become C
And that S gets extra breath, revealing what it used to be 

Yo. Alright, check it. Where them silky slinky sibilants at boy?

When at the end, S becomes the visarga
But if met without voice, it converts to that varga

When met with a voice, then the S becomes R
(But don’t let it double, that would take it too far)

When S comes with A, there’s a few things to test
Is the consonant voiced? Then make A O and drop S

With vowels, if A is the  voice than it too
disappears. If not, only S has to shoo

S can also come with a friend named “Long A”
When that happens, just  make that S go away

Oh, by the way, AS is AR’s very close friend
They act the same before the voiceless, and the same when at the end 

Yo, we almost done with this joint. What we got left? Bring the basil nasals to the tables…

If you stop before a nasal, you become a nasal too Though to your own varga you remain true

Simple M becomes a dot, way up in the air. But with the rest there’s lots of other rules, so take care.

With a voiceless in a varga with an S defined Use it, and make the N a dot above the line

With the voiced in such a varga, theres not much to do Make the nasal match that varga and you’re through

A shiny Ś takes a nasal’s place And uses CH, to hide its face

Lengthy L likes to swell and double Forcing N above the line like a little bubble

N can double too, except the curvy sort, When between vowels, with the first short

So now you got the keys
To the epiphonies
That make speech so easy it can flow like the breeze

Vic D 108

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