The exercise of comparing one philosophy to another is a difficult intellectual task, but there are many precedents for it. This book attempts something perhaps unprecedented – comparing a philosophy to a personality. Here in Namámi Krśńasundaram (“Salutations to Krśńa the Beautiful”), Shrii Shrii Ánandamúrti has compared not just one philosophy, but at least ten, to the life and personality of Lord Krśńa.

The author sets out here the two distinct facets of Lord Krśńa’s personality: Vraja Krśńa, the lord of devotion, and Párthasárathi Krśńa, the lord of karma yoga, ceaselessly engaged in the battle against injustice. Taken together, the two aspects of Krśńa’s life symbolize the dharma of all humanity: spiritual realization fused with selfless service and the fight for justice.

Though Krśńa did not during His lifetime attempt to create a formal system of philosophy, the author’s basic premise is that the deepest understanding of Krśńa must implicitly bring with it a correct and sublime philosophy; and that the essence of that philosophy will be advaetadvaetádvaetaváda – non-dualistic dualistic non-dualism.

So the author herein presents, if not a system of philosophy as such, then a system of philosophy as embodied in the personality of Lord Krśńa; and in order to fully elaborate that philosophy, the author has compared Krśńa the historical personality, Krśńa the Sadguru of His age, Krśńa the human being, to most of the important philosophical trends of India. For an outline of these trends, please see the “Indian philosophies” entry in the glossary.

Namámi Krśńasundaram is a collection of twenty-seven Sunday discourses given in Calcutta between August 1980 and April 1981, together with a brief appendix. The discourses were given in Bengali, and all of them were recorded on tape. Translation into English started before the series of discourses was completed, and the Bengali and the English books were both published by Ánanda Púrńimá (the full-moon day of the Bengali month of Vaeshákha), 1981.

The Bengali version was later reprinted without change in a Second Edition (Shrávańii Púrńimá, 1981) and a Third Edition (1990). Many chapters of both the Bengali and the English were reprinted in Parts 6, 7 and 8 of Ananda Marga Philosophy in a Nutshell, 1988. In the case of the English, a certain amount of revision was done at that time by Ácárya Vijayánanda Avadhúta and Ácárya Vishvarúpánanda Avadhúta.

For the Bengali Fourth Edition of 1995, all of the tapes were carefully listened to, in an environment detached from the intense deadline pressures of 1981. Many previously-untranscribed or hastily-transcribed words and passages came to light. The new or corrected material was incorporated into the new edition.

That new material has now in turn been incorporated into this English Second Edition. In addition to the new material, various existing passages, most of them brief, were found to require retranslation. Apart from the new material and retranslation of limited passages, the wording of the 1981 edition or (where applicable) the Ananda Marga Philosophy in a Nutshell edition, has been maintained here.

Footnotes by the editors have all been signed “–Eds.” Unsigned footnotes are those of the author.

Square brackets [   ] in the text are used to indicate translations by the editors or other editorial insertions. Round brackets (   ) indicate a word or words originally given by the author.

The author used a certain shorthand for explaining the etymologies of words. Under this system, a minus sign (–) follows a prefix, and a plus sign (+) precedes a suffix. Thus ava – tr + ghaiṋ = avatára can be read, “the root tr prefixed by ava and suffixed by ghaiṋ becomes avatára.”