JAIVA DHARMA
- the religion of all souls -
By: Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura
(original text from the HARMONIST)
It is very difficult to understand the nature of Thakur Bhaktivinode's contribution to the world's literature of the Absolute Truth. The path of devotion is liable to be confounded with a surrender to the guidance of the emotional side of one's mundane nature. There are also the familiar arguments in support of persons who choose to follow the guidance of their emotions.
This unwarrantable view is responsible for that undue under-valuation of the two other sides of human nature which has produced disastrous moral consequences in the ranks of the votaries of such emotionalism.
The writings of Thakur Bhaktivinode offer a perfectly clear exposition of the spiritual principle of bhakti. From the stand-point of art His writings are distinguished by the qualities of simplicity of style and precision, richness, and naturalness of vocabulary. He is a wonderfully well-informed writer. Almost every sentence that He has penned is reminiscent of some well-known text of the vast Shastric literature. Those who are acquainted with the philosophical and theological portions of the Sanskrit literature, would appreciate this classic quality of His writings. But Thakur Bhaktivinode is no less fully acquainted with the modern thought of the world. This combination of the old and new produces a never-failing impression of freshness and a keen expectation of real enlightenment. No person with any taste for the truth can refuse to be attracted by His illuminating pages. He is always almost severely condensed both in His thought and expression. But it never produces any sense of fatigue or loss of interest in the reader. It is possible to read His Jaiva Dharma almost with as much ease and interest as a high class modern novel. This is no mean praise for the charm and lightness of His style if we remember that the subject treated in that work is the whole field of religious enquiry by the comparative method.
But unequalled as the style of Jaiva Dharma must certainly appear to all lovers of art, its thought is nothing short of a revelation. The Shastras are literally made to live and talk to us on a footing of unreserved familiarity. I can do no better than let the author speak for Himself by offering a few passages from His wonderful 'manual of the religion of all souls'. I take the passages from different parts of the book quite at random.
[Text from the 'eight-volume' Harmonist (As It Is) Magazine]
Jaiva Dharma - CHAPTER I - PDF - HTML - scanned image
Jaiva Dharma - CHAPTER II - PDF - HTML - scanned image
Jaiva Dharma - CHAPTER III - PDF - HTML - scanned image
Jaiva Dharma - CHAPTER IV - PDF - HTML - scanned image
Important note from the publishers of this digitized edition:
Out of deep respect for the original editor and publisher of THE HARMONIST, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Goswāmī Ṭhākura—and not least out of respect for the printing shop of the Math (Mission), the original text has been taken from the original without any changes, As It Is. That includes typographical “errors” such as extra blank spaces, missing quotation marks, and em-dashes in places where the regular hyphen would have been “correct.” And the 3 or 4 spelling mistakes.
The texts were evidently composed with love and dedication by the devotees of the Math in the early 1930ties, with movable lead type by hand and sort by sort. Typographical “errors”, more often than not, occurred for very trite reasons. The sorts (individual glyphs) made from lead were the “grey gold” of the printing shops. The supply of sorts for a certain font family in the type cases was limited.
This resulted in bottlenecks when movable type was bound up in work for several publications (standing type)— improvisation was therefore a common practice.
To honor the writings of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, the publishers of this website have decided to publish the original text, as found in the Harmonist magazine, without changing a single word. No one letter, not even a comma has been changed or added.
Download original scan
of 'The Harmonist' magazine
The_Harmonist_1931_380MB.pdf
(be careful, it is 380MB and a poorly scanned image)